Wild & Free: Wild Strawberries

by By Sarajoy Van Boven, from the June 2006 Newsletter

These are the gems of wild foraging: berries. I hesitate to write of them for two reasons. 1) They are so easy to spot and love that a forager barely needs encouragement or identification assistance. Wild berries are obviously enticing, radioing their bright red signals: "Berry! Yummy! Earth to Earthlings: pick me!" And 2) I'd like to keep them all to myself. But Wild Strawberries are a deeply delicious generosity of Nature that I cannot, in the end, in good conscience, hoard.

Latin: Fragaria virginiana. The "Fragaria" part I get. Just one of these tiny strawberries, whether fully ripened to red or still mostly white, has more flavor than a pound of store bought strawberries originated in California or Chile. The "virginiana" part could confuse as this wild berry is the original parent for 9/10s of all cultivated varieties of strawberries (as per Plants of the Southern Interior of British Columbia and the Inland Northwest, published by Lone Pine). Doesn't sound like she's been all that chaste to me. Perhaps, though, virginiana is meant to indicate a wild, uncivilized purity of being, its origins in the imaginative mechanisms of Nature, uncorrupted by the lesser imaginations of humankind whose only quest seems to be for bigger fruits with longer shelf-lives, regardless of flavor.

Locate: Admittedly wild strawberries are tiny and challenging to spot. They can be found in dappled shade, or shady sun in wet and dry areas alike. Secret (until now): Field Springs Park, near Anatone, in June. Small children will walk 3 miles or more to the lookout and back, without complaint, in the hunt for wild strawberries.

Identify: For those of you who have spent most of your lives on other planets, strawberries are the fruit of a low growing plant. The leaves, perky as wild virgins, stand about 6-10" tall, and are divided into three green, toothy leaflets atop one stem. The berries are tiny, barely visible from under the stem-cap, and anywhere from unripe white (though perfectly delicious and edible) to red/fuchsia (even more delicious), and brown, if past its prime. The berries of Fragaria virginiana, and their accompanying white blossoms, grow in clusters lower than the leaves. The Wood Strawberry, Fragaria vesca, of Field Springs Park, grows on a stem that is higher than the leaves. One berry usually tops each stem that leans over like a street lamp, and can be hard to spot from above.

There are poisonous berries; however, this edible berry is so distinctive that misidentification is unlikely. Some suggest that Poison Ivy and Hookers Fairy Bells could be mistaken for strawberries. I doubt it, but I should remind you to identify your edibles with 100 percent certainty before devouring. You'll recall that strawberries have their seeds on the outside of the berry. This fact should help prevent you from making a stupid mistake.

If you've ever eaten a wild strawberry, you won't be surprised that they were a prized find among Native Interior people, who ate them fresh from the stem, as do we. Only very rarely did they dry them in cakes for later use.

Dried strawberry leaves make a good tea that is traditionally used for relieving diarrhea and stomach aches (Eating Wild Plants by Kim Williams).

Some herbalists suggest combining strawberry leaves with mint for flavor and additional stomach ease.

Many wild edibles are difficult for our Western, corn-syrupy palates to appreciate. Wild Strawberries will not be. Your tongue will welcome them with songs and poems of praise and glory. These berries are an invitation to one of the most divine revelations this earth can minister to our senses. Welcome to the Church of the Wild Strawberry.

Copyright: Copyright on articles, recipes and images are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective contributors, except were otherwise noted.

Return to Resource Archive

For additions or corrections to this page, please contact the Webmaster.