Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (June 12, 2009)
12 C E LE B R A T IN G A street ro o tslIB Education * Dialogue * Independence Rebecca Lerner forages fo r food on , Portland’s sidewalks. Lerner spent a week eating nothing but what she could gather from the urban evironment. PH O TO CO U R TESTY OF ; R E B E C C A LER N ER The bounty at our feet One woman’s experience eating nothing but food found in Portland’s urban landscape BY 'WILD GIRL' REBECCA LERNER C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T To read more about Rebecca's experiment and her approach to food, go to her blog at www.rebeccalearner wilderness.word press.com, or go t o ; www.culture change.org or five days at the end of May, I survived exclusively on wild food if ’ found in Portland. There was no Dumpster diving and nothing plucked from gardens. Instead, I ate weeds and wild plants found within the city lirtiits. I wanted to see what it would be like to survive without supermarkets or even gardens. I knew I could rely on the free, nutritious , food that grows all around us, so I foraged , the food growing at vacant lots, wilderness areas, yards and sidewalks. ■ I knew it had been done before. People have been living in what is now Portland for the past 10,000 years and only since the 1850s has anyone been farming or gardening. Before that; the population was surviving on wild food alone. We have pavement now instead of wide open spaces, and we have many more people per capita than ever before, but our ancient plant friends are still here. They are the hearty weeds growing in alleyways and along sidewalkfe, so strong that they can make it in the city despite all the asphalt and concrete. In most cases, they have more nutrients than gardened food because they have to be stronger to survive; they’re hardier than the plants we make it easy for. Many also have medicinal properties. Unfortunately, sometirpes they also take in the toxins of the environment they grow in, so use discretion when eating things that grow in places that are not parks. During the five-day project, I lived on , broth I made from boiling stinging nettles, the baked roots of burdock, thistle and wild carrot, raw salads of purslane, miner’s lettuce, chickweed, dandelion and fed clover, and teas made of rose petals, pine needles, wild chamomile, lemon balm, ■ From your cell phone: 503-222-5555. cleavers and wild ginger* who are all in it together. I wanted to last for a whole week, but 1 The best way to identify edible plants is to meet them with an expert, in person, on could not find enough calories to keep me from getting weak. As it turns out, nature is , a foraging walk. It can sometimes be not like the grocery store. Every few Weeks, difficult to accurately recognize them from photogfaphs alone. new kinds of plants arrive and other ones disappear. 1 Every plant on the planet has a gift to give humans, but a few are extfemely I learned that just because I saw an poisonous in all but the very tiniest of edible plant growing somewhere in the beginning of May did not mean that it would doses. For this reason it is imperative that anyone who wants to start supplementing still be around when I did the project at the end of May. I found myself stuck in thè cusp their diet with wild greens first learn to ' identify the toxic plants and know how to between when the mushrooms disappeared and before thè berries arrived, which* meant my .food options were very limited. I did not want to eat animals, but if I had, I could I learned* that just because I saw an edible have tried to hunt pigeons of fish from local waterways. The native people here relied on plant growing somewhere in the beginning of fish and other aquatic animals, but they also May did not mean that it would still be stored food so they could have what they around when I did the project at the end of needed year-round. It would have been great May. I found myself stuck in the cnsp to have wild food òn hand. I was doing a lot of walking as I looked between when the mushrooms disappeared around for food. It was surprisingly tedious and before the berries arrived. to find and gather sustenance. This is Where it comes in handy to know your neighborhood very well — down to what distinguish them from edible look-alikes, For plants grow at what intersection. instance, poison hemlock and wild carrot Community can also be a big help. While are two plants that are prolific around oriè person might spend four hours looking for and gathering burdock root; three others Portland. They look almost identical, but while wild carrot is a tasty food, poison can use that same time to go out and get ; hemlock is deadly. three other kinds of foods in three other For information on safety, plant places. Together we can do so much more identification and further resources on wild than one person can accomplish alone. The food in general, such as books and photos . opportunity to share our knowledge and and other learning opportunities, check out barter or share goods are also huge my wilderness skills blog, www.FirstWays. benefits. Maybe you didn’t save enough com. And check out the fantastic primer acorns last fall, but your neighbor has more called “Feral Forager: A Guide to Living Off than she needs. Maybe you don’t know Nature’s Bounty in Urban, Rural and where to go to catch bass, but your friend Wilderness Areas,” available for download at does. You don’t;have to be a maverick to zinelibrary.info. survive. You just need a group of people ? If you need help with any of the following: Food Resources Health Care Public Agencies Legal Services , Employment Resources' - Counseling/Support Groups . Housing/Emergency Shelter And Much More! ■ The feasy-to-remember telephone number that connects people in need to community resources. ■ 211 is answered by trained information amd referral specialists. - no confusing menus or voicemail systems. •: ■ We speak your language: Information can be provided in over 150 languages. ''
