Late winter is a surprising and deeply rewarding time to forage at Belmont Lake State Park. The park's lakeside setting, cultivated areas, picnic grounds, and wooded paths harbor a remarkable variety of edible wild plants, and everything the group will harvest is self-renewing. Though lawn mowers repeatedly cut these plants back, they are adapted to regenerate vigorously. Many of the species found here are also invasive plants, making foraging for them a genuinely beneficial act.
Wild greens will be growing vigorously in sunny areas and along trail edges. We'll gather chickweed, which carries a sweet corn-like flavor, lemony sheep sorrel, garlicky garlic mustard, spicy hairy bittercress, and pungent field garlic. Curly dock leaves will be up, and its relative, bitter dock, will have leaves large enough to use as wrappers for stuffed preparations, much like stuffed cabbage leaves, filled with grains, vegetables, or even fruit and nuts.
Sheep Sorrel
This bright, lemony-flavored plant is one of the great pleasures of late winter foraging.
There will also be abundant daylily shoots, which combine the flavors of string beans and mild onion in a single tender green. We'll also identify culinary and medicinal herbs, including black birch, sassafras, long-leaf plantain, and common spicebush twigs.
Root vegetables are very much in season now. Wild carrots can be found growing in the sandy strips separating sections of the parking lot. Far more flavorful than their commercially cultivated cousins, wild carrots hold their texture beautifully in soups, baked goods, and slow-cooked dishes.
Wild Carrot
The wild ancestor of the cultivated carrot is more intensely flavored and has superior culinary properties for cooking applications where texture matters.
Common evening primrose roots may also be available in the same areas. With a flavor that blends black pepper and radish, these sweet, starchy roots function as a thickener in soups, stews, and sauces, working in a way similar to okra.
This is a tour of a genuinely underappreciated park at one of the year's most surprising times for foraging. Don't miss it.
The 3-hour foraging tour of Belmont Lake State Park in North Babylon begins at 11:30 AM on the scheduled date, at the benches between the parking lot and the building with the concession stand and restrooms, off Exit 38 of the Southern State Parkway.
Please Note:
- Dress appropriately for the weather. Be aware that subway service can be unreliable due to frequent track work; plan travel accordingly.
- No open-toed shoes. The terrain includes mosquitoes, thorns, and poison ivy.
- Bring plastic bags for vegetables and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms (which deteriorate in plastic), sealed containers for berries (mid-spring through fall), water, lunch, and extra layers in cold weather. Digging tools and pocket knives are optional.
- Dogs are welcome. Children are enthusiastically encouraged to attend.
- No smoking of any kind at any time.
