At 11:30 AM, Saturday, July 27, naturalist/author "Wildman" Steve Brill, America's go-to guy for foraging, will lead one of his world-famous foraging tours of Belmont State Park in North Belmont, LI.
This is one of the best places for wild foods in the summer. If it has rained enough beforehand, gourmet mushrooms such as prized boletes, brittle russulas, savory chanterelles, smoky flavored black trumpets, and gigantic chicken mushrooms could be common. At this time of the year we've found wonderfully flavored parasol mushrooms, delicate tasting corals, meaty hygrophorus milky mushrooms, plus the delectable rooted oudemansiella, with an underground structure (not a true root) that snaps when you break it.
Fruit far surpassing anything available commercially also fields and thickets at this time of year. We'll be looking for sweet, juicy blackberries, so delicious you'll be devouring them even if you use an iPhone. There may be wonderful highbush blueberries along the lake margin, flavorful elderberries in thickets, and bittersweet black cherries dropping from trees along the edges of fields.
Wild greens will also be thriving in fields and along trail edges. We'll look for lamb's-quarters (a relative of spinach), wood sorrel, sheep sorrel, poor man's pepper, purslane, lady's thumb, and Asiatic dayflower. In addition, we'll hunt for culinary and medicinal herbs such as black birch, yarrow, sassafras, and spicebush leaves.
Most roots go out of season by the start of May, but burdock root, which tastes like a combination of potato and artichoke, stays in season from spring to fall, and it grows everywhere. With so much in season, this is a tour you're not going to want to miss!
The 3-hour walking tour begins at 11:30 AM, Saturday, July 27, at 125 Belmont Ave. in North Babylon, in the main parking lot of Belmont Lake State Park, off exit 38 of the Southern State Parkway in North Babylon, NY. The suggested donation is $20 for adults. Kids under 12 are free.
Please call (914) 835-2153 at least 24 hours in advance to sign up. For "Wildman's" 2013 tour calendar and additional info, visit
http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com
