Northern Foragers Collective

03/01/2023

Wild spiced spiced Doritos…I saw this done somewhere a long while ago and had been meaning to try my own wild spice combination. First off, frying your own corn tortillas results in a most supremely flavoured chip. Here I used purple corn tortillas cut into triangles and fried them in my cast iron pan. I ground up foraged sumac, bergamot leaves, calendula (floral chips? Yes please!) and of course salt for flavouring. The chips were tossed with the spice mixture in a plastic bag. The kids were around and we devoured them in seconds. Highly recommend!! Can’t wait to experiment with more flavours!!

01/08/2022

Small batch mixed Berry chia seed jam🫐! Measurements are flexible. Sub in your plantain (the w**d) seed collection for the same gelatinous effect!

RECIPE🫐

Berries (4c)
Herbs like Basil, Mint, Tulsi, Thyme
Sweetener to taste (4T)
Lemon Juice (1T)
Chia/Plantain Seeds (4T)

Heat berries with some water till boiling. Blend up the herbs and lemon juice. Mix sugar and herbs into berries. Mash up to desired consistency.

Add chia seeds and pour into container.

Keep refrigerated!

10/07/2022

Chocolate chunk nettle-mint ice cream. The heat is on on the prairies and cooling down can happen in creative ways by turning wild foods into ice cream flavours! I use a simple method where I either infuse plant matter into full fat coconut milk before freezing it into ice cube trays, or just blend it right in to the coconut milk like I did here with blanched nettle leaves and fresh mint. Once frozen, I throw the ice cubes into my vitamix with a splash of coconut milk, maple syrup, and a pinch of salt and give it a whirl. You can add other flavourings like vanilla if desired, or chocolate chunks. I scoop it right out of the vitamix or you can freeze it in a container for later after a slight thaw. Dare I say that ice cream can actually be nutrient dense? Please share if you have made any interesting ice cream flavours! 🍦 🌱

20/06/2022

Manitobans are known to leave town the moment the weather warms up. This wknd was a bit of a mix! Cool and cloudy on Saturday, bringing on a sudden inspiration for forest tea! To heat wave the next day! Either way, the mosquito population has emerged in FULL force!

Who else is desperately trying to find immediate bug relief?
If you don’t have much wind, make a fire as soon as possible. Just the simple wood smoke will push them away. Of course adding a pungent aroma like mugwort or sage would also help.

A few other ideas:
• Rub your hands on the white park of a poplar tree and smear around your skin. This is a teaching from Brokenhead First Nation.
• Garlic juice/oil! This will be our first time using this technique. No updates yet on that one.
• lastly…screen rooms, mosquito netting, long sleeves and mowing down the grasses…ugh. Manitoba, you do know how to push us to the furthest reaches of our patience!

11/06/2022

It's been a while since I've posted here. I wanted to share a bit of insight into reasons why I've been having a hard time engaging with wild foraging for food, medicine or art.
Enjoy!

Healing the wound of "not enough"

02/06/2022

Dandelions are plentiful, bountiful, prolific and resilient. They are not a part of the native prairie landscape, but were brought here by settlers and cultivated for food and medicine. They love to live where humans do, and thrive in the least expected places. They are a thousand yellow suns reaching for the sky, a yellow disruption in spring’s sea of green, demanding attention from human and pollinator alike. While we prefer seeing this land blanketed with native prairie plants, it seems that dandelions are here to stay. It’s time we embrace the dandelion as both a source of food and medicine!
🌼🌼🌼




**ds

12/04/2022

Hello! It’s my Birthday today (Maria) and I was happy when Jodi said she was free to have a special drink and fire with me! Of course she is amazing and made some decadent acorn flour donuts and a delicious elixir! I’m so lucky to have you as a friend Jodi! Wow! Can’t wait for the warming weather (right after this snow storm heading our way)! Saw some Stinging Nettles and wild lettuce popping up already!

It’s April 12th! What are you excited for this Spring?!

05/03/2022

Sumac-sprinkled white chocolate squares with dried petals of orange cosmos, nasturtium and calendula. Just to add a touch of beauty to your feed 🧡.

10/02/2022

My kids were very impatient with me photographing this nutty and fragrant maple-acorn torte dessert. Something with ingredients that took so long to gather and prepare by hand deserves to be properly documented, anticipated and savoured (despite the lack of natural lighting). All those hours spent gathering, roasting, sorting then cracking, one at a time. It was baked with eggs into a simple torte with maple syrup and a vanilla substitute I made by infusing sweet woodruff into vodka. Manitoba is home to the Burr oak and although I didn’t harvest any acorns this past fall, I had ground acorn flour in my freezer from the year before and I’m happy to say it has kept just fine. Thank you to for the recipe!

01/02/2022

At this time of year where we live, everything is still under a blanket of snow and most of the foraging we do lives in our dreams and memories of summers past. It can be a good time of year to sit down with your favourite foraging and plant ID books and get to know new plants through the written word. Each book has its own unique style, illustrations and recipes. Successfully ID-ing a plant, harvesting it, and consuming it is quite satisfying, but is it enough?
🌱🌱🌱
Peter Michael Bauer was recently interviewed on the Finding Place podcast (ep. #74) where he spoke about how foraging books are generally written from within a framework of extraction rather than one of reciprocity. Knowing which plants are edible and what they are useful for is helpful, but to bring us into a relationship of reciprocity, there is a much more rounded set of knowledge and actions we could be participating in that would bring us into a deeper, more respectful and regenerative relationship to our plant kin. What other creatures benefit from the plant you are harvesting, and how? How would this plant be propagated? What am I doing to ensure the life of the species I am disrupting will continue? How much should I ethically harvest? Can I help with seed dispersal? How am I planting back? Included in this list of questions also comes other ethics of interaction that may seem foreign to non-indigenous foragers, like the pause before the harvest to ask for permission, and leaving a gift in return to express your gratitude. As an overall question to consider when foraging, Peter asks us to consider how much disturbance vs. regeneration are we creating? He acknowledges that the questions in this framework are rooted in Indigenous thinking and encourages us to consider returning to a collaborative relationship of reciprocity with the plant world. We highly encourage you to take a listen to this 2-part podcast and think critically about the literature you ingest to see what information and ideas might more fully round out what is already there. 🌱

18/12/2021

If you live where we live, the sun has been setting around 4pm and the days have felt dreary and dark. These colourless, drab days of winter are a good time to haul out your foraged and grocery herbs and spices to add colour and flavour to holiday dishes! Here I made cocoa-date bliss balls and rolled them in things like rose petals, beet powder, spirulina, nettle seeds, and turmeric. They were 100% inspired by ‘s gorgeous rum ball recipe except I made these ones kid friendly :) Who can resist this uplifting splash of colour?!

23/11/2021

Super cool! Check out this great idea for a local, high protein, dark beverage completely caffeine free! Roasted Acorn café ala
Slide for instructions.

Here in Manitoba the Burr Oaks do not need the boiling. We roast them to kill any weavels and then process as needed. Roasting longer would likely give a nice flavour for your latté’s.

Let us know if you try this great idea!

04/11/2021

When artisans come together for a common love project…

had a vision for the Pemmican Project! Jill made these really practical waxed canvas envelopes to house the pemmican! We will be using these to gift out to encampments along the River here in Winnipeg where we struggle with safe, accessible shelters.

27/10/2021

This little dream potion came to me this week as I enter my more lucid part of my cycle. I wanted to enjoy the Mugwort before it drifted off to the underworld and decided to pair it with some citrus flavours!
Swipe to see ingredient list. I added honey as well since my cedar syrup was running low. The burnt orange colouring comes from the syrup.

Mugwort is an ever so slightly bitter tonic but overall quite neutral in flavour.

This plant is an ally for dreamers. We aren’t herbalists so please be careful when using any strong medicine!

Currently we are enjoying this as a soothing, fresh mocktail. But it could be warmed and sipped with some Brandy.

Would love to know what new recipes you are conjuring in the kitchen!

20/10/2021

Completely hooked on dehydrating food! Thanks to Audrey Logan and Dehydration Nations. Getting the beet greens and kale dried for green powder, apple rings, ginger strips and the last of the herbs in the garden. Next will be roots from our foraging adventures! The season isn’t over! As the cold temps drop down the plants infuse all their growing energy into their roots. Wait till the flowers have shrivelled away. Then you will know the sugars have left the land and went down to the underworld!

17/10/2021

Getting the Pemmican finally bundled up and ready to go out to various homes!

Lots of learning on this one. Had to re-soften some of the batches as it wasn’t sticking together quite right.

Really thankful for my daughter who helped with some of the wrapping and tying.

If you would like to be involved with this heart project, inspired by Audrey we will be making more in the future for the colder months.

We are currently looking for berry donations, or $$ to purchase berries from local farms.

Pemmican is a survival food. One square is a meal replacement. The berries, meat and fat are high nutrition and super filling. They will not go bad in your bag for a long day outside.

We would like to help our relatives who are struggling with finding warm shelter this winter.

22/09/2021

This Nettle Seed Tea is a huge energetic boost without the crash. Enjoy as a latte with mint and moringa! Get your day started with a blast of Stinging Nettle!

12/09/2021

How are you transitioning into fall? Finding ways to stay grounded?
We’ve been taking time outside as much as possible. Soaking in the sun, looking for shrooms, and learning from the fields and forests in and out of the city.

It’s not a great year for edible mushrooms here in the Prairies. A few Bolete’s and Slippery Jack’s. Plenty of non-edibles! Anyone having luck?

I, Maria have been picking the new Mullein flowers every morning and have enough for an oil infusion! I’m also going to infusing some calendula and pine cones with Arnica to make a Boreal Salve.

Drying is always happening for yummy tea blends! Mint, hyssop, wintergreen, marshmallow and more.

We have some new ideas for that are always slow to birth amidst family, art and grief practices!

Would love to hear from you on how you are grounding and welcoming in the changing season!

10/09/2021

Sprouting wild goosefoot seed! Must try this!

https://wildfoodgirl.com/2014/seed-sprouting-with-quinoas-wild-kin/

Sprouted goosefoot flour November 3, 2014 By Erica M. Davis 3 Comments Dumplings made with sprouted lamb’s quarters flour, ready to steam. Photo by Gregg Davis. I’d been eating a lot of quinoa while staring longingly at the seeds of its relative, the ubiquitous w**d, goosefoot. In fact I kept a ...

07/09/2021

Exciting!

01/09/2021

It’s still Basil season and the Stinging Nettles are back for a new flush of edibles!

Today I’m making Nettle + Basil get-away Pesto!

For all your get-away needs!

25/08/2021

Sweetgale schnapps. Trying this recipe from created from the pairing of alcohol (vodka in this case), maple syrup, and the nutlets from a plant I’ve been sweet on for some time now. After reading the definition of “nutlets” I’m not sure it’s technically the right word to use or if it should be referred to as the fruit of the plant but nutlet is just more fun to say!
Sweetgale is a shrub that most often borders where land and water meet. She has fragrant leaves that when steeped and ingested in the form of tea can help you to dream. She is said to have an ancient relationship with loons, who nest in her branches. It is the key ingredient in the Algonquin tea company’s Lucid Dream Tea and has traditionally been used to flavour beer. Apparently sweetgale was banned for use in beer by the church in the 11th century because it is enlivening and can increase your libido, unlike hops which has sedative properties 🤷‍♀️. Funny how things come to be.
Some parts of a plant get overlooked but it was a happy coincidence that I just happened to be perusing ’s cookbook and stumbled upon this schnapps recipe while en route to the beach. Low and behold I found sweetgale who showed me another side of her personality with her dear nutlets waiting for me patiently at the edge of the water. They impart a stronger perfume than her leaves and I’m excited to try this simple concoction both on its own and mixed into a fancy cocktail.

24/08/2021

Soapberry sorbet. Say it 10x fast!
Also known as Canadian buffalo berry, foam berry, rabbit berry, and Soopolallie which is the Chinook word for soap + berry.
I first met these berries on my birthday a couple of years ago and finding them still feels like a treat! Their small orange-ish berries are speckled with white dots and are a bit tricky to harvest as they cling close to their branches in clusters that also bear sharp thorns. Once harvested and cooked into sauce (they are a little sour and bitter to be eaten raw) they do this funky thing where it separates into two layers—orange on the bottom and a white layer on the top (see second slide). Soapberries contain saponins and rubbing them between your fingers can produce a soapy solution that can be used as a wilderness soap of sorts. They are high in vitamin C, iron and lycopene, which might be why their flavour reminds me a little bit of tomatoes. Apparently a frost will sweeten these berries up a bit but I cooked mine with some cane sugar and water to make a sauce. I froze it into ice cube trays and put through my vitamix to make a sorbet. My kids thought it was delicious! As a side note—it is said that you should limit the amount of saponins you ingest as it may cause stomach upset.
If you look online for “Indian Ice cream” you’ll find an interesting recipe and way to prepare these berries as made by various Indigenous groups. It involves beating the berries (and maybe some sugar) until it forms a sweet pile of edible froth. I’d like to try that next so stay tuned! Soopolallie berries are native to Canada and besides providing nutrition, their inner bark, leaves and roots contain medicines to treat various ailments. As for our other kin, it is an early source of nectar and pollen for pollinators and the berries feed grizzly bears and ruffed grouse . Shoots are nibbled on by rabbits and hares, and deer will munch on them as well as their leaves. This thorny shrub provides protection for birds and is a nitrogen fixer, and is currently being studied for use in reclamation projects in soil contaminated by acid or heavy metals. All hail the soopolallie berry!

17/08/2021

Thanks Deanne for sharing this incredible gift of Indigenous food ways through the Gete Okosomin squash!

Posted • I was lucky to be gifted this squash last year and I saved some seeds from it.
This year I lost all my tender plants when we got a 3 day frost/freeze and in a fit of rage I threw the rest of my seeds into the garden knowing that I wouldn't get vegetables but atleast any growth would nonetheless feed my soil. Well I am shocked that I have about 7 of these amazing beauties growing big and strong all on their own.
This is an Indigenous squash known as Gete Okosomin squash or silly old man's squash. This squash is what got me on the path of learning about Indigenous plant knowledge, plant and seed resiliency, food sustainability and more. Learning about this squash and just about how the Indigenous people grew and prepared their foods has opened my eyes and it will forever change the way I garden, grow, harvest, prepare and think about food.
One squash fed my family for several meals. I dried about half of this squash to use later in soups, stews and chilis. I also dried and then powdered some and used it as a flour for breads and crackers. I also learnt a little on how the Indigenous used to dry and braid this plant as well as long term food storage. This spring I planted my braided squash to bless and feed my garden. To see the Gete Okosomin squash thriving I feel my blessing was heard.
I encourage everyone to learn more about food resiliency and realize alot of the ways we were taught how to grow and harvest food may not be the best or most sustainable ways for both us and plants.
I also encourage you to check out Audrey Logan who is an Indigenous Elder who works in Community gardens and shares her knowledge. You can find her through .
There is so much more I would love to say on the matter but I am still learning and encourage you to source out the teachers. If there is a plant, way, teaching, person you would like to share about please do so.
Also check out my stories for an article CBC did with Audrey Logan and learn more about this squash.

07/08/2021

F I R E W E E D🌸
Trying a thing! Rolling the leaves after they’ve wilted 48hrs and then letting them ferment in a container. Drying them for a beautiful cup of fruity “earl grey” tea! Updates to come:)

29/07/2021

Had a minute to myself and two nectarines so I threw together this salad with the ingredients that I had for this recipe from Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel’s cookbook, Decolonize Your Diet. It calls for butter lettuce, lime juice, avocado oil, sea salt, nectarines, red onion, radishes, salt, purslane leaves, pepper, goat cheese (optional) and nasturtium flowers. Purslane doesn’t seem to grow well in my garden currently but I snagged some from a friend who’s got a bounty growing in hers! My own grandma would have yanked that cursed “w**d” out of her garden but we know better now!
One thing I discovered are is that some cultures have embraced this nutritious w**d much more readily than others. If you use the word “verdolagas” in your Duck duck go search you are bound to come up with more recipes than if you were to search for just purslane recipes. The authors of this cookbook note that both quelites (lambsquarters) and verdolagas (purslane) are considered to be w**ds by agribusiness and are killed with herbicides such as Roundup. Both authors recall their grandparents speaking fondly of these wild greens and there is evidence of its presence in the Americas before colonization. I’m more than happy to share this knowledge and spread the news of abundant, nutritious and edible wild greens! It can be eaten fresh or cooked into soups and is high in iron and omega-3 fatty acids. It can also be preserved by steaming, freezing or drying.



**ds

19/07/2021

Elm samaras part II.
Earlier this year we posted about the edibility of Elm samaras in their green state. It turns out that once the seeds ripen and become papery, they can be winnowed, seeds can be collected and can be eaten raw or cooked! I collected some earlier this summer in hope to attempt this when I had a little more time. Here we are, weeks later and my seeds were still green inside (see picture) and not brown and “lentil-like” like the picture from one of Samuel Thayer’s books (picture also included here). Because it was so long ago, I don’t remember if it’s because I collected them when they were still too green but you can be sure I’ll try again next year! Samuel Thayer says he sees immense potential for them to become a versatile grain that can be harvested when others are not available. At a time when food security is of concern, perhaps it’s time to rethink this obnoxious invasive as a potential source of food!

17/07/2021

How are you spending these hot July days? Are you chewing on some purslane or mallow cheese? Have you ground up some grass seed and made a chokecherry pie? Those are some of my plans for today! Happy w**dy weekend!! —-from Maria

23/06/2021

Thanks and .hildebrand for the inspiration to raid my garden for a quick tasty yogurt dip!

I used a whole whack of plants! There is a corner of my garden I leave to the wild and there I find LambsQuarter, Purslane, Mallow, Smartw**d and Young dock. I also added some young pea and grape vines. After sautéing the greens I added the fresh herbs of basil, cilantro and green onion. What a punch! The lemon juice and yogurt and spices were a perfect blend of warmth and tang.

Notes: don’t overdo the lemon and use a thicker green yogurt to keep the consistency rich. Have fun! Add in some floral touches like Daylily, Rose, or chive flowers!

10/02/2021

Confronting whiteness in foraging, herbalist communities. https://rachaelrice.com/2017/02/confronting-whiteness-2-2017/

I just added a new conversation with Kirsten Hale + . Kirsten is a trauma-informed herbalist with a very strong social justice bent that put her at the top of my wish list of people to talk to about Whiteness. I found her after researching pol...