foraging is Black and Indigenous
It’s officially spring! Throughout Richmond, clovers, chickweeds, dandelions, wild onion, and nettle are coming up in fields and sidewalks. Cherry, mulberry, and apricot trees have flowers again. Blackberry thickets are getting ready to explode with fruit. Where there is greenery, there is food. This abundance was appreciated by our ancestors. Foraging, collecting wild growing food, wasn’t something they did as a hobby. It was something they did to eat. Ask any Richmond elder and they’ll tell you about the bounties of fresh fruit, jams, and dandelion wine they once enjoyed.
But today’s disconnection from gathering our own food is a story much deeper than the introduction of supermarkets. This abundance that the earth provides is how enslaved Africans survived starvation rations. The traditions were shared by Indigenous people who also were forced from their homelands and given meager government rations. The invention of borders kept Indigenous people from their sacred lands, cultural and economic sites, and food sources. The invention of “private land” kept African people, free or enslaved, from having enough to eat or collecting enough to sell. (1) After the end of the Civil War, these laws were made more strict. (2)
European colonists had foraged wild foods on public and private property for generations. When issues were brought to court, the court usually sided with the forager. (1) But once the four million African people left the plantations and wanted to keep feeding themselves, collecting wild food became illegal.
“In the American colonial period, the earliest anti-foraging laws sought to push Native Americans off of lands desired by white settlers.” (3) The 1830 ‘Indian Removal Act’ saw nearly fifty thousand Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek Indians forcibly removed from their ancestral lands, which they had used for generations to hunt and forage. (4) “After the Civil War, southern states established anti-foraging laws to prevent newly freed slaves from being able to provide sustenance for themselves and their families.” (3)
These laws were cemented in segregation. Sundown towns. (5) Walls that were erected between neighborhoods. (6) Forcing Black farmers off their farmland. (7) Making beaches and lakes ‘Whites Only’. (8) Tightly regulating access to state and national parks. (9) Controlling access to land controls access to food. Gathering food was criminalized. For Black and Indigenous folks in America, feeding oneself has been illegal.
This makes foraging still dangerous for Black and brown folk today. But it also make foraging an act of resistance. Feeding oneself is a practice in liberation. And as the food supply chains continue to show how unreliable they are, we will resist again.
Before I continue, we must acknowledge that the war on nature intersects with the war on Black and brown communities:
Many pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed on roadsides (and farms) have a history in chemical poisons used in wars. (10) Their use is a war on nature. And the people who are most likely to live down wind, down river, and next door to the use of these war chemicals are Black, Indigenous, brown, and poor. (11) Even if there is no spraying, lead, arsenic, and other extremely toxic metals can be in the soil. (12) A lot of our land is contaminated. This means two things.
we MUST collect food safely. Safe from poison and safe from cops. Both are everywhere. Just so you know, the General Rules and Regulations of Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), says “Berry picking and gathering of mushrooms or other fruits is allowed,” but removing roots and damaging plants is not. (12)
we MUST fight to have our land tested, cleaned, and protected. It is our food. It is our liberation.
Here are some more of the wild foods available in central VA. Do your research before eating any of these. Make sure that the leaves and flowers of the plant are correct, that you are harvesting at the right time of year, and that you are cooking and eating them in the safe way.
TREES:
Acorns - wash and dry, remove the shell, and soak them for at least 12 hours in cold water. This keeps the acorns from tasting bitter. Drain the water after 12 hours, and repeat until the water is clear. Then the acorns will be ready to eat or make into flour. (13)
Black Walnuts - Remove the green outer layer (wear gloves!). Then let them dry by laying them out in a spot with good air flow for a few days before cracking them open.
Hickory nut - cousin of pecans
Mulberry - super popular around richmond, when these berries are ripe, they will drop pounds and pounds of fruits that stain the ground purple.
Pine - pine needle tea
Juniper Berries - the most common in Virginia is the Eastern red cedar, which is easily identifiable by its flaky cedar bark and evergreens bursting with dusty blue berries.
Juniper can be used to flavor meats and ferments. (13)
BUSHES:
Rosehips - unopened rose flowers make great tea, jelly, and syrup
Blackberry - the bushes take over huge areas of different Richmond parks
PLANTS:
Clover - delicious addition to any cooked veggies.
Wild onion - pungent cousin of green onions.
Chickweed - these come in big clumps, making them easy to harvest. Cook with onions. Tastes like corn!
Nettle - popular vegetable in different African foods, also very medicinal.
Dandelions - the flower and root are useful. Dandelion “honey” is fantastic.
ROOTS:
Jerusalem Artichoke/Sunchoke - towering, bright yellow flowers with five petals, but the root is the edible part. Make a mental note of where you see the flowers and dig them up in the fall and winter. Sunchoke root is 2-3 inches in length and delicious roasted in the oven just like potatoes. (13)
Chicory - blueish purple flowers that almost resemble dandelions. Their root is popularly roasted for a coffee replacement. (13)
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(1) https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2740&context=ulj
(2) https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alexis-nikole-nelson-black-forager_l_60998048e4b0ae3c6881f3b9
(3) https://reason.org/commentary/foraging-for-berries-and-feeding-the-homeless-shouldnt-be-crimes/
(4) https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/may28/indian-removal-act/
(5) https://justice.tougaloo.edu/sundown-towns/using-the-sundown-towns-database/state-map/
(6) https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/detroit-segregation-wall/
(7) https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/
(8) https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/bruce-s-beach-manhattan-beach-california-1920/
(9) https://mjps.ssmu.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MJPS_VolumeXI-Conservation-As-Colonialism.-Sophie-Wirzba.pdf
(10) https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/22/poison-in-the-fields-agriculture-as-chemical-warfare/
(11) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/what-is-environmental-racism-pollution-covid-systemic/
(12) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29794996/
(13) https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/wma-rules.pdf
(14) https://dwr.virginia.gov/blog/storing-up-for-winter-with-forageables/