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Bronx River Pathway (Teens/Adults)

at "Wildman" Steve Brill - Tuckahoe

(159)

Course Details

Price:

$20

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Location:

Tuckahoe, Westchester County
1 Columbus Ave
At Main St
Tuckahoe, New York 10707 (Map)

Important:

$20 Ticket is for 1 person only. Accompanying Adult must purchase ticket separately.

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Description

Class Level: All levels

Age Requirements: 13 and older

Average Class Size: 35

Teacher: "Wildman" Steve Brill

Flexible Reschedule Policy: This provider has flexible, free rescheduling for any-in person workshop. Please see the cancellation policy for more details

What you'll learn in this tour class:

In terms of quantity, quality, and variety, this early spring tour, along the Bronx River Pathway, is the best of the year. It's our only chance, for example, to find the strong-flavored, celery-like stems of the cow parsnip. Cooking tones down the flavor and creates delightful dishes from this little-known top-quality vegetable.

If we've timed this tour correctly, we should also come across a stand of ostrich fern fiddleheads, at the peak of the very short season. This expensive gourmet food grows throughout the swamps adjacent to the river, but it's only in season for about 10 days per year.

We'll also find the asparagus-flavored false Solomon's seal, another great wild vegetable, along with the even larger true Solomon's seal, with a similar flavor.

Another plant available only on this tour is the pungent-tasting cuckoo flower, so hot it almost explodes in your mouth, somewhat like wasabi. Only cut-leaf toothwort, which we'll also only find on this tour, competes with it for heat.

Cuckoo Flower

Add these delicate-looking flowers to sushi, and you can leave the wasabi behind!

Once you've tasted it, you can't deny that the wild leek or ramp is the world's best-tasting member of the onion/garlic family, and this walking and biking trail is a great place to take a leek! Nearby, we'll find Virginia waterleaf, which tastes like parsley, only better, and it even cures the deadly bad breath you'll get from eating the ramps.

Wild ginger is similar to its unrelated namesake, but more delicately flavored. It's an excellent seasoning, a superb herb tea, and an effective home remedy for indigestion.

Stinging nettle, on the other hand, isn't delicate. It stings you. How did such a strange plant, loaded with hypodermic needles, get here? It probably migrated up the riverbank from its most natural habitat, the South Bronx! But, collected wearing gloves and properly cooked, it's as tasty as it is healthful. Its equally delicious sister species, the wood nettle, accompanies it, and if anyone is rash enough to get stung, we'll be able to demonstrate how jewelweed, which grows nearby, will quickly cure the resultant skin irritation

More usual but equally good early spring wild foods also abound. There's more sour-flavored curly (yellow) dock than you'd know what to do with. Burdock does great here too, with huge, easy-to-harvest taproots. Chickweed, which tastes like corn on the cob, thrives here as well, as do the sweet-spicy shoots of the daylily.

Japanese knotweed is a gourmet "nuisance" plant with a flavor like a rhubarb. It's loaded with vitamin C, plus more resveratrol, which reduces the risk of heart disease, than red wine. It supplies sourness wherever you need it, be it in fruit dishes, soups, pasta, or salad dressings, and you can even grill it like asparagus. This invasive plant sends up shoots that take over sections of the riverbank.

The common blue violet, a delicious, mild-flavored green with a tasty flower, is common here, but a less common edible white subspecies also abound, as do hybrids between the two. And this is the only tour where you'll also see the even less common yellow violet.

Common Blue Violet

Add the mild-flavored leaves and flowers to salads, soups, or stews.

If we're lucky, we'll even find gourmet mushrooms, rare in early spring. Morels and dryad's saddle have turned up on past tours.

You'll have to attend this field walk to believe it!

Note:

Participants should be dressed for the weather, and be aware of very bad subway service. Trains are often canceled due to track work.
No sandals (there are mosquitoes, thorns and poison ivy). Everyone should have plastic bags for veggies and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, which spoil in plastic, containers for berries from late spring through fall, water and lunch, and extra layers when it's cold. Digging implements and pocket knives are optional.
Dogs are permitted. Children are encouraged to attend.
There's no smoking whatsoever at any time.

School Notes:
If you can't attend the class you signed up for, please call or email "Wildman" Steve Brill a day before the start of the class. No-call/no-show creates an inconvenience to all participants since we can’t tell if absentees are having transportation issues, and this delays the start of the tour/class.

Kindly note that price posted is our suggested donation only.

Still have questions? Ask the community.

Refund Policy

Participants can cancel the night before an event and get a refund.

If the participant failed to show up in the tour or failed to notify about their absence the night before the class, they will be required to pay a $25 penalty per person before being allowed on another tour.

Map

"Wildman" Steve Brill
Tuckahoe, Westchester County
1 Columbus Ave
At Main St
Tuckahoe, New York 10707 Tuckahoe, Westchester County
1 Columbus Ave
At Main St
Tuckahoe, New York 10707

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Reviews of Classes at "Wildman" Steve Brill (159)

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School: "Wildman" Steve Brill

Foraging expert Steve Brill has shared his foraging wisdom at schools, museums, parks departments, environmental organizations, and with scout troops since 1982. He’s written three books and an app, stars in a DVD and maintains a website.

His History with Foraging
As part of his exercise regime,...

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Downtown Brooklyn Pizza Walk

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Trace the history of pizza by visiting a mix of wood-fired Neapolitan, coal-fired, and classic New York slice joints on this 2.5 hour walking tour. You'll hit a spread of neighborhoods including Boerum Hill. Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, and the Columbia Waterfront district. What's Included All tours include pizza tastings, kitchen tours,...

Trace the history of pizza by visiting a mix of wood-fired...

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Bronx River Pathway (Teens/Adults)

What you'll learn in this tour class:

Map

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