Preface: Confessions of a Lifelong Forager "Yes, that's the right plant. We're going to cook the leaves tonight with a little garlic and olive oil, then we'll add a little lemon juice and--" My great-grandmother pressed the four fingers and thumb of one hand together and brought the fingertips to her lips for a smacking kiss. Her eyes sparkled with the anticipated pleasure of eating the dandelion greens I'd just helped her pick. We were in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and I was three years old. Great-grandma was from Greece, where to this day foraging for wild edible plants is part of the culture, as it is in many other countries. I doubt she ever learned the word foraging. To her, going out to pick the free, choice vegetables growing wild nearby was a normal thing to do. And naturally, she wanted to teach her great-granddaughter which plants were not only safe to eat, but tasty.

And because she was excited about them, I was, too. Excited is an apt way to describe how I feel to this day about foraging for wild edible plants. I get excited when I happen upon an unexpected, wonderful food find such as the abundant patch of mayapples I found this past summer. I get excited as each new ingredient comes into season--and into my kitchen and onto my taste buds. When I travel I sometimes get to taste a wild food for the first time, something that only grows there, and that, too, is exciting--I love learning what here tastes like. I am as passionate about edible wild plants today as my great-grandma was. Home to me for the past several decades has been New York; this book is about plants found in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as well as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec, Canada. I love to see my students interact with our northeastern landscape in that special, seasonal way that experienced foragers enjoy.

Is it June? Why then, they're beelining for the mulberry trees. But a month later they'll be zipping past the no-longer-fruiting mulberries--and heading for the wineberries, whose season has just begun. It is also delightful when a visitor to the Northeast is excited by their first chance to identify and eat the unique wild edible plants that are indigenous to this region. I wish I could be with you in the field when you open up this book to help identify a plant you think just might be a choice wild edible. I'd love to see the sparkle in your eyes when you confirm that yes, it is a tasty discovery. But know that I'll be with you in spirit, giving you two thumbs up while you pause to consider harvesting the plant in a way that is beneficial to the natural landscape. And I'll be grinning right along with you the first time you taste it.