Billy Gibson
Back when Jayne Pfeifle was a little girl and ventured outdoors to gather chokeberries with her mother, her thoughts were fixed on the delicious jellies and jams she’d soon enjoy.
She wasn’t aware she was engaging in an activity that would come to be known decades later as “foraging.” For all she knew, foraging for food was something wild animals did when they got hungry.
With the steady lifting of pandemic restrictions, many people across the country are taking to the outdoors to avail themselves of what’s called “found food” or “nature’s free grocery store.”
As an indication of the rising popularity of foraging, one social media star from Ohio has amassed nearly 3.5 million TikTok followers, in addition to nearly a million more fans on Instagram. Alexis Nikole Nelson, 29, has been featured on National Public Radio, Fortune magazine, The New York Times and other news and entertainment outlets.
During the pandemic, Nelson started posting videos from her forays into the forests to gather edible mushrooms, berries, weeds and other plants. She was floored by the response she received.
Some subjects included “Where to find mushrooms that taste like shrimp,” “How to make ‘bacon’ out of acorns,” and “How to make ‘danger bread’ using cow parsnip.” But Nelson struck social media gold when she posted a video that got the attention of people left financially strapped by the pandemic: “How to ‘stretch’ groceries by foraging.”
Before long, a wider audience of outdoors enthusiasts were gravitating toward the notion that foraging can not only be enjoyed either solo or with others, but it can also be adventurous while saving money and promoting a more nutritious diet.
For Pfeifle, much of the satisfaction she derives from foraging for chokeberries, plums, elderberries and other wild edibles is making sure her husband of 39 years has a tangy treat to spread on his breakfast toast.
“Clyde likes his jelly and toast every morning,” she said of her husband, her frequent foraging field companion. “I enjoy getting out and gathering the berries and he enjoys the jelly, so it makes everybody happy.”
Just don’t ask her to deal with buffaloberries. That’s where Pfeifle draws the line. “It’s a tiny berry. They’re hard to pick, hard to clean and hard to process. The jelly is good, but it’s too much hard work and not worth the trouble,” said Pfeifle, who has served as an educator at Timber Lake Elementary for the past 48 years.
Little Moreau Recreation Area is a prime public picking place for Pfeifle and other people in the Timber Lake area, but she stays close to the vest when asked to disclose some of her other favorite foraging sites. It so happens that holding secrets is a quality found in many foragers, akin to a fisherman’s reluctance to announce to the world where the fish are biting.
Jaclyn Arens, communications and marketing coordinator at Bon Homme Yankton Electric Cooperative, looks forward to foraging for morel mushrooms when the weather warms up in the spring. She’s learned over the past few years since she began the hobby that there’s a limited window of time for the best hunting.
“We start scouting at the end of March, but we don’t usually find anything until April and May,” she said. “The soil temperature is important, and the morels don’t pop up until it’s warm enough, about 50 degrees. They burn up or disappear when it gets too warm.” In keeping with the forager’s unspoken code of silence, she’ll say when and how, but she won’t say where.
“I will say we look for places that have moist soil and deciduous trees like oak, elm, ash and cottonwood. Forests with big, old, decaying trees are best because morels grow from the root systems of dying trees. People have had luck in places where trees have been cut down or burned. There is plenty of public land in South Dakota to explore,” Arens said.
One pro tip Arens offers is to bring along a mesh bag to store your morels. The mesh material allows the spores to spread while hunting for more mushrooms. Another pro tip: if you do find an elusive morel, freeze in your tracks…there are likely more close by, so it’s wise to stop before accidentally trampling over a perfectly fine ’shroom.
In addition to the lure of the hunt, the taste of morels and the quality time spent with her boyfriend, Arens really enjoys the annual ritual of getting out into the wild after a long winter.
“My favorite thing is getting outside in the spring after being cooped up in the winter,” she said. “Plus, morels are delicious, and they taste even better after a long day of mushroom hunting. My favorite way to cook morels is to lightly batter them in flour and fry them in a hot pan with butter. Yummy!”
- She encourages beginners to follow a few basic rules:
- Avoid areas beneath or around electric power lines.
- Avoid trespassing on private property.
- Never eat anything unless you can identify it with 100 percent accuracy.
- Take a companion along for fun and safety.
- Try to avoid areas where chemicals or insecticides may have been applied.