Foraging New Zealand
Thank you Jesse Mulligan for mentioning Garden.Geek.NZ on the Auckland Drive radio show. Here are some more resources on foraging for kai in Aotearoa.
At right is the collaborative New Zealand food and fruit sharing map New Zealand Fruit and Food Share Map (view larger) highlighting fruit and nut trees, and other natural urban food sources. You can add listings and details for things you find out in the world.
Freedom Fruit Gardens is an exciting project that aims to plant edible gardens through New Zealand for for communities to harvest and enjoy instigated by artist A.D. Scierning. The inaugural planting takes place Friday, June 25, 2010 in East Otara, Auckland in conjunction with Te Tuhi centre for the arts, and future installments are planned for Wellington and Christchurch. A proposal for the Wellington Freedom Fruit Garden will be exhibited at the New Dowse on June 19, 2010.
Another abundant and easily overlooked food to forage is the delicious and nutritious seaweed decorating our coastlines, the “treasure of the tides.” One type, karengo (porphyra) is a delicacy closely related to Japanese nori and Welsh laver and considered a taonga by Maori. In New Zealand, it may be gathered in the wild for personal use. See Scoop’s “Would you like seaweed with that?” article for more details and Pacific Harvest for recipes and cooking tips.
- Wild Picnic, a gallery of edible and useful wild plants found in Wellington, serves up some tips for safe foraging:
- 1. If in doubt, don’t eat it.
- 2. Avoid foraging from roadsides and polluted places.
- 3. Avoid areas that may have recently been sprayed.
- 4. Get permission before foraging on someone else’s property.
- 5. Get to know NZ’s poisonous plants so you can know what to avoid.
- 6. Harvest sustainably.
Other sites of interest:
Useful books:
What are your favorite foraging sites and tips?
