6-6-2026 Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill
https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
Steve Brill is an expert at foraging wild edible plants. From March-December, he regularly runs foraging tours in NYC (and other places too I think) which are free to join (with a suggested donation).
I joined the foraging tour in Central Park (June 26, 2026). We walked from east 106th street, through the park, and ended at the west side. There were at least 30-40 people on the tour. Steve Brill showed us different plants (some edible, some medicinal), explained their uses and briefly how to identify them, and we tasted/smelled them.
Takeaways
- I'm excited to become more confident in identifying the plants we saw. I absolutely intend to forage more on my own.
- I feel that this experience was transformative.
- I already loved Central Park, and this is a whole new way of appreciating it and seeing a new layer of it that never really crossed my mind until I started thinking about foraging. (I really had no clue it was a possibility until I saw that Robin Greenfield does tours and then also found out about Steve Brill's tours.)
- It's given me a new way to cultivate a connection to nature and the environment even though I'm in an urban setting.
- I'm really glad I jumped right into going on the tour rather than waiting a long time or trying to learn/study more on my own before actually doing it in real life.
- This is made easy by the fact that Steve Brill does these tours pretty regularly, and it's obviously very convenient that these are being done in NYC where I am, in a park that I was able to walk to.
- The direct tangible experience of seeing the plants, hearing their uses, picking some of them and tasting many of them, was such a great experience and it directly translates to increased motivation that I probably would not have had if I hadn't gone on the tour.[1]
- At the same time, now that I'm learning more about Wildman Steve Brill, I am starting to wish I knew more about him before meeting him. For example, that he is vegan and advocates for a whole food diet. But still, I can always go to another of his tours and have more interactions/conversations.
Plant highlights
My favorites:
- black birch (twig smells like wintergreen)
- wood sorrel (three leaf clover which tastes lemon-y)
- lambs quarter (similar taste to spinach)
- poor man's pepper (a peppery/spicy taste)
- juneberries (mildly sweet)
I'd love to be able to identify these confidently.
Also interested in (though higher effort)
- burdock root (used for soups / vegan beef jerky)
- sassafrass root (used for root beer)
- kentucky coffee tree (for drinks or fudge)
I want to check out Steve Brill's reference book and maybe his app if that's where his recipes are.
He also said he is vegan, which is cool.
Log of the plants we saw / talked about / tried:
common plantain (medicinal for mosquito bites)
lambs quarter - tastes like spinach, (tasted)
Burdock root
Can make vegan beef jerky out of burdock root
Jewel weed (medicinal for mosquito bites, poison ivy)
Bitter dock (tasted) (after accidentally tasting a burdock leaf, oops)
Northern bayberry -- a shrub (not a tree because no trunk) smells like bay leaves and similar cooking usage. In season all year. Smells very good
Epazoté - used in small quantites as a seasoning, very strong
(didn't get a picture or get to taste/smell it)
Poor man's pepper (tasted -- it's peppery/spicy)
Wood sorrel - lemony taste
Red clover and white clove - red ones taste better. You eat the pieces from the flower part. Taste kind of sweet. Wildman said tastes kind of legumey(peas) but I didn't really sense that. Red ones taste the best. Brown not so good.
Field garlic - related to onion and garlic (tasted) (has poisonous lookalike)
(Didn't really see how this was found - it was under a mysterious covering of a big patch of ground.)
Cattail - cook like corn on the cob. Not to eat raw. When it's younger and doesn't have flower yet, you can peel it and eat the shoot raw
Kentucky coffee tree -- has pods with beans that can roast for a similar taste as coffee, can use as coffee or for seasoning. Can make fudge out of dates+almonds+?? (want to find the recipe for this -- either in his book or app)
Lunch break
Random foraging guide i found https://www.wildedible.com/foraging#identification and it also mentions Brill's own book as a good resource (clearly he is well known in this field)
Reviewed poison ivy. Three leaves, the middle leaf has the stem
Found a peach tree (not ripe yet)
Sassafrass tree. You can eat the smallest (very small) leaves. They are gummy - can make gumbo. (Tasted. Did not like the gooeyness). Smaller plant root smells like root beer (it's what was traditionally used for making root beer). White part in bark is a good seasoning e.g. for rice pudding.
Common spice bush - for tea. He has a recipe for spiceberry peanut butter (it has berries in the fall)
Saw some black raspberry bushes (in season later in June )
Black birch tree - can chew on the twigs like chewing gum. Smells like wintergreen (kind of minty flavor -- i really liked it. Carried the twig for a bit and smelled.). This is low dose aspirin. I chewed on it but didn't have flavor (but smelling is strong)
Milkweed -- not picking because rare and used by monarch butterflies
Hack berries ripe in september
Juneberries / serviceberries - exciting find! Blue ones are best, red ones are ok. I tasted the dark red ones (easier to find than blue), mildly sweet and yummy. Also had a couple bluer ones, which are slightly sweeter.
Two girls were filming during the tour for a documentary. Past work - (freegan film) https://youtu.be/VB8SdONZGGU
Burdock root vegan beef jerky recipe
From an interview with Steve Brill https://www.eatweeds.co.uk/ep17
And with the root, I slice it thinly, and then I steam it for 20 minutes over vegetable stock. And then I put it in the kind of marinade that is used for beef jerky. So it’s apple cider vinegar, tamari soy sauce, fresh apple juice, cloves … what else goes in there? Garlic that is peeled, but not cut, which makes it much more mild than the cut garlic. And then I bake it and it gets drier and chewier. And when it’s about the level of beef jerky, I stop, and it’s really delicious.
Extra paint painting
I needed to use up some leftover paint after a short session of working on Pools (2025)#Paint a picture. I like to make something quick and rough so I don't waste the paint, and it's fun, and a little bit extra practice. Usually I scroll through recent pictures I've taken and pick something to paint. This time, I scrolled and landed on a pic of the Wildman and so made this little thing.
