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(Birds chirping)
KAREN: We have great opportunity for harvesting very healthy
wild foods in our forests here in the Northwest.
When you're looking at these make sure you look for the
belly button that's on the huckleberry.
STUDENT: It's been amazing to be a student in Karen's class
because it brings to life this whole other world of plants -
realizing that there's such an abundance all around us
all the time.
KAREN: Not only do we want to collect from areas that
are safe, non-polluted, non-sprayed areas,
but we also want to respect public lands.
We've come across a really nice patch of Stinging Nettle.
Traditionally, it was actually used as a cordage plant
or in net making.
What we know now is that these plants are extremely
high in protein; they're high in calcium,
vitamin C, iron and many other trace minerals.
We are going to be making some dock seed
and dried stinging nettle crackers.
Some things need to be cooked in order to make them edible
and other things we can eat directly from the landscape.
Tonight for dessert we're gonna be having cattail pollen crepes
which are stuffed with maple syrup sweetened cream cheese
and Pacific huckleberries.
What we'd like to do is invite everybody
to come around the table.
We have some cucumber seaweed salad with wood sorrel, a king
salmon wrapped traditionally in skunk cabbage leaves,
acorn muffins have also come to our table,
we have some dandelion wine, and there's a smoked salmon spread,
we also have some pasta, which has dandelion pesto on it.
KAREN'S DAUGHTER: It's kind of special when she does
Wild Foods Dinners, it doesn't happen all the time.
My friends always make fun of me they're like,
"What's the weirdest thing you eat?"
And I never have an answer for 'em cause there's just been a
very wide variety of things.
DINER: It's really not weird. It's just wild.
DINER: It's just wild.
DINER: It's just different. DINER: Yeah.
DINER: I always feel so alive when I eat this food.
KAREN: Every single day we try to add Wild Foods into our diet.
It makes me feel like I'm closer to the earth.
It brings us together as a community.
And I love that piece of it.
My name is Karen Sherwood and I teach Ethnobotany,
which is the study of plants and people and where they intersect.