Grocery stores, food trailers, restaurants, delivery services, and farmers markets all make accessing food easy for most of us but finding and harvesting food in the wild is its own special thrill. Hunters would certainly agree. But what’s out there for the gatherers?
Texas wild rice is a rare clumping perennial grass that roots underwater in riverbeds. More specifically, it’s found near the headwaters of the San Marcos River. Nearly extinct in 1967, the endangered grass was able to survive and, as recently reported, has flourished during the past year as the pandemic kept many people from tubing the river. While Texas wild rice is endangered, and has notably limited range, other wild Texas edibles are abundant throughout the state. Grab your baskets (and bug spray) gatherers, the Lone Star State is ripe for the picking.
Agarita
Few smells say “spring in Texas” like the delicate but sweetly distinctive aroma of agarita blooms. The petite yellow flowers appear on the rounded, stickery shrub found in the western half of Texas as precursors to agarita fruit. The bright red berries attract birds, small mammals, and people who like a tasty jelly and are prepared for a berry-harvesting challenge thanks to the shrub’s thorny leaves. Wearing protective gloves, most harvest agarita berries by laying a sheet on the ground and beating the shrub with a broom, allowing the berries to fall onto the sheet where they can be easily bundled up and carried away. The sweet-tart berries can be eaten raw but are most commonly used for jellies. The truly ambitious can roast and grind the berries’ seeds for a sort of Texas tea. As an additional point of interest, agarita’s inner wood is a deep yellow thanks to berberine, an anti-viral and anti-bacterial compound. For much more, check out Texas Butterfly Ranch’s ode to the agarita, “From Seed to Harvest, Ornery Agarita a Challenge, But Worth It.”
Amaranth
Less charitably known as pigweed, varieties of amaranth can be found across Texas. These wild plants vary in color, leaf shape, height, and more but their common characteristic is the clusters of tiny blooms that cling to the plants in spikes. Each amaranth plant can produce hundreds or even thousands of small, seed-like fruits called achenes. For anyone who has battled an amaranth takeover in vegetable patches or landscaping, it can be hard to see this positive in this prolific plant but amaranth is considered a nutritional plant thanks to both its seeds and leaves. As noted by The Kitchn: “Like quinoa, amaranth is an ancient, protein-packed seed. The tiny poppy seed-size ‘grain’ was a staple of the Aztecs and Mayans.” The leaves are described as “spinach-like.” For much more on the historical culinary use of amaranth, Texas Beyond History is loaded with seeds of information .
Dewberries
Although frequently compared to blackberries, dewberries have their own distinctive color and flavor—ask anyone who’s had dewberry cobbler or jam. Found throughout central and east Texas, this native perennial “is distinguishable by its red, glandular-tipped bristles along the stem along with recurved prickles. It is a low growing, thicket-forming shrub that can reproduce by seed and from roots as well as by daughter plants when the end of a stem reaches the soil.” (Plants of Texas Rangelands) Beginning in late spring, dewberries produce white blossoms that rival any wildflower in beauty. The blossoms eventually become berries that are a deep, almost black magenta. Dewberry foraging entails encounters with painful vines and the occasional snake, but, for many, dewberry season is a joy-inducing time of year second only to the holiday season. Read more in “Texas Dewberries Have a Short Season.”
Grapes
Texas is home to several wild native grapes including mustang, muscadine, and summer grapes. Most of us are most familiar with mustang grapes, or certainly their vines, frequently seen mounded on barbed wire fences along roads in the eastern half of Texas, ranging from Houston to Dallas to Austin, or winding their way up a live oaks. Mustang grapes ripen in mid-July and August as dark purple fruit with thick, tough skin and a tart, acidic interior. Although not advisable to eat raw because they are so acidic, mustang grapes are known to make a fine jelly and (maybe not quite fine) wine. Perhaps less commonly known, mustang grapes, picked before they’ve ripened, can be brined to make “poor man’s olives.” For jelly and juice making, check out the SchneiderPeeps blog and for those mustang grape “olives,” Neil Sperry has simple instructions here. Note: Due to the fruit’s acid, gloves are recommended when picking to avoid skin irritation.
Pennsylvania cucumber
What is Pennsylvania cucumber doing on a blog about Texas? Despite the name, Parietaria pensylvanica is native to Texas and, when exploring your property with friends, if you happen to spot this flowering plant in the nettle family, also known as cucumber weed, you can have a fun bit of taste and tell. Although not a cucumber, cucumber weed has a distinct cucumber flavor, a refreshing addition to salads. For details on how to identify cucumber weed—and avoid potentially toxic lookalikes—check out information from Foraging Texas.
Texas persimmon
The Texas persimmon is found mainly in Central and Southern Texas. This “gnarled, grey shrub with grey, peeling bark” similar to a crape myrtle prefers partial shade and rarely grows over eight feet tall; it’s often found thriving under live oaks. The Texas persimmon requires both male and female trees to be present for the female tree to produce fruit. When the persimmon fruit fully deepens to a black-purple color it is edible not only for wildlife, but humans as well. Despite being full of seeds, for those with patience, the sweet persimmon flesh makes for a tasty jelly. Learn more about the Texas persimmon from the Native Plant Society of Texas.
Prickly pear
On May 25, 1995, the prickly pear cactus, Opuntia ficus-indica, was designated the official state plant of Texas. As declared by the legislature: “Rugged, versatile, and beautiful, the prickly pear cactus has made numerous contributions to the landscape, cuisine, and character of the Lone Star State, and its unusual status as both a vegetable and a fruit make it singularly qualified to represent the indomitable and unique Texas spirit as an official state symbol.” Although the state plant, the prickly pear is more common in the drier areas of south and central Texas. If you’ve never indulged in this particular “vegetable and a fruit” perhaps it’s been the threat of being impaled by thousands of tiny needles that’s kept you away. But, if you have the fortitude and the preparation skills, these sweet, juicy treats will be ready for harvest in the hot summer months. The flesh of the dark pink tunas is delicious raw or juiced. The juice can be made into a jelly or a syrup (anyone for a prickly pear margarita?). Be sure to use care (and heavy duty gloves) when harvesting prickly pear tunas. Even the spineless prickly pear cactus have painful glochids that are hard to see and even harder to remove. For more on how to cut and prepare prickly pear tunas, visit Simply Recipes. And, for those wondering, tuna appears to have evolved from Opuntia.
Photo by Frankie Lopez on Unsplash
