Caleb

Caleb
The Man, the Myth, the.. consumer of wild things

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

An incomplete non-animal food list of the Ojibway People

This is an incomplete list of non-animal based food sources used amongst the Indigenous people known collectively as the Ojibway/Ojibwa/Ojibwe/Chippewa, or as we prefer to be called, Anishnaubeg. I have divded it into two sections; Plant, and Fungi. Though lichens are not exactly a fungi, I have included them in the Fungi section, as they are more related than plants.

This is incomplete, as my research has not lead to other plants definitively being use. As well, though there are many many more plants that could be listed as edible on this list (plantain, dandelion, etc), they were not native in pre-columban times. You may notice that the Fungi list is short. This is due to two reasons;

a) I do not have a strong experience with fungi. I learn what I can, but the list is short, because my experience is small.

b) many of the fungi in North America were used more for their medicinal and "magical" properties rather than their edible properties. For example, Miskwedo, a medicine used by our Midewiwin and other medicine people, has been identified as the Fly Agaric Mushroom (Amanita muscaria). This was a very potent medicine, used to receive visions (aka a Halucinogen). The Amanita family is full of very very deadly mushrooms, and should be studied with due caution.

I will include scientific names. Each of these food sources should be researched heavily prior to consuming, as certain ones are toxic unless prepared properly (such as acorns or Jack-in-the-Pulpit), or are toxic unless harvested in the right season (such as Mayapple). Though I do love the taste of mayapples, I cannot stress this enough: The fully ripe fruit is the only safe part. The unripe fruit was used by my ancestors to commit suicide. So be wary of all new food sources until studied fully. Anything with "*" beside it should be researched heavily prior to consumption.

Plant
*Acorns from Black, Red and White oaks (Nutmeat)
American chestnut (Nutmeat)
Arrowhead (Tuber)
Aspen (Cambium)
Beans (Fruit)
Bearberry (Fruit and leaves)
Birch (bark, cambium and sap)
Blackberry (fruit and leaves)
Blueberry (fruit and leaves)
Box elder (Cambium and sap)
Cactus, prickly-pear (pads)
Cattail (rhizomes, shoots, unripe seedhead, pollen)
Cherry, black (fruit) 
*Chokecherries (fruit)
*Cowparsnip
*Cowslip
Cranberry, highbush
Dropseed grasses (many varieties of Tallgrass prairie and Black oak savanna grass seeds have been found cooked and consumed, as well as the shoots)
*Elderberries (Ripe fruit)
Fern, Ostrich (fiddleheads)
Gooseberry (fruit)
Hawthorne (fruit becomes its' own preservant)
Hickory (nutmeat)
Horsemint (leaves)
*Jack-in-the-pulpit (tuber)
Juniper (fruit)
Labrador tea (leaves)
Lamb's quarters (leaves)
Leeks (Tubers, leaves and blossoms)
Lily, Trout and Wood (Tubers)
Lily, White water (Tubers)
Lily, Yellow Pond (Tubers)
*Locust (blossoms)
Maize (kernals)
Maple (Cambium and sap)
*Mayappe (Ripe fruit)
*Milkweed, common and swamp (shoots and pods)
Mint (Leaves)
Mulberry (Fruit)
Partridgeberry (Fruit)
Pumpkin (Fruit)
Raspberry, Purple-flowering, red common (Fruit)
*Solomon's seal, False (shoots)
*Solomon's seal, true (roots)
Strawberry, woods (fruit and leaves)
Strawberry-blite (whole plant, but especially the fruit-like flower)
Sunchoke, aka Jerusalum artichoke (tubers)
Squash (fruit)
Sweetgale (seeds/nutlet)
Sweet-fern (leaves)
Sweetflag (rhizome)
Thistle, Canada (inner stalk)
Wild Rice (seeds)
Yucca (flowers)

Fungi 
Chaga 
Morrels
Moss, Reindeer 
Old Man's Beard
Turkey-tail
Tripe, Rock
Puffball, Giant

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