The golden rule: positive identification

Every forager follows one rule above all: never eat anything you have not identified with complete certainty. Not “pretty sure.” Not “it looks like the picture.” Certain.

How to be certain

• Check every feature, not just one: leaves (shape, edges, arrangement), stems (round, square, hollow, hairy), flowers, smell, sap, root, habitat and season. For mushrooms: cap, gills or pores, stem, ring, base, spore print and what it grows on.
• Use two or three good regional field guides and make sure every feature matches.
• Learn from people. Local foraging walks, extension programs and mushroom clubs are the best teachers.
• Treat apps as a hint, never as the final word.
• Know the look-alikes for everything you gather, and why yours is not one of them.

Start with the easy ones

Begin with foods that have few or no dangerous look-alikes where you live — blackberries and raspberries, dandelion, wild violets, black walnuts, persimmons. Add one new species at a time, learning it through every season.

When in doubt, throw it out.

Try it: read the look-alike warnings in the free seasonal foraging guide on Bluff Haven Farm before your next walk.