Winter Foraging in Appalachia & Beyond
In Appalachia and much of the eastern United States, winter can be long and dark. Traditionally, folks who relied on hunter/gatherer diets or subsistence agriculture would not be eating much fresh food during the winter. However, they could and did find a few things and you can, too. While you may not be stocking the larder with harvests from this time of year, winter foraging can be a great way to supplement your diet and provide another reason to spend some time in the woods.
This time of year, we’re generally finding four rough categories of things: winter mushrooms, edible greens, tree sap, and medicinal herbs that we usually use for tea. In the medicinal herbs category, I have included anything I harvest primarily as medicine, whether it’s from plants, shrubs, or trees. Exactly what you can find will depend on your climate and snow levels.
This post is to serve as a place to get ideas rather than having extensive identification information. Please see the identification guides linked in each species description and make sure you are certain of your identification before consuming any wild food.
Winter Foraging for Mushrooms
Surprisingly, there are a few mushrooms that will fruit during winter, particularly if you have a warm snap with days in the 50s or above.
Oyster Mushrooms (Pleurotus spp.)
These are the first mushrooms I learned to forage and, as such, have remained one of my favorites. It also helps that they I can find them year-round in West Virginia. There are several species that occur here and they may flush in any season depending on the species.
Oyster Mushrooms are a good beginner mushroom because they’re pretty easy to identify. They always grow on dead wood, forming in overlapping clusters of cream, tan, or whitish shelf-like mushrooms.
Unlike many shelf mushrooms, they have relatively flexible yet firm flesh. They are not tough like tinder polypores or artist’s conks. The tops of each mushroom should be smooth and free from scales. Beneath, they feature decurrent gills.
Oyster mushrooms have a mild flavor and are easy to use. I like to sauté them with some garlic and onions. I’ve added to a range of dishes, including stuffing, pizza, stir-fries, and mushroom stroganoff.
For full identification information, check out my previous post, Foraging Guide: Oyster Mushrooms.
Wood Ear Mushrooms (Auricularia americana and Auricularia angiospermarum)
These rubbery, cupped, ear-like fungi look a bit like Halloween decorations but actually have good flavor. They grow on rotting wood and are primarily a cool-weather species, so it is rare to find them during the summer.
These are sometimes mistaken for jelly mushrooms, though those lack the Wood’s Ears crunch. Thankfully, they’re also edible, and easy to tell apart once you’ve seen them both.
Wood Ear’s have brown or reddish-brown almost translucent flesh. The flesh is almost gelatinous to touch but is surprisingly firm too. The caps usually range from .75 to 4 inches across.
There are two species of wood ear you may find. Auricularia americana grows on dead and dying coniferous trees while Auricularia angiospermarum grows on dead and dying deciduous trees.
If you’re looking for ways to use your wood ear mushrooms, I recommend giving the classic Chinese wood ear mushroom salad from The Woks of Life.
Jenny from Mushroom Appreciation has put together a comprehensive guide to identifying Wood Ears.
Turkey Tail Mushrooms (Trametes versicolor)
I left these mushrooms in the mushroom category, but they may be better suited to the medicinal herb category. Turkey tail mushrooms are thin and tough. While they’re excellent for you, they’re not something you want to add to your stir-fry.
Turkey tail mushrooms are slightly bitter, but not overpoweringly so, like some medicinal herbs. They make an excellent addition to tea or coffee. You can also add them to broths (strain them out before eating). Just don’t overdo it or your broth might become too bitter.
Their Latin name, Trametes versicolor, references their multi-shaded stripes. They also feature pores rather than gills. Note that there are many Turkey Tail lookalikes. Thankfully, there are some telltale features.
Check out Blue Ridge Botanic’s 5 Point Checklist to ensure you can positively identify Turkey Tail.
Winter is also a great time of year to look for summer mushroom remnants. While the leaves are off the trees, watch for old dried chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, and hedgehog mushrooms so you know where to look next summer.
Winter Foraging for Edible Greens
In areas where you only have intermittent snow, it’s pretty easy to find a few greens year-round. In northern or mountainous areas, you may find some of these popping up in any hoop houses, low tunnels, or cold frames you have. Most of these are common garden weeds.
Chickweed (Stellaria media)
Most articles and guides I’ve come across list chickweed as a spring green, but it actually germinates in fall and puts on a bit of winter growth whenever the weather is warm enough. Writing this post in December, it’s currently making a lush mat in some of our garden paths. Later, in January and February, I can usually still find some holdout patches along the creek.
Chickweed is one of my favorite wild greens (tied with wood nettle). It has a mild flavor and a nice succulent texture. It’s usually easy to find in disturbed open areas with moist soil. Early spring gardens are one of its favorite places to crop up! Its Latin name, Stellaria,comes from its star-shaped white flowers that appear in spring and early summer.
Enjoy chickweed fresh in salads, pesto, sandwiches or tossed into pasta dishes, soups, buddha bowls.
The lovely Colleen of Grow Forage Cook Ferment put together a guide to identifying Chickweed.
Creasy Greens (Barbarea verna)
Creasy Greens are the uncouth, land-loving, Appalachian cousin of Watercress. They have a tasty, slightly peppery flavor and yet seem to get overlooked by many foragers, possibly because of their association with poverty.
They are nutritious, high in vitamin C, and grow in late winter in many places, providing some much-needed nutrition. A similar named cress variety, ‘Belle Isle,’ earned its name by staving off scurvy in a group of ship-wrecked sailors who spent an unfortunate winter on the aforementioned island.
You may also see Pennsylvania bittercress (Cardamine pensylvanica), which has white flowers. Some folks refer to it as Creasy Greens, too. It’s also edible but, as the name suggests, it is a bit more bitter but can still be quite good, especially when small.
I like to use creasy greens fresh in salads and sauté the older herbs with other greens, garlic, and a splash of vinegar.
Wisdom of the Plant Devas has some helpful information on finding and using Creasy Greens.
Wild Onions or Crow Garlic (Allium vineale)
Probably the most flavorful of the wintertime edibles, wild onions taste a bit like cultivated onions and look a bit like them, too. They grow in clusters in lawns, gardens, along trails, and in other open areas. In the summer, you’ll know they’re present in your yard when you mow as they put off a pungent smell.
Just like cultivated onions, wild onions produce bulbs and green, hollow tops. I find that the bulbs of wild onions are so small, that they really aren’t worth digging. However, the tops are just as tasty and easy to use like chives. I use scissors to cut them finally into marinades, salads, and other dishes.
Check out my full guide to foraging for wild onions.
Note there are other species of wild onions you may find. This is the species that is most common in my area.
Creeping Charlie (Gkechoma hederacea)
Creeping Charlie goes by a host of common names, including Ground Ivy, Field Balm, Ale Hoof, Tunhoof, Gill-Over-Ground, and Run-Away-Robin. It’s an edible green or medicinal herb, though for fresh use, I recommend it sparingly as it has a distinct herbal smell and flavor.
Historically, people used creeping charlie as a vegetarian alternative to rennet in cheese making. Two of its common names, Ale Hoof and Tunhoof, also hint at its historical use as a bittering agent for beer where hops were unavailable. The word ‘tun’ refers to a lauter tun, which is a vessel in traditional beer-making used for separating wort. The ‘hoof’ comes from the plant’s rounded leaf shape, roughly resembling a horse’s hoof.
Creeping Charlie is evergreen in milder climates. Here in West Virginia, it dies back some in the winter but is still present. I took the above photo on a warm day after a period of single-digit temperatures and significant snowfall.
For identification, check out this guide from Edible Wild Food.
Mint (Mentha spp.)
Mint’s distinctive smell and flavor make it easy to pick out for beginning foragers. You may spot native mints like our American wild mint (Mentha canadensis), or you may find cultivars that have escaped cultivation at old homesites and gardens.
Especially in moist areas, mint cultivated mint varieties are agressive spreaders that can conquer entire fields. While this can be unfortunate for pasture management, it’s great for foragers.
Learn more with our Guide to Growing and Foraging Mint.
Mint makes a delightful addition to winter baked goods and treats, tea, and sauces.
Winter Foraging for Tree Sap
New England spring sugaring seems to be among the few large-scale foraging practices still taking place in the United States. Sadly, this practice is shrinking, especially on a home or small farm scale, but you can reclaim this tradition and you don’t need to live in New England or Canada to do it.
Sugaring (gathering sap and making syrup) was once a popular spring tradition on small farms and homesteads up and down the Appalachians.
You don’t need a huge woodlot and you don’t even need Sugar Maples! Below, I’ll discuss a few of the many tree species you can tap for tasty sap.
Interestingly, in parts of Europe, folks traditionally fermented the sap from birches rather than boiling it down to syrup. In most of Europe, beer was a farmhouse essential. This fermented birch beverage often took the place of beer when harvests were short, especially in cold northern regions.
Here are some trees you may tap for syrup:
- Sugar Maple
- Red Maple
- Silver Maple
- Black Maple
- Box Elder
- Sycamore
- Yellow Birch
- Black Birch
There are many other species, too! Sugar Maples are often the favorite because they have the highest sugar-to-sap ratio, but other trees often offer interesting flavor profiles and may be more available in your areas.
If you’re interested in tapping trees, be sure to check out our full guide to tapping trees for syrup.
Winter Foraging for Medicinal Herbs
There are many medicinal herbs you can find year-round in the eastern woodlands. Some are large trees and bushes, while others are smaller perennial or biennial herbs you can only find when the snow has melted.
Common or Great Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)
Mullein’s charming, soft leaves are one of my favorites to find any time of year, but they can be especially handy during cold and flu season. Mullein is an expectorant herb that helps clear congestion, mucus, and coughs. It’s easy to use as a tea or tincture. You can also dry it as an herbal smoke.
Mullein is a large biennial plant. It spends its first growing season as a basal rosette or leaves against the ground. This basal rosette may die back a little but is present through the winter. In its second growing season, mullein sends up a large flower stalk and produces seeds before dying.
Once again, the guide over at Edible Wild Food has the best information on Common Mullein.
Pine (Pinus spp.)
Pine needles are high in vitamin C and have an almost citrusy flavor. We usually use them in tea as a medicinal herb, but they make decent culinary herbs, too. Combined with a bit of sugar, honey, or syrup, finely chopped or blended pine needles, add winter flair to cookies and other baked goods.
We usually find the Virginia Pine (Pinus virginiana) around here, but there are other common species with edible needles, like the Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus).
Find our guide to Pine Needle Tea and identifying Virginia Pine.
Not all coniferous trees (trees with needles) are edible, so correct identification is essential. For example, making tea from yew (Taxus spp.) needles could be a fatal mistake.
Rose Hips (Rosa spp.)
Rose hips are rich in vitamin C and antioxidants and may have anti-inflammatory properties, making them a great addition to immune-boosting winter tea and tincture blends. If you have extra, they also make long-lasting, charming additions to winter wreaths.
In the wild, we’ve been finding rose hips from the invasive multiflora rose as well as our native Virginia Rose (Rosa virginiana). You may also spot them from domesticated cultivars in parks and suburban areas or even in your own garden.
This season, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the flavor of the Multiflora Rose (Rosa multiflora) hips. They’ve been incredibly sweet and have an almost raspberry-like flavor. I tend to harvest these rather than the hips from our native rose.
Practical Self Reliance has an excellent guide to foraging and using rose hips.
Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)
Sassafras is such a fun and often overlooked tree. In summer, it features three different leaf shapes! You’ll spot a simple, smooth, oval-shaped leaf, a two-lobed mitten-shaped leaf, and a three-lobed leaf that’s sometimes referred to as a “Spock leaf” because its shape resembles the famous Vulcan salute from Star Trek. How cool is that?
Without leaves on, it can be tougher to identify. The trees typically range from 30 to 60 feet tall and have light grayish or brown, deeply furrowed bark. The key identifier in winter is the smell. If you break a twig and give it a whiff, it should have a root beer or licorice-like, spiced aroma.
That same root-beer scent was once actually used to produce root beer. Humans have also used it for teas, tinctures, seasoning blends, crafts, perfume, and more.
However, I can’t advise you to take it internally. The FDA banned sassafras in the 1960s after a mouse study showed that it may cause cancer.
In our area, folks still use sassafras. Many people harvest the some roots in early spring as a tonic after a cold winter. The twigs can also be used to add a nice spiced flavor when smoking other food.
You’ll have to look at the study and use your best judgement.
Visit our guide to identifying sassafras to learn more.
Winter is a tough time for many, and we all spend more time indoors, eating more treats and grocery store food. Getting outdoors is especially good for us during this season when the couch is all too tempting. While these wild edibles won’t replace a trip to the grocery store, winter foraging can add valuable nutrition to our diets and a bit of creativity to our daily recipes.
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