Pedro

Notes from Pedro about Foraging:

Phoebe: And plants like pennyroyal, asparagus, and mushrooms rely on the spring rainfall?

Pedro: Generally we’re having less humid years (rainfall above average) and a dry season that tends to start earlier and end later within the hydrological year.

In the last decades Portugal has been investing a lot of public money on the (re)industrialization of the food system. As a consequence we’ve increased cattle and pig production mainly through factory-farming and overgrazing of pastures, which increased dependence on feed (made with import soy, colza and corn mostly). Lack of rainfall leading to under-productive pastures also lead to more need for external feed inputs.

Industrialization also means integration with markets and common regulation: snales were mostly hand-picked for free and then sold and eaten locally, but sanitary regulation impose pickers to be registered and to have a license and cheap products from other markets flood the purchase possibilities. There’s also the enclosure of rural areas and the risks associated with contamination, both affecting the picking of snales.

Lists of foraging herbs and food shared by Pedro and Ana Carla [direct motes]

Tengarrenha - Cangarrinha

Acelgas- Swiss chard

Beta vulgaris var. cicla

Beldroegas- portulacs oleráes

Asparagus

Mushroom

Snail 🐌

Cardoon : A purple plant use as the “glue” for cheese

Eat as Artichoke

The cardoon (Cynara cardunculus), also called the artichoke thistle, cardone, cardoni or cardi, is a member of the thistle family related to the Globe artichoke.

Blackberries : July

Foraging: Figs in Alentejo

Onagra

Mint

Lavender

Borragem: Borage ( Borago officinalis ), also spelled Boretsch , also known as cucumber herb [1] or Kukumerkraut , is a plant belonging to the borage family

Sage

Super intensive olive farms regularly remove the “excessive” weed between the trees and apply herbicide to maximum the irrigation rate for the olives. The bare soil here is the testimony from the land which to a large extent accelerated the water evaporation and the soil erosion.

Snail/Caracois

Snail cooked with oregano and other aromatic herbs is one of the local popular food during the summer. Usually the snails can be found between weeds and herbs.

During the visit, a local grilled sardine restaurant owner share with us the new collected snails are from Morocco.