Langdon Cook's Blog, page 14

Mushroom Hunting in China and Eastern Tibet

I met a self-proclaimed globetrotter at a barbecue the other day who told me that in a lifetime of traveling he'd never been to the Far East. That's funny, I said to him, because I just got back from China. He wasn't impressed. "The Chinese can have it," he said sourly. "It's their century anyway."

The old codger may be right about the 21st century being stamped with Chinese characters, though

Wild Salsify

Foraging is not as foolproof as the blogosphere would sometimes have us believe, even when you have a solid handle on plant ID, habitat, and season. It's not like browsing one's way through wood and dale.



Take, for instance, this wild salsify I picked in Montana back in June. I figured I had the makings of an excellent side dish. I'd been meaning to try wild salsify for years, and here was a

Dock Dolmas

Have you ever thought about making your own dolmas, those miraculous pouches of gustatory goodness? Most of us get our dolmas the easy way—from our local Greek deli. The concept is simple enough on its face: grape leaves stuffed with rice, fresh herbs, spices, maybe some chopped nuts or fruit, sometimes meat. But, like Chinese dumplings or ravioli, unless you plan to make a large quantity, it

Save Bristol Bay

Now is the time to stand up for salmon, grizzly bears, the 10,000-year-old cultures of Native Alaskans, and one of North America's signature ecosystems.

Please, if you enjoy this blog and what it means to savor our wild places, take a moment to add your name to the many who are trying to save Bristol Bay and stop Pebble Mine.

The proposed mine would be in the headwaters of the greatest

Dept. of Horn-tooting

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of introducing national NPR correspondent Martin Kaste to the woods—and all the possibilities for nourishment that await within. The segment was part of a week-long series devoted to "West Coast Innovators."Short radio interviews can be tricky, but I think Martin did an excellent job of capturing the many levels of awareness that go into foraging, from the

Strawberry Shortcake with Elderflower Whipped Cream

These jaunty Independence Day colors seem appropriate for a July Fourth post—with a dash of green added to the red, white, and blue because we all know that true patriots are environmentalists trying to conserve the nation's resources and wild places. Right?



The strawberries came from our garden, and Martha made the drop biscuits. My contribution was the elderflower bouquet. Though I picked

Spring Kings: Another Season, Another Lesson

It's getting a little late in the season to talk about spring kings, but it seems that every year I learn a little bit more about these tantalizing members of the bolete family that are so emblematic of the Kingdom of Fungi in general. For instance, even though it only received species designation in 2008, Boletus rex-veris has been picked and eaten by Italian-Americans for a hundred years.

Porcini Bap

In 1998 I spent six months working in the UK. Martha and I lived in a flat in the dingy London suburb Slough (rhymes with cow) made famous by The Office (and, before that, by the poet laureate John Betjeman). Friends pitied us for our diet of English food, imagining slabs of gray, overcooked meat, soggy fish 'n' chips, and vegetables boiled into limp submission.

But those in the know, such as

Thick and Creamy New England Clam Chowder

Razor clams and butter clams—large, meaty, and loaded with bivalve flavor—are the chowder clams of choice on the West Coast (though geoduck makes a good chowder, as does the horse clam). Occasionally you find a softshell clam while digging other species, the sort of clam with a wrinkly black sheath over the siphon and a brittle shell. These are similar to the "steamer clams" of the East Coast

Coral Mushroom Tempura

They look like something from the deep, or even outer space. Coral mushrooms, also called deer antlers or doghair, are a family (Clavariaceae) of multi-colored fungi that resemble the sort of undersea coral you might find while snorkeling in warm equatorial waters. There are many species across North America, and they can grow quite large.


I've been reluctant to post about coral mushrooms for