By STEPHANIE PRIMA-SARANTOPULOS
Special to The Journal
Most of us enjoy looking at beautiful forests and lovely fields of wildflowers, but island-bred Ryan Browne views them with a keen eye — not for their beauty, but for the bounty they yield.
Ryan is a forager, someone who goes out and searches for provisions — whether they be for food, medicine, soaps, cosmetics, tools or shelter. Where you and I might look out our backyard and see weeds, Ryan sees remarkably abundant gifts of nature.
“The dandelion is the poster child for edible weeds” he remarks. The flower can be breaded and sautéed as fritters; the leaves make good salad greens; even the roots are edible.
Miner’s lettuce, also known as Siberian lettuce, Winter Purslane (Summer Purslane is a different plant), and Spring Beauty are also excellent-tasting common backyard weeds. Even Nettles — those pesky plants that have stung most of us — have highly nutritional flower heads and tasty leaves.
Glasswort, so abundant on the mud flats near Jakle’s Lagoon, is another interesting edible. Though not an aquatic plant, it’s a perennial that tolerates lots of salt water; most people just walk over this spindly, cactus-looking greenish-brown mat, oblivious to its value. In Europe, its ashes were used making soda-based (as opposed to potash-based) glass. And it can be used in soap-making. For Ryan, it’s a good side for dinner, tasting something like a seasoned Heart of Lettuce.
Growing up on San Juan Island, Ryan was always interested in foraging, but delved deeper into it while studying marine biology in Santa Barbara, Calif., and through a travel/study program in Napa. He came home with an even greater commitment to utilizing the natural resources of the island while still mindful of protecting the ecosystem by not taking too much. He’s delved into the history of the island, learning what both the Native Americans and the Europeans did with the plants that grew here.
On a recent short walk with Ryan, he stopped not 10 yards into our walk to point out Mullein, a fuzzy, cornstalk-looking plant that makes great tea. In fact, almost everything we passed on our short walk was edible or had other uses; he even plucked a super-soft, deliciously green-scented leaf from the Thimbleberry — a good substitute for toilet paper when you’re out in the wild!
Of course, anyone spending a year in Napa has got to learn something about wine-making, and Ryan is no exception. As a hobby he makes his own style of “wild wines” — Salmonberry, Yellow Plum, Blackberry. The wines are dry, not sweet.
He does “natural building” by trade, often picking wild plants to use when constructing “cob” bricks, the English/European version of adobe. Enjoying the free-flowing art of earthen buildings and fences, he finds the materials particularly useful as garden fences to retain heat around delicate plants and trees.
Ryan believes in empowerment through education and would like all islanders to get excited about the bounty here, and to be able to harvest from their own back yards. Those who would like to learn more can reach him at ryanjamesbrowne@gmail.com (address printed with permission).
— Prima-Sarantopulos is a writer. She is marketing director for two local B&Bs and a restaurant.
