Urban foraging

[eridani]

http://www.alternet.org/environment/142420/the_ultimate_in_eating_local%3A_my_adventures_in_urban_foraging/?page=entire

Groups like this exists across the country -- Fallen Fruit in Los Angeles and Santa Fe, N.M.; Urban Edibles in Portland, Ore.; and North Berkeley Harvest and SF Glean around the San Francisco Bay Area. There are also tons of links on Brill's Web site to various other foragers.

Iso Rabins also includes gleaned fruit in his foraged boxes. The day we were out snail gathering (we found10!) we made a trip across town to scavenge some plums from a woman with an overloaded tree in her backyard.

When we arrived, and she led us around to her backyard, it was like there had been a plum storm. Many still hung overhead, but lots had fallen to the ground, were squished into the patio or had been sampled by birds, rats or other lucky urbanites.

Rabins worked the picker to reach the higher branches and plucked the tree nearly bare in about 20 minutes, leaving some of the smaller, less-ripe fruit and the ones out of reach all the way at the top. Occasionally there would be a solid thump as a plum missed the picking basket and fell to the ground.

The whole thing seemed symbiotic -- just as Wadud described on her Forage Oakland Web site. We got some plums, the woman got her yard cleaned up a bit, and all the while she and Rabins chatted about his foraged-food dinners, and she offered her place to host one of his upcoming meals.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

1. I love this. You can't believe how many herbs are available

I get Rosemary almost everywhere! Sage grows all over my neighborhood.
Fuck paying $2.00 for a few snips at the local supermarket, I just go down the street and harvest in downtown San Jose!

I am also the President of our homeowners Association. I have talked us into planting an Herb garden in the courtyard. We now have Parsley, Cilantro, Basil, Sage, Mint, Thyme, oregano and Rosemary along with a lemon tree, a lime tree and a few pumpkin vines in our courtyard.

It is so much more satisfying to walk out to our courtyard and harvest the Basil to make Pesto rather than going to Safeway and paying about $6.00 for a few ounces of preservative filled crap. AND It tastes sooooo much better.

It is also part of our campaign to restore a sense of community to our urban complex.

For what it's worth, we have also installed a community bookshelf where you can either leave books for others to read or borrow books that others have left. The first bookshelf is now full and we, the directors of the HOA have decided to buy another bookshelf to handle the overflow.

This is an urban community coming together.

[ClayZ]

2. I just watched this video on Edible School Yards

What a grand idea!



http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/video


K and R

[Bigmack]

3. MUST read....

"Empire of Scrounge" by Jeff Ferrell

and

"Art and Science of Dumpster Diving" by John Hoffman

or, better yet, don't read them....

More for me!

These books are more for scrounging stuff rather than food, but it opens up your mind to the idea that a society like ours has lots of goodies that go to waste. You can customize your scrounging to match your area and needs.

[juno jones]

4. I used to dumpster dive religiously.

My home is adorned with antiques that someone threw into the trash.

I'm currently working on a better computer chair. I saw one the other day, but couldn't haul it. That's OK, it all falls together when the time is right, eh, divers?

[Bigmack]

5. I am convinced...

that there is NOTHING that people will not throw out.

A divorce is a personal tragedy, but a curbside scrounger's delight.