Tour | Foraging in the Park

Naturalist/author "Wildman" Steve Brill will lead one of his world-famous foraging tours, the last of the year. A great abundance of edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms makes this park a great place for foragers at the very end of the foraging season.

Various roots thrive in the park late in the season: Burdock root, an expensive detoxifying herb sold in health food stores, abounds in cultivated areas throughout the park. The leaves are all but decayed, yet you can still use the remnants to locate the taproots.

Wild carrots are a spectacularly delicious variant of commercial carrots, but with more flavor and with white roots. Common evening primrose has no commercial counterpart. This widespread, moist, white taproot tastes sweet and peppery at the same time.

Sassafras, the original source of root beer, is a tree that grows in the woods and thickets. You can use the outer layer of the root as a seasoning, similar to cinnamon, or for beverages. And the dried, powdered springtime leaves, gumbo filé, thicken soups and stews.There are even sweet wild parsnips, outstanding in soups and stews, growing alongside the skating rink. Wild carrots and common evening primrose roots also hide in overgrown areas.

Participants will also find plenty of leafy green vegetables, such as hedge mustard, lamb's-quarters (a wild spinach), chickweed (which tastes like corn), dandelions, goutweed, garlic mustard, and field garlic.

While most nut trees are already out of season, Prospect Park's ginkgo trees will be at their peak. Inside a malodorous orange fruit you'll find a white, almond-shaped kernel with a soft green nut inside. This Chinese delicacy tastes like a combination of green peas and Limburger cheese. Sold in health food stores and advertised on TV, Ginkgo biloba improves circulation and immune function.

There's even a late-season fruit in season now: the American persimmon. It's an especially delicious fruit, and if storm winds haven't dispersed the sweet, pulpy fruit, we should be able to shake the season's last fruit from the branches.

With lots of rain and a little luck, the group may even find gourmet brick top mushroom, oyster mushrooms and enoki mushrooms emerging from trees and stumps.