NATURAL WONDERS

LIVING OFF THE LAND

Rex Burress

If you've ever watched “Bizarre Food” on the Travel Channel, with Andrew Zimmern touring the world and sampling exotic foods, you will know that food styles are different in other countries. “If it looks good, eat it” may not appeal to those adverse to eating snakes, scorpions, larvae, and lizards, but thus it is in protein-scarce Far East communities.

In countries with booming human populations, having sufficient food is a major challenge. It is interesting to see how different races of people in foreign places live, hunt, fish, cultivate, and forage for a wide variety of edible organisms that would appear inedible to Westerners. The preparation of those foodstuffs is equally amazing. However, many hunting procedures appear excessive and detrimental to adequate animal and plant populations.

To a person who is versed in conservation and a conscientious defender of threatened species, some of the extreme effort to gather large amounts of wildlife to feed a large family makes me flinch at the physical fleecing of our planet. Over-foraging, like over-grazing grassy fields by bovines, or over-fishing, places a strain on balanced habitats, and in some cases, threatens a species with extinction. In a sense, the planet is being eaten up by over-foraging...even though the design of species is replacement by reproduction.

So when Zimmern samples an Indonesian, or Asian, marketplace, and I see huge quantities of various produce for sale--fish, seafood, tubs of invertebrates of all kinds, octopus, scorpions, tarantulas, worms, larvae, frogs, and even monkeys, in addition to exotic fruits and actually any living thing they can catch, I cringe. Most of the animal life was taken from wild terrain--entrees not even thought of as food in the Western world. Zimmern, undaunted, gulps down about anything deemed edible in that region! Bravo or bravado? You can gag thinking of eating maggots and mammal testicles, but I have tasted fried crickets! Most animals are edible. Food is in the eye of the beholder.

In America, most hunters hunt for legal mammals and game birds in season, partly to eat but mostly for the challenge of the chase and being in the out-of-doors. I have known hunter days when a boy on the Missouri farm, and taught that “The harvest of the surplus is good conservation.”

Some foragers will dip into snapping turtles and frog legs, and some are too zealous, but sheltering wildlife's survival is a host of laws intended for harvesting only the surplus. Sportspeople--hunters and fishermen...and fisherwomen, who are concerned with conservation, adhere to the regulations and are a good force for the environment as well as for outdoor education.

Thank goodness we have parks, such as California State Parks and National Parks, that provide protection for all species. Even some nearby parks, such as the East Bay Regional Parks in the Bay Area, provide sanctuary for species, including mushrooms. Many park policies--especially in urban areas where there is a high human density--prefer that people stay on the trails and not trample sensitive habitats. Underground mushroom mycelium will reproduce, but not if the soil is overly flattened by too many feet.

In the shadow of Euel Gibbons [“Stalking the Wild Asparagus”], there is a fleet of modern foragers, which is a pathway to nature interpretation and a heightened understanding of the environment--if not carried to extremes. There just is not enough “wild” to feed an army of foragers, but sampling the plant kingdom to know the virtues of edible species—and the viciousness of villainous species--is a boon to nature study.

“Good food for free has been the holy grail of foragers since our ancestors climbed down from the trees.”--Tristram Stuart

“Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mold myself?”

--Henry David Thoreau