What I learned foraging for goutweed and goosetongue

The Barking Kettle isn't your average operation.

The foraging operation is run by Shawn Dawson, who searches for greens, mushrooms and other edibles in the woods all over the province. He then sells his fares to restaurants in and around St. John's.

He gets by with a little help from his friend, a handsome orange cat named Douglas Fir.

My foray into foraging with the Barking Kettle first took me to a quiet, serene brook in St. Philip's, just outside St. John's. Douglas gracefully frolicked brookside as Shawn foraged in the gently rippling stream.

I just about went tail over kettle into it.

We were there for river mint, which dotted this beautiful brook. Turns out that it's an invasive species, albeit a delicious one.

People think I'm crazy when I bring stuff like this. They say, 'Sure, that's in my backyard, b'y!- Shawn Dawson

If you get a mojito downtown, chances are it will be garnished with watermint supplied by Dawson and Fir.

We went from the brook to some nearby cliffs, hunting for hop shoots.

I was struck by the old foundations of a house or two on the way up. The settlers who lived there long ago are probably the reason the hops are there.

Settlers planted them for baking purposes. If you find old rock foundations, there's a good chance there will be hops nearby.

Dawson recommends pickling hop shoots, or frying them in some butter.

The initial patch of hops was minuscule. I thought we would be out of there in a flash.

But the hops just kept shooting up the cliffside. Wherever the hops snaked upwards, we followed in hot pursuit. Soon, we had a bucketful.

Heavy breathing followed.

The thing that struck me the most was just how many types of edible greens there are here. We'd stop to forage for one kind of edible, and before I knew it we were stumbling upon others.

With our province searching for ways to double food production on the island from 10 per cent to 20 per cent, there could be solutions right under our feet.

I learned that one of the most notorious weeds in the West, the Japanese knotweed (or Newfie bamboo) is apparently a gorgeous pairing with pork, with a similar taste profile to rhubarb.

You just have to get to the shoot early, when it's pink, and about 15 centimetres tall.

The crop was young and there wasn't much of it, or else I would have made off with it like a bandit into the night.

One of the coolest finds was discovering stonecrop, or sedum.

It's a regular crop for Dawson, which he brings to the St. John's Farmers' Market.

"People think I'm crazy when I bring stuff like this. They say, 'Sure, that's in my backyard, b'y!'" Dawson said.

Snacking as you go

Typically grown as an ornamental plant, it has a cool, cucumber-like taste with a satisfying crunch.

Given all of the recent recalls surrounding lettuce, I've been searching for alternatives. In stonecrop, I think I've found one. Sedum Caesar salad, perhaps?

As we took a wee break gazing out over the bay, Dawson said the best part of foraging is snacking as you go.

"Absolutely," I incoherently mumbled with a mouthful of stonecrop.

I learned about all sorts of edibles — chickweed, fireweed, the tragically named goutweed and goosetongue, to name a few.

One of our favourites was sea rocket, a beach green. It tastes like Dijon mustard, with a spicy, wasabi-like finish.

The crop was young and there wasn't much of it, or else I would have made off with it like a bandit into the night.

Feast for us — and for the flies

The only downside of the day was that while we were gorging on greens, flies feasted on us.

The day ended with us cooking up our haul on a beach in Mobile.

For protein, we cooked up a can of moose masala, spiced up with some scrounged spruce tips and scotch lovage.

For a side dish, we steamed some beach greens, mostly plucked about 30 feet from our fire.

We had dandelion buds, oyster leaf (a salty, oyster-like green), goosetongue and some pan-fried fireweed, dished up on a rock plate.

 Bon appetit! 

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