Sunken Meadow State Park (Kids 12 & Under)

This is an outstanding park for foragers in mid-summer. We'll explore cultivated areas, the seashore, and woods, all in one day. 

The most spectacular find in this park grows within sight of the ocean. Dozens of blackberry bushes in nearby thickets provide thousands of exquisitely delicious berries. Smaller than their commercial counterparts, and more seedy, they taste so much better, they'll make you forget all about your iPhone!

This won't be the only wild fruit. Black cherries will be at their peak, and we may also be able to harvest common elderberries on the hillsides overlooking the seashore.

There will also be edible seaweeds in The Sound. Irish moss, which is used as a commercial thickener in cosmetics and ice cream, also makes great puddings. Rockweed is excellent in soups or added to mock seafood dishes. You can also bake it into chips. You'll love it even if you're a jazz fan! Diaphanous green sea lettuce is superb sautéed with garlic, and you can even candy it.

Everyone who tastes it loves sea rocket, a spicy, succulent mustard green that grows only on sandy shores. At this time of year it tastes like its relative, wasabi.

Other great wild foods grow away from the sand. The common spicebush and sassafras both abound along the edges of the nearby woods, as does the northern bayberry bush, which grows in thickets close to the shore as well. We may find herbs and greens such as sheep sorrel, wood sorrel, Asiatic dayflower, field garlic, yarrow, and mullein, which grow also along the edges of trails or in fields, ready for harvesting.

If there has been sufficient rain beforehand, there may also be lots of choice gourmet mushrooms in the woods. We'll look for huge chicken mushrooms, savory boletes, delicate gem-studded puffballs, and unbelievably tasty chanterelles.

Meeting place:

The 3-hour foraging tour of Sunken Meadow Park meets at the benches between the bathhouse and the adjacent parking field, #1.