This past weekend I had the pleasure of leading the folks of the Middle Atlantic Folklore Association on a wild edibles walk.
Their annual meeting was close to Pittsburgh this year, and they brought me in to do a walk, talk, and food demo (wild green smoothies, of course!)
We were about 1 1/2 hours south east of Pittsburgh (in the Laurel Highlands) and our walk was around a little pond. We did see the usual suspects: plantain, dandelion, clover, garlic mustard, violet, chickweed, and burdock, but we saw some other things as well:
- skunk cabbage (not edible, though some books say otherwise…it is used to make medicine, though)
- cattail
- horsetail
- daisy
- wild raspberries
- wild blackberries
They were also interested in herbal aspects of the plants, so I got to talk about that, including the differences between Chinese herbal medicine and Western botanical medicine (one of my favorite topics.)
I demonstrated a wild green smoothie using bananas, mangoes, water, ice, plantain leaves and red clover flowers and leaves:
I also did some chair massage for them:
It was such a nice meeting with a wonderful group of people. Thanks so much for having me!
~ Melissa
*** To schedule a walk or chair massage for your next function or event, please view our services page for details, or call The Birch Center at (412) 381-0116. ***
