When we think about where our food comes from, we often picture farmers on tractors, sweet-faced dairy cows, and well-tended fields of crops shining in the summer sun. But many bountiful and nutritionally rich sources of food exist in the wild.
A new CALS project led by senior extension associate Keith Tidball, associate professor of natural resources Paul Curtis, and Moira Tidball, a nutrition resource educator with Cornell Cooperative Extension aims to broaden the public perception of the value of wild foodstuffs by analyzing the nutritional content of New York’s wild game and fish, which often contain less fat and a higher mineral content than farm raised equivalents. The information collected is being submitted to the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, filling a large gap in the nutritional data on the state’s wild foodstuffs.
By highlighting the value of the wild as a viable and nutritious source of food, the team hopes to spur a greater public awareness of the environment and the importance of conservation. To this same end, partners Moira and Keith Tidball have also started the Wild Harvest Table blog, which serves as an excellent online resource for area locavores seeking to make the most of the wild bounty available in the Finger Lakes region. The blog boasts recipes, information on cleaning and preparing game for cooking, updates on area hunting and fishing seasons, and many other informational resources for those seeking to fill their plates in the wilderness.
Elsewhere in CALS, a series of work parties aimed at educating the public on the wide variety of food crops that can be cultivated in the forest are being offered at the MacDaniels Nut Grove, a forest farming and agroforestry research and education center located in Cornell Plantations. According to Steve Gabriel, extension aide in the Department of Horticulture, the site boasts demonstrations of a wide range of crops that can be grown in the forest, including mushrooms, wild leeks, ginseng, ornamental plants, nuts, and fruits like Paw Paw. The work parties will engage participants in a range of infrastructure and site improvements, including projects involving trail work, planting, mulching, mushroom inoculation, and more.
