Field Notes from Jess ~ Rewilding in 2022 | Week 18/52 | Spring
May 01, 2022
Field Notes from Jess:
Rewilding 2022 Week 18/52
Seaweed Forage | Oregon Coast
With John Kallas, Founder of Wild Food Adventures
Since harvesting seaweed has everything to do with the tides, this wild food forage involved a 3 am wake so I could rise and shine and be on the road for a 3.5 hour road trip to the Oregon Coast to catch the unveiling of the seaweeds! Instructor John Kallas, founder of Wild Food Adventures based out of Portland, offers a variety of edible plant workshops and this 3-hour course was worth the journey.
Turns out seaweed is just as photogenic as the fungi growing in the forest, and just as delicious as oyster mushrooms! Dressed in my fishing waders I comfortably entered low tide and used the scissors from my Leatherman to sustainably harvest these high mineral superfoods by snipping and then tasting to explore each texture and taste.
The high salt content helps take care of the bacteria so I was nibbling these beauties raw but you can bring them home and dehydrate them for long term food storage to add to soups or ground up and used as a seasoning. The limit is one gallon three times a year which is truly an abundant food harvest and you don't need a license to bring home the bounty.
We discovered some other edible delights, A giant Butter Clam along with Turban snails which can be boiled and are high in iron and protein. My favorite raw snack however was the Fucus, a brown algae commonly attached to rocks that truly had a delicious crunchy taste and welcoming texture.
When our window was complete and the tide moved in, I headed back to Washington feeling energized from learning how to harvest this mystery food that grew so abundantly on the Pacific Northwest coast.
Thank you John Kallas! You can purchase his book, "Edible Wild Plants, Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate" (I now have a signed copy)...see photo
