People everywhere are realizing the benefits of eating seasonal food, supporting their local farmers. However, not only do our farmers provide for us, but Mother Nature also grows many nutrient-rich plants right outside our doorsteps, for free!

Naturalist “Wildman” Steve Brill, has been giving tours about wild edibles, throughout the northeastern U.S., for a couple decades. He had some rather funny beginnings in his career– In 1986 he was running a tour in Central Park of New York City, and two undercover city park rangers were secretly part of the tour. He recalls the event: “When I ate a dandelion, the entire Parks Enforcement Patrol converged on my group, and I was handcuffed and arrested for removing vegetation from the park.”

Being a funny kind of guy, he served his own “Wildman’s Five-Boro Salad”, complete with dandelions, on the steps of the courthouse to press and passerbys, who ate it all up. Two weeks later, the city dropped the charges and he was actually hired as a naturalist by the city! They began paying him to lead tours, teaching more people to eat dandelions! He’s been running tours ever since. Wildman is self-taught.

I went on one tour in Central Park, the green oasis in the middle of a massive concrete jungle, and I could not believe that about every 5 steps we took, there was something more to eat in the middle of this city park. And to think I spend so much money at the grocery store! Wildman brought along one of his homecooked wild recipes, and my taste buds were in heaven, begging for more.

I asked him why more people don’t eat wild food, and he told me that “there are more commercials on tv for twinkies than for dandelions!” It’s a matter of convenience, too, he explained. People find it easy to get all their grocery shopping done than bother spending the time learning to identify plants and going out foraging for them. But it’s so fun and tasty!

As Wildman explains on his website, “The purpose of this hands-on program is to learn about the environment and get back in touch with nature. By studying foraging and nature, we enjoy our renewable resources and reaffirm our commitment to preserving and rebuilding our ecological riches.”

Wildman has published a few books on wild edibles including Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places, The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, and Stalking the Wild Dandelion which is a work in progress.