Foraging in Modern Times

When I’m at home on my parents’ farm, dinner is easy. I can take a tour of the fields, listening to my dad’s stories of weather woes and bug struggles, and fill a basket with whatever strikes my fancy—still-muddy potatoes, lima beans in the shell, tomatoes in every shade, succulent baby butternut squash. Then when I get into the kitchen, all I have to do is heat up my dad’s big cast-iron frying pan, melt some butter, chop some garlic and herbs, and start sautéing. Sometimes a venison sausage, donated to the family in exchange for hunting privileges on our land, will make it onto the dinner plate, or a cut of pork from the heirloom pigs my sister raises will be the star of the meal. But more often than not, dinner is a glorious pile of vegetables.