(Biscuitroots) Lomatium cous and L. macrocarpum roots peeled and dried by @plumsforbums from his wild-tending efforts last summer. When digging he would scatter seeds from the plants in each open hole, while also gathering sacks of seed to re-plant elsewhere. Opening the soil with a digging stick in this way and leaving it open rather than patting it closed allows for seeds to blow in from nearby plants as well, giving more opportunity for the plants to proliferate. Gabe just ground these up into a flour with a grain mill. I also ground our acorns with it the other day and now we can leach them more easily. Gabe was pounding these dried Biscuitroots with rocks by hand on his wilderness solo- and incorporating them into his Corn Masa/Yampah/Pinenut pinch cakes. Eating wild foods gives me a kind of connection to place and plants I wouldn’t have if I ‘didn’t touch’ or engage— but it’s important to incorporate reciprocal motion into the harvests. I think it is possible for folks to eating wild foods regularly and it be sustainable if not beneficial for the plant populations, the bigger ecology and cultural health— if done right. Tasting and being nourished by the plants gives us a spiritual connection inherently whether you think so or not— and if more people feel a deeper connection to the plants and the land, the more likely they are to act respectfully and responsibly towards them (ideals which unfortunately aren’t inherent in our Abrahamic influenced settler-colonial society) Getting into wild foods to sell them to restaurants so that only rich folks can eat these plants to me, is not the way to go. But I know the answered to the questions are not black and white. I have a lot of thoughts about all of this— to harvest or not, what is actually ‘sustainable’ and whose perspective are we looking from- the Victorian environmental ideal of pristine wilderness or an indigenous worldview? Or something totally new? This is always on my mind. #biscuitroots #wildfoods #wildfoodlove (at Cliff, New Mexico) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9ubFogBDoA/?igshid=1ve2lqa4uvkhg
