Foraging. What was once
a sustenance model born of necessity and lack of agriculture is now one of the
many important ways for urban hipsters to assert their “eco-consciousness”, and
to get their photo printed in the New York Times Magazine. The idea is simple: Troll your neighborhood parks and sidewalks
for spontaneously growing produce, claim them as your own, and take them home
to create a delicious seasonal dish, probably involving Quinoa and Heirloom
Pinto Beans.
I had just moved to Silver Lake, which is the Los Angeles
epicenter of hipsterdom, so I was anxious to prove my worthiness of admittance
into this upper echelon. Certain
measures had already been taken: I got bangs, purchased three ironic sweaters,
and started working a second job to pay for my $56 a week coffee budget. But it wasn’t enough. I still needed that extra something… I
figured I could start my own band and name it after an obscure 19th
century serial killer, open up a taxidermy/hat shop, or learn to forage. I chose
the latter, because, by comparison, it seemed a bit more accessible … Below is
an abridged record...
Day one: Productive. I
fashioned a fruit picker out of a broom handle and a broken wine bottle. I am proud of this tool because it not only
allows me to access fruit that is too high to reach, but it simultaneously
lacerates it – saving me the time of having to do any dicing or chopping
later. I test it out on a small family
of tomatoes that’s been growing on the hill behind my house, and it works so well,
I wonder why no one has thought of it before. Turns out the tomatoes are
infested with flies and mostly inedible, but at least I can get to them…
Exhausted from my efforts, I turn on the DVR to catch up on episodes of “Charlie
Rose”. Fall asleep on the couch.
Day Two:
Mushroom day. I’m thinking this will be
an easy one, because my neighborhood is so vegetated, and so full of dogs. But
just to be safe, I decide to do some research online to avoid inadvertently
poisoning myself. Turns out there are
actually many different types of mushrooms, and learning which ones are edible
is a fairly involved process requiring a lot of reading and looking at pictures. I decide I should sink my teeth into this
later when I have more time, so I bookmark a few mushroom websites, and spend
the rest of the day watching “The Wire” and noodling around with my guitar. Fall asleep on the couch.
Day Three: I awake energized. I remember that I’ve seen some blueberry
bushes in my neighborhood… but I can’t remember where exactly? After thinking it over for a few hours, I
have a pretty clear picture in my mind of them being somewhere on the walking
trail around the Silver Lake Reservoir, so I grab a canvas bag and my ipod, and
head out on my fruit walk.
A half an hour
of listening to the “Age of Adz” later, I realize I’ve forgotten that I’m
supposed to be looking for blueberries. I
remind myself to start keeping an eye out for them… A half an hour later I realize I’ve forgotten
again. Luckily the Silver Lake Reservoir
walking trail is a loop, so I just keep walking. I take out my ear buds and repeat
“blueberries blueberries blueberries” in my mind like a mantra so I don’t
forget. I do the entire loop like this
but find no blueberries…. maybe they were somewhere else after all… But where? This is the only place I walk…
I
decide to come back to the blueberries on another day when I can remember where
they are (I’m sure it will just pop into my head when I’m least expecting it). Determined
to not return home empty handed, I swing by my neighbor’s front yard to check
out her grapefruit tree. The grapefruit
that’s fallen to the ground is solid like a rock, and the grapefruit that’s in
the tree is too high up to reach. I should have brought my fruit picker.
Day Four: Enough
pussyfooting, it’s time to really get serious here and organize my thoughts. I
decide to take my bike out because I can cover more ground. The game plan is to ride around and scout,
stopping to record the spots where I discover edibles, then come back for them
later with my fruit picker. Also I can
keep my eyes peeled for the blueberries. This actually goes fairly well.
There’s an Avocado tree, plus a few Lumquat trees and Rosemary bushes, so I
return home to fetch my fruit picker, and head right back out the door. Now I’m
really rockin and rollin. I make it
about three blocks, before I hear the bloop
bloop of a siren, and I turn to see a police car crawling along beside me. Then
a cop with a loud speaker instructs me to “put down the weapon”. This seems unnecessary - he’s fully armed,
and it’s broad daylight. I mean what am
I gonna do, come at him? But I don’t
want things to get weird, so I acquiesce and set it down. He asks me what I’m doing with a broken wine
bottle on a stick, and I explain to him that I am going to pick some of my
neighbour’s fruit with it. He absorbs
this information, and then informs me that he could arrest me for “attempted robbery”, but instead he’s just
going to confiscate my tool and issue me a stern warning to “stay out of other
people’s yards.”… Asshole. I head home, dejected. Maybe I’m just not cut out
for this type of high risk work… Just then, I see them: Blueberry bushes! They were on the sidewalk outside my house
all along! I didn’t think to look for
them there. I pick the bushes clean,
which yields about 5 cups of usable berries, enough for a tasty pie… Which I’ll
make tomorrow maybe, I’m too tired right now, and I’ve already made a lot of
progress today, I should rest.
Day Fifteen: I
never got around to that pie, I’ve been too busy. I kept thinking, “I should put those berries
in the freezer so they don’t go bad”… Anyway. The bushes are still bear, so
I’ve decided to take some time off from foraging until the berries grow
back. That will give me some time to
really organize my thoughts. In the
meantime, I’m going to start work on my next project: A book of poetry I’m
calling: “Give me Your Socks! (And other slogans)”.
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