Wild onions. These are the very reason I decided not to plant any onions in the garden this year. Mother nature is rolling them out like carpet in the woods. A sort of tall, green, pungent, shag carpet.
Last night I collected about 6.5 pounds of these beauties. It only took an hour to hike into the woods, collect, brush dirt from my eyes, and get back home. Easy, right? Well, then there was about 2 hours of cleaning - ripping off roots, peeling the outer leaves. A dear friend joined me on the back porch to help with this part. In the process we tried to figure out what the best word for 'the opposite of fun' was, wondered if we'd get a repetitive use injury (the left thumb takes a beating when peeling the bulbs), and admired the moon while I burped the crawfish étouffée I had for dinner. I stored the onions in the fridge overnight and then spent a couple hours rinsing, blanching and prepping for freezing the next. Time consuming but free and organic!
Kelly Kindscher, in his book "Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie", gives a wealth of information about wild onions (also called wild garlic and prairie onion). The most important piece of advice he gives for foraging this best known wild food is that "one should always make certain that the onion plant being picked has the characteristic onion smell, to avoid confusion with the poisons death camas, Zygadenus nuttallii Gray, which looks much like a wild onion but is odorless". I've also heard it this way: If it looks and smells like an onion, it's edible. If it looks but doesn't smell like an onion, don't eat.
I can assure you mine were onions because I received the equivalent of a facial peel to my sinuses. The inside of my nose looks 10 years younger now.
Here was my process in case you'd like to enjoy some yourself:
Last night I collected about 6.5 pounds of these beauties. It only took an hour to hike into the woods, collect, brush dirt from my eyes, and get back home. Easy, right? Well, then there was about 2 hours of cleaning - ripping off roots, peeling the outer leaves. A dear friend joined me on the back porch to help with this part. In the process we tried to figure out what the best word for 'the opposite of fun' was, wondered if we'd get a repetitive use injury (the left thumb takes a beating when peeling the bulbs), and admired the moon while I burped the crawfish étouffée I had for dinner. I stored the onions in the fridge overnight and then spent a couple hours rinsing, blanching and prepping for freezing the next. Time consuming but free and organic!
Kelly Kindscher, in his book "Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie", gives a wealth of information about wild onions (also called wild garlic and prairie onion). The most important piece of advice he gives for foraging this best known wild food is that "one should always make certain that the onion plant being picked has the characteristic onion smell, to avoid confusion with the poisons death camas, Zygadenus nuttallii Gray, which looks much like a wild onion but is odorless". I've also heard it this way: If it looks and smells like an onion, it's edible. If it looks but doesn't smell like an onion, don't eat.
I can assure you mine were onions because I received the equivalent of a facial peel to my sinuses. The inside of my nose looks 10 years younger now.
Here was my process in case you'd like to enjoy some yourself:
The soil was loose so I slowly pulled on whole bunches low to the ground and shook roots out.
I sorted out the best onions, peeled as needed, and cut out any remaining dead or wilted leaves.
I cut off the bulb bases and then cut all into 4" pieces. I blanched the bulb ends for 2 minutes and the leaves for 1 minute. This was followed by a cold soak to stop the cooking and a final cutting of the leaves down to 1.5" lengths.
I decided to store them in individual sandwich baggies inside a freezer bag and ended up with 2.5 pounds of bulbs and leaves ready for winter.
The leaves have a subtle spinach flavor followed by a faint bit of onion. The bulbs can be quite delicious and even a bit sweet when cooked. Happy foraging!
Image credit: Cale Ruiz
Image credit: Cale Ruiz