Thimbleberry

We have a rather sticky-ly thorny bush here that grows in patches on my homestead place. I've known it as thimbleberry since moving here. Just recently I had a mainland visitor who informed me that the leaf was quite different from the thimbleberry he was familiar with, so I had to go look it up. And he was right! Turns out that his homeland thimbleberry is a kissin' cousin to mine. His has the scientific name Rufus parviflorus while mine is Rufus rosifolius. The leaf shape is the most apparent difference I first noticed. The Hawaiian thimbleberry leaf looks more like a rose bush. 

Right now the thimbleberries are flowering and creating little red berries the size of raspberries. When ripe, they are red. It's easy to know when they are ripe because they readily come right off the bush and look like little red thimbles. While edible, I find there taste to be insipid. (Hey, how often do you get to use that word!) In plainer words, they're flavorless. But if I wanted, I could surely eat them. The fruit production is sparse, so it would take a massive area of thimbleberry to produce enough fruit to make a cup of jam. But a small handful is do-able and would make a nice decorative statement in salad or atop a cake. 

My rabbits like to eat thimbleberry. They'll eat the entire bush except for the thickest stems, and those they will debark. So I allow thimbleberry to grow so as the be part of my rabbits' diet. 

I find thimbleberry to be an annoyance.......except for the rabbit forage part. It's very thorny. It creates a tangle. It spreads readily via underground shoots. It is difficult to remove by hand and grows back if you leave roots behind. 

For rabbit forage I allow it to grow about 2-3 foot high then snip it off at ground level, using a hand pruning shears  and then cut it into 12-18 inch long lengths. 

Lilokoi Harvest Time Again

I haven't gathered lilokoi yet this season, so I figured it was about time I go foraging. I don't need too much since I still have several pints still in the freezer, but lilokoi is a seasonal crop so I had better make sure that I have enough to last until next year. 

I have a favorite spot for collecting lilokoi. Lots of other people also collect from there but there is usually plenty to go around. Sadly some other locations that harbored lilokoi plants have been bulldozed or weedwacked, so there is a lot less opportunities for foraging. But with the rains and warmth this year, what vines still exist are producing loads of fruits. 

Snuffling around my favorite hunting grounds I noticed two things right off. Very few people are collecting lilokoi this year. There were plenty of fruits laying around. And none of the usual annual debris had been cleared away. Second, the fruits were very large. I suppose the weather is the reason for that. These are the biggest lilokoi I've ever gathered. 

I also came upon lots of beautiful fungus. I don't know what it is called but I think it is a type of shelf fungus. Quite colorful. 

I was surprised to find another type of lilokoi growing in this spot. For years I've been collecting the large bright yellow ones. But there is at least one vine producing the reddish type. Bingo! I like these reddish-purplish colored ones. Glad to get some. I'll have to go back again next week to see if there are more of these. These lilokoi have a very slightly different flavor. Perhaps a tad sweeter, or perhaps a bit less of a tart bite. 

Basically they look the same as the yellow ones, except for color that is. And I use them in recipes the same as the yellows. 

A couple of weeks ago at the last canine spay/neuter clinic I worked at I was given a recipe for lilokoi mousse. The stuff was delicious. But alas, I lost the recipe. Well not exactly lost lost. It's now a pulpy wad of ink tinged paper that I found in my shorts pocket after I did the laundry. Oops. Forgot to empty the pockets! I need to get that recipe again. It was so good that I'll post in on the blog for you. 

February Foraging

Thorough out the year I forage for wild foods, mostly fruits. Some are abandoned tres, but others are wild, having come up on their own. Every season has different fruits available. Right now it's persimmons, loquats, some citrus, plus some late guavas. 

The persimmon happens to be on my own property. A tree planted long ago which has produced dozens of keikis that are now producing fruit themselves. No one around here seems to know who planted the original tree. It's always been there, as far as people know. And every year people come to harvest the fruits. The trees produce hundreds of persimmons, so there's plenty to share. 

I've learned that you need to pick them just before they get ripe. Snagging them with a fruit picker is a challenge. Once you've got them, then you need to let them ripen. Eating them before they are mushy soft will pucker your mouth. Once ripe they are incredibly sweet. 

Loquats grow wild along my street. The wild ones are not as large and fleshy as the commercial varieties, but they are just as tasty. Most people don't bother with loquats, so I get to harvest as much as I want. Over the years I've pruned a number of the trees so that I can reach the fruits easier. A little pruning each year makes life easier. 

Citrus is generally a winter crop here, but not every citrus. But right now I'm harvesting oranges and lemons on my own farm, and limes for several friends' places. I just picked the last of the grapefruits from my own tree, but I know of other trees that are still producing. 

Then there are those bananas and papayas. They tend to produce year around although sometimes there are more to harvest than other times. I have several bunches of bananas almost ready to harvest. I'm just finishing up the last bunch. And while the papayas have slowed down, I'm still getting at least one a day. 

When it comes to bananas and papayas, for the past several years I've been planting them all around. Kind of like Johnny Appleseed. Today I planted three young banana trees along a road not far from me. Eventually they will produce and some lucky family will harvest fresh bananas. I see that some of the papayas are starting to produce and that people are collecting them. Good! So I'll start some more seed soon and plant more papaya trees along the back roads. Food for people to harvest. Yes! 

Lilikoi - A Successful Hunt and the Reward

These past few weeks I've been doing some foraging on my way home from town. Primary target....lilokoi, aka- passion fruit. I haven't bother to cultivate this fruit on my homestead because of the abundance in the general area. There are a number of lilokoi patches around. But I have noticed that some of the patches are considerably smaller. Die out from the drought? Not sure. The plants look healthy enough, but in some areas the old established vines are dead and dry.

This year there is a bit more competition for the fruits. I guess more people are discovering that foraging is socially acceptable. Or possibly it's because of all those lilokoi recipes handed out last year. Regardless, there seems to be more people stalking the wild lilokoi.

Washed and dry, ready to be processed into juice.

Already this year I've collected several 5 gallon buckets of fruits. That sounds like a lot, but lilokoi doesn't yield a lot of juice. Thus I'm still in the market for more. It's really easy to gather this fruit. When ripe, the fruit drops to the ground. Good thing, because the vines climb to the tops of trees. But just picking it up is a cinch.

Once home with my booty, I will wash the fruit in soapy bleach water, allowing it to soak for 10-15 minutes. Reason? The fruit was sitting on the ground. Slugs can carry nasty parasites and rats transmit leptospirosis around here. Besides washing the fruits as a safety precaution, I also wear gloves when I pick up these fruits.

Fruits cut in half and ready to have the pulp scooped out with a spoon. 

Once washed and rinsed, I let the fruits dry before cutting them. No health issues here other than trying to keep all my fingers intact. Wet lilokoi can be slippery. The rinds are tough. Combine those two features along with a sharp serrated knife, and I'm sure to slice my finger! The index finger on my left hand always cringes when my right hand holds a sharp knife. 

The inside of these lilokoi is full of seeds in a gelatinous fruit, usually orange or yellowish. Not a lot of juice but enough to be worth harvesting. Besides, the taste is wonderful.  

Pulp ready to be worked through the sieve. 

I use a spoon to scoop out the flesh into a sieve placed in a pot. Once I get a good amount of pulp, I simply work it with a wooden spoon. The marvelous juice collects in the pot. This is a very low tech method, but it works. 

Beautiful juice ready to jar up and store in the freezer. 

The juice looks just as pretty as it tastes. Au natural, it is tart, making it a good substitute for lemon. Lilokoi chicken. Lilokoi ice tea. Lilokoi meringue pie. But I use it to flavor sugar cane juice and smoothies.

Hunting for the Table

Hunting to supply meat for the table is common here and totally acceptable. Well, the animal rights folks and the vegans don't approve. Neither do the transplants from the mainland cities. But hunting is a long established tradition and is a very, very important source of nutrition for many families. 

While my husband and I do not actively hunt ourselves we take advantage of hunters. I've set up a bartering network with several hunters, trading my excess vegetables and eggs for their meat or fish. 

So what does one hunt in Hawaii? You'd be surprised. We have plenty of wild pigs, mouflon, and feral goats & cows. Turkeys, pheasants, and doves abound. There are so many that they are a nuisense to the non-hunters. Many property owners invite hunters and trappers to clear out their property from time to time. And of course, we have good fishing waters. Fishermen often have fresh caught ahi, ono, and opelu for sale. 

It is not uncommon to see mouflon and feral goats near our farm. And wild pigs actively live in the area, as do turkeys, pheasants, and doves. No problem finding game. In fact I currently have a wild sow living on the back of our 20 acres. Whenever her latest litter of piglets reach 8 weeks of age, we set up traps to capture them. It's a challenge since the sow is smart and avoids any trap that has caught her in the past. But for the past four years we've managed to outsmart her. I can't guarantee we'll continue to be successful. But we keep her bribed with culled fruit, roadkill, and moldy bread year around. So she tends to drop her guard. 

A number of my friends are hunters. So in the past few years I've eaten just about everything there is to hunt. I've been on hunts and althought I haven't been the one that makes the kill, I could if I had to. The thought of hunting turns some people off, I know, but if your family needs protein and can't afford to buy it, then hunting becomes a serious option. Plus in my area, if hunters don't take the game, then the Feds come in with helicopters and sharpshooters. They shoot the animals and just leave them to rot....and those are the lucky ones. Most are not killed outright, but linger to die a slow, painful, cruel death. I'd rather see local hunters take them. 

Food Foraging

Hunting/gathering is not an extinct art in my part of Hawaii. And it a skill I'd recommend for others wishing to become more self-reliant. But for a person raised in "proper society" like my husband, the thought of foraging....or even allowing his wife to forage, was unthinkable! Poor hubby had to make some serious changes in his outlook on life, because wifey decided to forage like so many of the locals do here. Over time he has at least resigned himself to the idea.

Fruits are the main target in my area. Many landowners ignore their fruit trees. It turns out that most are happy to have someone come weekly and  clean up their yard. But there is a bit of etiquette involved. Plus getting permission to forage is sometimes a challenge. Simply going over and picking up fruit is not a good approach. I find that respectfully approaching the house and introducing myself is the first step. From there I explain what I do and why. I then offer a benefit to the landowner (keeping their lawn cleaned up, or returning some of the fruit in the form of jam, syrup, etc). I then set up a specific day and time that I will be by, say for example, every Weenesday at 2 pm. What's really important is that I adhere to that schedule for a few weeks before I make any deviations. Usually  I have little problem gaining the lndowner's approval. Oh, I have some failures. You just can't win them all. But some places where I had been rejected initially I was later invited back. Guess they heard good things bout me from their neighbors or friends,

Today I get more requests to gather fruit than I have time for. Tis a pity. I try to get to every location regularly but some I can only visit twice a month. Thus much of the fruit goes bad. But in order to keep good relations with those landowners, I remove all the fruit, good or bad. I just use the bad fruit to either feed the chickens or the compost pile. This keeps the landowners happy.

Fruits that I grow on my own farm include guava, banana, strawberry, lemon, orange, and pineapple. Fruits that I forage include guava, banana, mango, loquat, mountain apple, papaya, lime, orange, tangerine, grapefruit, pomelo, tangelo, lemon, avocado, soursop, sapote, cherimoya, and occasionally pineapple. I also forage macadamia nuts, malabar chestnuts, kukui nuts, and sugar cane. Not a bad take, eh?