Wondering About the Dangers of Wild Food.

I used to be a Euell Gibbons fan.  I read two of his books and I would go out and find lots of things to eat in the wild.  The two books I read were "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and "Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop".  You would be surprised what all I ate.  Some was pretty good, but some others. . . not so good.

There are a lot of wild plants that look similar, but one is edible and one is poisonous.  For example, the Wild Carrot or Queen Ann's Lace, is very similar to Poison-Hemlock.  Poison-Hemlock is not related to the Hemlock tree. I have eaten the wild carrot.  Here is a picture of the Queen Ann's Lace (wild carrot):

And this next picture is poison hemlock, the one containing a potent poison:

You may recall your history that Socrates, back in 399 BC took poison hemlock to commit suicide.  It worked!!  So, be real careful if you want to try eating wild plants.  Some will kill you.

This is the first book that I read by Euell Gibbons:

And this is the second of his books that I read:

I used to spend vacations on the Outer Banks of N.C.  Both those books came in handy and the search for the wild foods was the most enjoyable.  This all took place many years ago when I was living in Pennsylvania.  PA was a great place to forage for wild food.  There was a lot of varieties available.  Now, you all be careful what you eat because I want you to have a great day, you hear?