Friendly Foragers

Montana Carl observed that the seasonal creek is a gold mine, and I have to agree.

I've been mining it since April and have been pleased with the performances of the creek critters if not the quality of the footage.

I first encountered the friendly foragers in a series of jpegs taken way down the ravine, and concluded their physical engagement was a fight.

Several weeks later I found footage of their shenanigans at another set and it was pretty clear they were getting physical in a friendly way.

No, not that. They were just playing, as you can see in the video. 

Shameless Fig Foraging

Adriatic figs ready for picking on the shoulder of the road. 

Ever pay $4 for a teeny weeny basket of fresh figs? 

Not the codger. Not anymore, anyway.  

He shamelessly forages figs from roadside volunteers in the land of fruit and nuts, and has no qualms about scrounging grounded fruit.  

You see, volunteer fig trees grow wild in the Sacramento Valley. 

You find them next to highways, country roads, and fence lines, and along seepages, creeks, and rivers. 

An Adriatic fig growing along a frontage road in Butte County. 

The story has it that Junipero Serra's followers planted black figs around the missions of Alta California.

I once read that the descendants of these Mission or Franciscan figs can still be found, but far from adobe walls. 

I live in a time warp so to speak, and browsing wild mission figs always gave me a vague but gratifying sense of connection to the state's past.  

Well, googling California figs disabused me of my romantic notion. 

My volunteer figs look more like the green Adriatic figs brought to California by American settlers after the gold rush. 

They are thick-skinned and pale green on the outside and a deep reddish color inside. 

Adriatic figs were planted as a cash crop in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys, and  in 1889 ranchers shipped their first dried figs to markets in the east. 

I imagine they were pretty chewy when they arrived in New York. 

In my experience, drying Adriatic figs pass through the gooey candy stage only briefly.

When fully dry they're as leathery as snake eggs, which doesn't stop me from gnawing them.

You can still boil them into a wonderful jam.

But the dried Adriatic figs didn't win over eastern palates.

So Smyrna figs were introduced as a substitute in the 1880s. 

Last Sunday we picked figs. 

A few years ago the tree was a glorious specimen, fermenting figs carpeted the ground, and a dusky-footed wood rat had stacked sticks and dried figs among the multiple trunks.    

Then PG&E had its annual power pole ritual and chain sawed the biggest trunks.  

This year the old fig set fruit again.

The rat nest was gone, but a rodent had been dining there.

 The leftovers of a rodent's feast -- 

possibly a squirrel, but more likely a rat. 

  

We carried our booty home and the redhead made fig bars.

The best part of foraging is always on the plate.

I'd love to camera trap the visitors of a fig tree, but I just don't trust the two-legged visitors. 

A nice touch for wild berry pies

Chrysodeixis sp., one of many little green caterpillars suitable for berry pies. 

Photo by Dave Rentz

As a postscript to the previous blackberry post, I should mention the little green caterpillar. 

"Be sure to find that little green caterpillar when you wash them", I reminded the redhead.

The pie was cooling the next day when I asked if she found it.

She hadn't, and she didn't bat an eye. 

Oh, my. . . we had shared the pie with guests on Sunday.

Her composure reminded me of my first crush, a willowy blond 15-year-old named Jonika.

She was the daughter of a writer, 15 going on 17.

I was the skinny kid next door, 14 going on 12.

I was also the oldest boy in the neighborhood. 

She used to invite me over and would play "Drink to me only with thine eyes" on the cello. 

I think you get the picture.

One afternoon she boldly quaffed the gnats floating in her lemonade and didn't bat an eye. 

"Hey! You just drank gnats . . . ha ha ha etc.", I carried on.

"So what?", and she took another sip looking at me the whole time. 

It was a dare. I started to feel a little uncomfortable. 

So, when it comes to berry pies, why not make the dining experience a little more interesting?

Add one smallish green caterpillar to the top of the berry filling. Then roll the crust over it. 

The caterpillar certifies that the contents are wild and organic, like the pink larva in tequila signifies it's the real thing.

When you dish up, just announce, "whoever gets the slice with the green caterpillar, gets a second serving".

Your guests won't know whether to believe you, but it won't stop them from eating the pie.

They'll just take a little more time.

If your pie is exceptional they may even argue about who ate the little green caterpillar. 

On picking wild berries

Himalayan blackberry (Rubus discolor), most probably.

Berry picking season is here.

I made my second haul on Saturday -- 6 cups of plump juicy blackberries a mile from the house, enough for one and half pies.

The harvest with improvised cane-hook. 

Many years ago I inducted my family into the joys of berry picking and its sequelae. That was back in Northern Virginia.

In spring we always had an eye out for swarms of white blossums -- prospective berry patches -- and when summer came we gave the bears and catbirds a run for their money.

Blossums first appear in spring and continue into summer.

The girls were good berry-pickers, but even better pie-eaters.

When we could enlist house guests, graduate students, and volunteers we could forage truly respectable amounts.

By August, plastic bags of sugar-packed berries filled the freezer, but the redhead guarded the larder like a commissary officer.

She preferred to bake the pies when we had overnight house guests, but in good years there would often be a surplus of frozen berries in late spring.

If we were good she'd bake a pie or crisp before picking season.

A few words on berry brambles as wildlife habitat.

With or without berries, briar patches are wildlife waystations and hotbeds of trophic ecology.

In other words a lot of animals eat and get eaten there.

First you've got your berry browsers -- birds, rodents, raccoons, possums, and bears.

And then there are the consumers of the berry browsers -- deer flies, mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers (not to mention bees and wasps).

The black raspberry strip up on Dickey Ridge always gave me a case of chigger bites, but that didn't stop me.

Out here the only snakes to fear are the rattlesnakes, but you don't have to worry (much) if you poke and tap with a stick before you step into the brambles.

Which brings me to a few tips.

Dress for the occasion.

Wear long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and boots, and anoint exposed skin with insect repellent.

Tucking cuffs in your socks is a good measure to delay the ticks' arrival at the promised land in your knickers.

Wear old clothes. They'll get snagged, torn, and stained.

Have good containers.

In a pinch any non-breakable container will do, but the ideal one is a pail with a handle and a tight-fitting lid.

Drop the berries in a small opening cut in the lid. If you drop the container -- and that happens, you won't lose your payload.

I've tried to fashion containers to attach to my belt or hang from my neck. This would give me two free hands, but nothing of my invention works very well.

Carry a stick..

You need it to fight off the bears and other berry pickers, and to expose berries, move thorny canes out of your path, or pull berry-laden canes within reach.

Also use it to test unseen ground under the brambles before stepping and to brace yourself when a thorny bramble pulls you off balance.

Bring an old pair of gloves.

The stick never substitutes for a hand with an opposable thumb, which you need to expose berries for the picking hand. A gloved bramble-hand will save you scratches and pricked fingers.

First aid kit

It won't hurt to bring anti-itch creme and band-aids for the "owies", especially if kids are helping.

And a cooler with soft drinks and ice is a nice way to end the venture before your drive home.

If you treat the chef with great consideration during the outing you just might get a heavenly treat after dinner.


Now get your buns out there and start picking. 

Bitter cherry sauce

I was on the trail with Fred the other morning when I caught a fleeting glimpse of a small creature eyeing me through the thimbleberry bushes.

As it humped down the trail its black-streaked tail gave it away -- gray fox. Not a surprise.

Fred of course was oblivious until he stumbled into the fox's scent trail -- apparently it had been enjoying the company of a pile of horse pucky.

Fred took off like a bloodhound.

The chase was a short-lived phenomenon. Reynard abandoned the trail about 50 yards away and disappeared into the underbrush.

Fred returned with gleaming smile and hanging tongue.

It was then that I noticed I was standing in a small thicket of wild cherry trees -- bitter cherries, Prunus emarginata, to be exact.

Laden with fruit.

I hooked a limb with my stick, and was soon lost in a reverie of browsing -- the yellow and red fruit were highly edible, and Fred whined for me to share the fare.

Yes, Fred eats sour cherries. It's a bit odd.

Well, let me just say that I developed a powerful craving for bitter cherry sauce on vanilla ice cream.

The next day I picked a half gallon of the seductive fruits, and the redhead pitted the batch and cooked it into bitter cherry syrup.

It's a good excuse to eat ice cream and completely nullifies the effects of all that cholesterol.

Wild gooseberry jam

As you can see the codger isn't getting much camera trap material these days, but as I was removing spines from my palate the other day, I thought I would share with you my secret for making wild gooseberry jam.

As you may know, wild gooseberries are usually rather prickly fruits. The local canyon gooseberries are among the spiniest, but some plants have tremendous loads of fruit.

Well, I'm an incurable wild food gatherer, and back in August when the gooseberries started to blush, I couldn't resist the temptation. The redhead agreed to cook them down according to a recipe I had found on the net.

Now that recipe makes no mention of disarming the berries, so we assumed that boiling the fruit would suffice to do the trick.

Not true, the jam was a beautiful deep cooked-gooseberry-color, but the berries looked a little bristly, and imparted an interesting textural quality to the otherwise delectable preserve. Unfortunately, no one in the extended family was interested in sharing in this culinary experience. The redhead concluded that it wasn't worth the effort, and advised me that if I had to have gooseberry preserves I would have to cook them myself.



Well, the next batch sat on the kitchen counter for several days, and I discovered that with dessication the spines actually become a little limp. They don't completely disappear, and the cooked fruit still looks a little bristly, but this was definitely an improvement.

Then I got a brilliant idea, which I want to share with the two or three other readers out there who might actually be deranged enough to try this. The solution to the problem of gooseberry spines is the blow torch.

I spread this last batch of berries on the table saw's cast iron surface, but you could use a cookie pan. Then just fire up your propane torch and singe off the prickles. When you boil down the torched fruit the spines will barely be noticeable to those with good vision, and older folks won't even see them. If you like slightly tart flavors, you will find the finished jam quite agreeable. The blackened seeds add an interesting visual quality, and the fascinating texture is still there.

Good luck, and be sure to wear gloves when you are picking next year.