Inwood Hill Park (Teens/Adults)

Inwood Hill Park is one of the best places for foragers in late winter. The city's hilliest park, with a large, mature forest, meadows, thickets, and cultivated areas, it's loaded with wild plants. Now is the time for roots. Burdock, an expensive detoxifying herb sold in health food stores, as well as an invasive foreign species, abounds in human-disturbed areas throughout the park. The cooked root tastes like a combination of potatoes and artichokes. 

Sassafras, on the other hand, tastes like root beer, which you make from the taproots of the highly-abundant saplings. And the black birch tree, of birch beer fame, tastes like wintergreen. The twigs, which you can chew, make a delicious non-steroidal anti-inflammatory herb tea, as well as a flavoring ingredient for "Wildman's" tapioca-thickened Stick Pudding. 

Another root we'll look for along the park's paths is the tuber of the hog peanut, with a flavor akin to raw peanuts. Peppery-sweet common evening primrose roots grow along one of the pathways. You can purchase a prostaglandin-rich oil pressed from the seeds in health food stores, for PMS and other ailments. With a sweet-and-peppery flavor, the root is outstanding in soups and stews, which it also thickens.

There are going to be plenty of shoots and greens to enjoy, such as chickweed, which tastes like corn, hot-sweet daylily shoots, pungent-tasting pepper sedum, spicy garlic mustard leaves and roots, lemony curly dock, and savory field garlic. 

Asian people collect the stems of this goutweed in this park, which they pickle. With the flavors of parsley, carrots, and celery, the leaves are excellent in soups, salads, and guacamole, and they provide a great seasoning as well if you use them like parsley.

Please Note:

• Participants should be dressed for the weather, and be aware of very bad subway service. Trains are often canceled due to track work.
• No sandals (there are mosquitoes, thorns and poison ivy). Everyone should have plastic bags for veggies and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, which spoil in
• Plastic, containers for berries from late spring through fall, water and lunch, and extra layers when it's cold. Digging implements and pocket knives are optional.
• Please bring plastic bags for vegetables and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, drinking water, and a pen (to sign in).
• Dogs are permitted. Children are encouraged to attend.
• There's no smoking whatsoever at any time.