Questions about foraging

Question

I guess this would be a "sub-question" to Food questions not related to how to cook, but, do we/should we allow questions regarding foraging / identifying food growing wild. There's a lot of food available to pick wild at the moment and, at least for me, assistance in identifying things would be useful as I fully intend to cook with them.

For example; there are several bushes on a "nature-trail" near where I work that I'm fairly sure are Sloes, but I'm not 100% certain as they could also (apparently!) be wild plums or one or two other things.

So:

• Do/should we allow questions regarding the identification of wild fruits/vegetables/herbs?
• If it's a "could go either way", would it bring it more "on-topic" to widen any such question to ask for suggested uses for foraged food-stuffs?

Answer 1

My vote goes for off topic, as it seems quite specific and wide ranging. And also I'm not certain how helpful someone on the internet can be. It feels like something that is probably best learnt with someone else who knows already, or with a good book. But i'm interested in what the community think.

Uses for foraged food stuff would be as on topic as uses for any food stuff.

Answer 2

EDIT: I needed to simplify my answer.

As with all areas of interest that can be even tangentially related to "Food and Cooking," it depends on the question. In this case, while I wouldn't include foraging as an example of an on-topic question to showcase in the FAQ, I would evaluate each question in this area individually.

Questions strictly about identifying wild foods, like this one, are more than likely off-topic because they usually can't be narrowly answered.

However, not all questions about wild foods are the same. For example this question about when to pick blueberries could be considered a "foraging question," but assuming the food item has already been properly identified, the subsequent answer ensures that the ingredients used are in their proper state before cooking.

I don't think we need to categorically close questions related to foraging, but questions that involve foraging should be sufficiently close to the "food and cooking" theme of the site.

Answer 3

I think they are off topic and better suited for a survival site. This question serves as a perfect example I feel, although I was the only one to vote it off topic. I guess it's harmless enough because the answer is "you can't". I also think the same goes for foraging for wild berries.

Our community wants to welcome expert chefs. I could be mistaken, but I don't think that "foraging" is a topic widely known to chefs. Granted, there may be some who are also "experts" in foraging, but I still don't think this is the appropriate forum. The consequences of eating a wild berry or mushroom could be terrible sickness or death. Since positive identification is the only guaranteed method of determining something in the wild is safe, this medium isn't really suited for such a thing.

For example with mushrooms, positive identification can require all of the following: 1) Expert knowledge of all mushrooms in your region. 2) Near expert knowledge of mushrooms in other nearby regions 3) Analyzing various physical characteristics such as: where it grows, size/shape of stalk, whether gills are attached, color of gills 3) Spore analysis 4) Reaction to water

This is a vast amount of information to convey on the internet. It would require a huge swath of text as well as many images. Even then, unless you personally were an expert and could identify it, you could get sick and die. Any survival expert I know would not give advice to anyone as to whether something is safe to eat or not unless they are hands-on.

Answer 4

Foraging is finding ingredients in nature to use in cooking. Ingredient selection is a basic and perennial aspect of all cuisine, and to the extent that foraging (or horticulture, or hunting, or shopping) contributes directly to the cooking process, I think questions should be encouraged.

If people have access to wild ingredients and want to use them, or want to know if their area has any, that's a great thing to know. The question has to be asked well, of course. Queries which merely say, "can I eat this" are trite, arbitrary, and potentially dangerous.

Specifically, if someone took a picture of a store-bought olive, uploaded it, and wanted to know what variety it was, what region it came from, what its flavor notes were, and how best to pair it in a dish, there'd be no problem with it. What's so different about that and someone uploading a picture of a berry from the trail behind their house, or an herb they gathered in a field?

Phrasing and context will matter. "How do I incorporate local or seasonal food into menu-planning?" is a serious question that serious chefs ask all the time. "Which variety of basil grows best in an herb garden in the south" doesn't strike me as unreasonable either. I think it's better to have people ask it. Outside the line would involve plant breeding, genetics, classifications of species, specific techniques for gathering, hunting, or growing, or anything too regional to be useful for most readers. In short, "would a chef be able to make better food because they know the answer to this question?" seems like a good benchmark.

Mushrooms, truffles, some herbs, fruits, berries, even, theoretically, hunted game could be tangentially on topic. What about how to dress, store, or cook venison?

Foraging is not something only hippies, freegans and survivalists do; increasingly it's something that gourmands and foodies, traditional cooks and regional/nativist enthusiasts do. It is certainly something the ancestors of our great cuisines did. It is something we can do, too, with requisite knowledge, which is what this site can help to provide.

I understand the importance of keeping the site high quality, I just tend to disagree that fringe questions are the problem. I think more generally, bad questions are the problem. I don't have experience with SO, so I don't have history moderating; I'm just responding to my personal preferences: I'd like to know about these things, and think other cooks/chefs might too.