With some learning, more local plants are edible than you think

It’s a late summer morning at the Frick Environmental Center, and the cicadas are making themselves known along with a chorus of birds.

Entering the From Slavery to Freedom Garden — a collaborative project between the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy and the Heinz History Center, showcasing plants used for food and medicine by freedom seekers in the antebellum Allegheny region — is like putting a soft box on the sound. Sprawling rose bushes and a stand of senna taller than a person muffle the morning chorus and filter the sun’s low light through petals, leaves and long, dangling pea pods. These plants, along with many other native edibles and medicinals ringing the perimeter of the garden, are what we are here to see.

Foraging, cultivating and eating native plants has become a growing pastime in recent years, driven by factors like culinary trends and concern over climate change and loss of pollinator and animal habitats. Starting out can be intimidating, with lack of access to wild spaces or the necessary plant knowledge presenting obstacles to newly minted native plant enthusiasts. But native plants strengthen and support the local ecosystem and can enrich the environment as well as the palate.

According to Brandon McCracken, Senior Manager of Ecological Restoration at the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, starting can be as simple as examining your own backyard.

“One of my favorites are violets,” he tells Pittsburgh City Paper, crouching beside a bed of the common blue violets’ heart-shaped leaves. “They are just so inconspicuous, and most people have them popping up in their lawns and stuff. You can pluck these [leaves]… they are just a tasty salad green, like a spinach or something. And then the flowers! They are also edible. You can pluck the whole thing, add them onto salads as a little garnish to add some color.” The leaves, he mentions, are best when younger, as they are more tender.

Other native edible plants are hiding in plain sight, disguised as ornamentals. Kimberly Bracken, Program Manager at the Giving Grove, is fond of the serviceberry. These trees can be spotted all over town, often used as a landscaping tree because of its beautiful white flowers, low maintenance care and attractiveness to birds.

“I still meet people who have never even heard of it, and it’s my favorite berry, hands down,” Bracken enthuses. “They taste like fruit punch; the seeds taste like almonds.”

Bracken forages these berries all over town. “They are all along the North Shore by the stadium. There’s some serviceberries on Federal Street. There’s serviceberries right off 51st Street, right off Butler.”

However, these berries are not always safe to eat. Wet springs can lead to fungal growth on these fruits, so those curious to try this native edible should seek the help of someone more experienced, or even try growing this and other native edibles themselves. As part of their efforts to shore up food security in the community, The Giving Grove will be giving away backyard fruit trees — both natives and cultivars — starting this fall.

For those not ready to take on the planting and care of their own native edibles, there are a number of local landscaping businesses that focus partially or entirely on creating native plant gardens for their clients. GaiaScapes (which was recently featured in City Paper’s “law(n)breakers” story) and May Apple Ecological Gardening and Design are two of the local landscaping companies emphasizing native plants.

May Apple’s Meg Graham has seen a surge of interest in native plants, both edible and not, since founding her business in 2014.

“I think definitely the restaurant foodie movement has gotten people more excited about going out and finding these things they’re eating on their dinner plate,” she says.

Safely adding native edibles to your culinary routine is a matter of more than just being able to find or grow them, however. Elderberries, for example, are toxic to humans when consumed raw, as is one of Graham’s favorite native edibles — milkweed.

While milkweed sap is toxic in its raw form, Graham mentions that it can be used as a broccoli substitute, harvested just before its flowers bud, and sautéed. Milkweed is the host plant for monarch caterpillars and the only host plant of this species, so eating it, as Graham notes, is a way “to break bread with a butterfly.”

If you don’t have a space to grow your own native plants, farmers markets can also be a good option for finding some of these edible natives. Those in Swissvale and Sewickley (Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2p.m. and 9 a.m. to 1p.m., respectively), according to Graham, are “great for native plant vendors.”

No matter where you start, purchasing and growing native edibles is an increasingly accessible way to broaden your palate while fortifying the local ecosystem. Western PA offers a rich selection of native edibles to try and Pittsburgh boasts an equally rich field of options for how to access these plants and the knowledge to use them.

“Overall, this kind of knowledge is super freeing and empowering for anyone,” McCracken says. “All that’s needed is making those connections. Being with other people is so important to developing that confidence.”