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Jack Milton/Staff Photographer
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Jack Milton/Staff Photographer
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Jack Milton/Staff Photographer
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Jack Milton/Staff PhotographerInstitute for the Study of Edible Wild Plants and Other Forageables
Liberty Bryer, a visitor from St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, took a bite. The texture was a little like heart of palm -- a sign, Roberts said, that this specimen was past its prime. The flavor was familiar, but not immediately identifiable.
"Cucumber!" Bryer announced after a moment.
It was one of several attributes about the wholly edible plant that participants in an introductory foraging program learned from Roberts this weekend.
A student of history, a Maine Guide and a retired crude oil pipefitter, Roberts is a naturalist by avocation. The South Portland resident has been a volunteer for Maine Audubon for 22 years and has a repertoire of programs that includes a nature walk about common edible and medicinal plants. He has noticed an increased interest in the topic in recent years, particularly in the natural medicine aspect.
His knowledge of plants is largely self-taught, and he stresses that he doesn't have the expertise of an herbalist when it comes to medicinal uses. A native Mainer, some of Roberts' exposure to foraging comes from relatives who lived on the coast and foraged items to eat, such as gull eggs and a plant called goosegreens.
He puts himself in the category of "half-hearted fanatics."
"We dabble in it and we have a good time doing it," he said.
Roberts pointed out more than two dozen plants that are edible or have medicinal uses as he led the group around a salt marsh off Pine Point Road in Scarborough.
Cat-o'-nine-tails, also known as narrowleaf cattail, has a male flower that can be steamed like corn and a fibrous, high-protein female flower that can be shaved into stews or batters. The roots can be eaten like a potato or sauted like water chestnuts.
"The roots are awesome!" said Missy Grillo, a special education teacher from Brunswick. The self-described daughter of a flower child, Grillo said her family was "eating weird stuff all the time when we were hiking."
Along the path were trees such as black cherry and white pine, which have been used to treat respiratory ailments. There was also quaking aspen, which has bark that sheds a powder that has been used as a sunscreen.
The young stems of a variety of milkweed can be steamed like asparagus after blanching out the latex. The flower clusters can be frittered, but Roberts likes to eat them right off the plant as trail food.
The fruit of mountain ash can be used as a pie filling, and elderberry is turned into a cordial. Juneberry, the primary market fruit in Colonial days, got its name from the time of year it bloomed. Its other names were similarly derived -- shadbush because the fish were running then, and serviceberry because the ground was thawed enough to bury the dead.
Those fruits weren't yet ripe, nor were those of the staghorn sumac. People were spitting out the tiny, fuzzy red fruits soon after sampling them.
"You want to wait another month or so. It'll have a nice citrus flavor," Roberts promised.
Various plants adapted to the saltwater in the marsh. American Indians introduced seaside glasswort to the Colonists, who turned the salty branched stems into a pickled condiment. Seaside orach exudes the salt, leaving a coating on its triangular leaves. The leaves can be eaten like spinach, but were bitter and would need something to make them tastier.
Perhaps the answer grew along Pine Point Road in the form of an inconspicuous weed with small round seedpods: poor man's pepper.
"It's amazing, actually, what's right under your nose," Grillo said.
Staff Writer Ann S. Kim can be contacted at 791-6383 or at:
akim@pressherald.com
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