Raw
Many of the edibles are ready to eat when detached from the ground. Wild mustard and dandelion greens, wild garlic and onions, wild sunflowers, chicory and periwinkle blue weed make fine spring salad greens. Purslane, which goes well in granola and can be ground into flour, and green amaranth can also be eaten raw, and many berries, like sweet red and black raspberries, blackberries, mulberries, apples, plums and European barberries are great snacks as well as additions to salads. The savory tubers, stems, buds, flowers and leaves of day lilies are all edible.
Cooked
The young shoots of pokeweed, the pods of milkweeds and even Japanese knotweed, available in spring and early summer, can be steamed or sautéed. The big, sweet, crisp runners that branch out from the bases of Jerusalem artichokes in autumn or the tubers from the roots of arrowhead (duck potatoes) can be roasted or boiled, and pies can be made from strawberry knotweed. The hearts of the stalks of cattails, if picked in spring, may be cooked like zucchini. The roots of burdock, a rhubarb look-alike, taste like artichokes. Bright orange chanterelle mushrooms make tasty pies.
Soups
Nettle soup, made from young shoots and leaves that are also candidates for steaming or tea-making, is a staple of wild plant gatherers, and the leaves and flowers of clover-like sorrel plant makes a lemony soup. Sassafras is also used for soups.
Beverages
Nutritious, vitamin-rich teas can be prepared from rosa rugosa rose hips, coltsfoot plants or wintergreen. Periwinkle blue weed or roasted and ground chicory are caffeine-free coffee substitutes. When staghorn sumac berries ripen, a drink that resembles pink lemonade can be made from them.
Candy
Parts of sweetgum, wrinkled rose, white pin and shagbark hickory can be sweetened and made in to candy.
