Wildman Trip

This was my first encounter with source of food in Central Park. Normally, I would have walked right past this, thinking it was a weed. However once I tasted this, my mind was suddenly opened. It had such a unique flavor of: lettuce-like, then minty, then spicy, that I was then looking out for whatever else could be ingested as food. I also noticed that there weren't much of this particular plant, which I would guess is why this is not as common as all the other vegetables we see in supermarkets. It was scattered around one plot of field, indicating that it does not have a high yield. Therefore it would not be as profitable for farmers to produce.



These were the leaves that could be used as tea leaves. Judging from first impressions, this plant seems like it is a tree. However Wildman Steve immediately clarified that it does have a truck. Therefore it was not a tree ("nor an elephant"). When I got home, I tried to make tea by using 10 of these leaves. It's flavor wasn't something that I was quite familiar with, and I would not necessarily crave for it. Now that I've become aware of this (after many years of predominately eating familiar foods), I was wondering whether or not corn has something to do with this. According to Michael Pollan, every complex food in our culture can be broken down to one ingredient: corn. So many all of the foods we purchase in supermarkets and restaurants are foods we like because it has that slight familiar taste of corn.


This was one of the plants that I did not want to be involved with, because next to it was another plant named "white snake," which was lethal to eat. I would say that this is the complete opposite of American food, simply because of its inconvenience. First, this plant needs to ripe at certain time of the year, otherwise it would not be tasty at all. Second, it was the next to the "white snake." A person would need to be well-educated about all sorts of plants, before they would attempt to walk around Central Park, picking out foods. Of course, this can be easily solved by reading a few books. Although that is the case, it is not quite easier than to just walk into a supermarket and reading the labels.


This was another plant that was dangerous. Wildman Steve told us that there are three ways you can die from this particular plant. And those are: if you eat the wrong part, if you cook it the wrong way, or if you pick it at the wrong time of the year. In a way, this plant demonstrates a benefit of industrialization. When people go to supermarkets to purchase their foods, they hardly have to worry about dying from the foods they are about to pay for. On the other hand, these foods are still killing us; just that it is not an immediate result.
This plant was also the plant that one of the other people climbed over the fence to pick. It just happened that a park ranger was driving by and saw her. The ranger then told her to discontinue this natural collection of food, because food can only be supplied by artificial buildings with artificial stuff in it.