Year of Plenty: Traditional Foodways
Helping you become more resilient through food. We are more disconnected from our food and drink than ever before! Generational cooking skills and food traditions are slowly withering away, and many of us have no idea where our food is coming from. We explore topics such as food resilience, nutrition, hunting, foraging, homesteading, regenerative farming, and more. Gather around our table and learn how to take control of your food supply chain and fuel yourself with nutrient-dense food.
Year of Plenty: Traditional Foodways
Forgotten Staples: Foraging Wild Plums & American Lotus with Feral Foraging
This episode is a conversation with Jesse from Feral Foraging about two of North America’s most overlooked wild foods — Wild Plums and American Lotus. Jesse is a skilled forager and educator who shares practical tips on plant identification, wild tending, and cooking with these forgotten staples. His work blends deep ecological knowledge with hands-on techniques that help people connect to their food in a meaningful way.
Episode Overview:
- Jesse’s background and the mission behind Feral Foraging
- The Gather Foraging App — features for plant ID, seasonal timing & lookalikes
- Wild Plum species in North America (American, Chickasaw, Mexican, Pacific, Canada plums)
- How to identify wild plums vs. Bradford pear or crabapple
- Why wild plums are disappearing (invasive species, habitat loss, fire suppression)
- Tips for scouting wild plums in bloom, best harvesting techniques, and seasonal timing
- Wild plum flavor profile, traditional uses, and recipes (jam, wine, sauces, fruit leather)
- American Lotus basics — how it compares to Asian lotus and its overlooked history
- Foraging lotus seeds and tubers: canoe gathering, wading, and digging in mud
- Lotus recipes & nutrition: porridge, bread, flour alternatives, and long-term seed storage
- Why American Lotus and Wild Plums are still worth foraging today for resilience and food culture
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https://www.youtube.com/live/pU2202bP58Q?si=o5_hNZ6Bq7UCNA2k
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