Fun FORAGING Free Food!

Lincoln City, Oregon

I attended an amazing Wild Food Adventures workshop late July.  

Sea Vegetables of the Pacific Coast by John Kallas, PhD.  

The setting was Lincoln City, Oregon.  

  Exposed rocks are normally many feet under water!

Sub-low tide was at 8am but I awoke early and hit the beach at 5:30am!    The beach was deserted.

Starfish and sea anemones were everywhere!

It was wonderful, exhilarating and fun to explore the tide pools, see the HUGE mussles & barnacles, to watch the seagulls eat crustaceans, the starfish eat mussels and smell the clean ocean air.    

Mussels were almost as big as my shoes!  Large mussels are as tender as little ones.  We could gather 75 but all I could carry in my 5 gallon bucket was 15!  They were SO huge and heavy.... I later cooked them on the BBQ.

At 8am John Kallas led our group to a northern more remote area. He had us taste,evaluate & gather many edible seaweeds. We found nori and kombu.  John showed us a poisonous seaweed which contained traces of Sulfuric Acid. Seaweed poisonous? What an eyeopener.   

John Kallas, wearing the brown hat, talks to us during our lunch break.

  I had bought a shellfish permit, tough gloves and a 5 gallon bucket so I was able to gather mussels.  At home I rinsed and dried the gathered seaweed to preserve it for future use.

Dried seaweed with ebi.

Dried seaweed.

I was quite impressed with John's teaching style and expertize in edible wild plants.  I plan to attend more of his plant foraging workshops.

Check out his website and book for more information.

It's hard to starve in the NW if you know what edibles may be gathered off the land. 
Anne


Below is a video of my early morning low tide experience!
Anne at Lincoln City, OR low tide