Courtesy of Stephen Brooks
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I am absolutely floored how much fruit is out there that never gets eaten. I find the people that have pumping fruit trees in their yards often feel bad that so much is going to waste and scramble to give it away. There are many ways to go about foraging in our cities and here are a few very important pointers.
Depending on where in the world you are, most foods are seasonal so foraging in the Northeast in the dead of winter is obviously not a great idea. While some areas of the U.S. can be foraged all year around like in Florida and most of California. I personally like to drive to an ethnic area and drive slowly up and down the streets seeking productive fruit trees. This takes putting on your fruit tree-seeking lens. As people drive through neighborhoods different people notice different things. Some people notice the different styles of architecture, others are checking out the different stores and there are people that check out the people walking around. I personally barely see any of these things and pretty much only see the plants and trees growing in peoples yards and even the weeds growing in the cracks of sidewalks. It is kind of like a Where's Waldo poster where you have to focus your eyes in just a certain way and somehow this has happened to me permanently.
The reason ethnic neighborhoods are the best places to start is because usually it wasn't long ago that many ethnic groups living in the US were still growing the majority of their food. When they move to the US they usually want to continue to have growing food be a part of their lives. While most Americans are so far removed from where our food comes from that the foraging is always better in the ethnic areas. For example, I grew up in Miami and in the Haitian/ Jamaican areas you can find the foods that they are accustomed to eating. I remember once I was in El Monte, California in East Los Angeles having my veggie bus worked on and the neighborhood we were in was a mix of Mexican and Vietnamese families. It was usually easy to tell who was living there by the foods they had growing in their yards. While the Vietnamese homes had guavas, dragon fruits, and jakfruits growing, the Mexican homes had chayote, cherimoyas and avocados in their yards. It was often easy to know where the people were from by the plants they have growing around their homes.
It is important to always ask before taking any fruit from someone's yard. People are usually excited to share their bounty with you and it actually creates an opportunity for some great conversation. It is not everyday that someone knocks at your door and is super friendly telling you how incredible your fruit trees look. I have even been invited in and end up spending hours discussing the state of the world's agriculture and the beauty of sharing. Often people are not able to harvest their fruit due to old age or just lack of a good fruit picker so you even could up providing a service for them. Pick fruit for yourself but also for them as well. I have spent a few hours in Los Angeles and literally had more free fresh organic produce then I knew what to do with. I had sacks of every kind of citrus from oranges and tangerines to lemons, limes and pomellos to several kinds of avocados, persimmons and pomegranates. It is so much fun, delicious and free!! We have vegetarians, vegans, dumpster divers or freegans, locavores, pescatarians, carnivores and now we have those that will only forage. Should we call them foragores??
Fruits to look for in different places:
Florida- avocados, mango, bananas, sugar cane, cashew, citrus, canistel, mamey sapote and starfruit
Southern California- abundant citrus, white sapote, avocado, pomegranates, passion fruits as well as stone fruits like plums, peaches and apples
Northern California-Loquats, asian pears, pineapple guava (feijoa), persimmons, figs, plums, apples, pears, kiwis, blackerrys
Northeast- Mulberry, apples, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, blackberries (and I phones as well), peaches, rosehips
Various wild greens are found all over the US like dandelion, sorrel, pursalane, oxalis, chickweed, wild garlic mustard and many more
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