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By Root 1139 0

my trash dive with the freegans I kept abreast of their activities around the city—actually, I couldn’t help it, as my in-box was flooded daily with announcements and updates. I didn’t take another trash dive that spring of 2007, or at least not a full-scale trash dive with a group of freegans. But I did begin to notice the garbage bins outside one small bakery that had recently opened up down the street from me. I wondered what could be found inside them. That place had the best baguettes in the neighborhood. It was tempting. But I felt a little bit awkward about doing a solo trash dive there, as my neighborhood was always bustling with people, often young families with kids and baby strollers. I didn’t want to be too conspicuous going through the trash in front of my neighbors.

I settled instead for the next best option: a bagel shop in my neighborhood regularly sold large bags of day-old bagels and other baked goods, a steal at $1 for half a dozen. I’d buy these bags and often freeze the bagels immediately (slicing them in half first so that they’d reheat in a toaster nicely), saving one or two of them for more immediate eating. I felt like I was doing the local business a small favor by paying them for their surplus goods. I also appreciated the fact that they sold them at all and wanted to support that. Plus, there are a million and one uses for leftover bread—it can become bread crumbs used to stuff or coat things in a thousand different ways. I discovered a lot of them that spring.

It was late spring when I received an e-mail from the freegan event list that caught my attention. It was announcing a foraging walk in Prospect Park led by an expert in wild edibles, Tim Keating. It sounded right up my alley—and the park was close to my home. Eating stuff plucked from the wild was something I knew relatively little about, though of course I’d heard of it being done before—wild raspberry bushes in the countryside, a honeysuckle blossom that could be sucked on, that kind of thing. I hadn’t heard of anything edible in the natural environs of New York City before, though. I read the rest of the event’s description:

“As a longtime urban forager, Tim will show how foraging common wild plants in the city parks can not only provide fresh and healthful greens but can play an essential part of a freegan lifestyle. Rather than focusing on edibles that are uncommon and hard to find, the plants highlighted on Tim’s walk are those that are very common and readily available in large enough quantities to supplement one’s diet. During the walk, Tim will also discuss the mythology of the forager in relation to the dominant cultural paradigm,” it summarized.

I rode my bike into Grand Army Plaza that Saturday morning and pressed my brakes when I spotted a small cluster of mostly young folks standing around as if waiting for something. I recognized Madeline Nelson standing cross-armed among them, in cargo shorts and sneakers. She gave me a smile as I pulled up with my bike. Aside from her, I knew no one else of the ten or twelve others in the group, who looked around my age.

A few people began to question why our guide was running so late. It was already ten minutes past the scheduled meeting time.

“We run on anarchist time frames,” Madeline said to no one in particular, checking her watch. “It’s always a little bit late.”

Another minute or so later, Tim Keating arrived and began the tour. He apologized for running late and led us onto the paved path to the park. No sooner had we followed him for five paces than he stopped to introduce us to a plant.

“Here’s a plant called common plantain,” Tim said, pointing to a cluster of tall weeds.

He went on to say that the plant, which had thick, light-green stems and large, floppy leaves like an elephant’s ears, was a good detoxifier and source of vitamin K. No relation to the larger relative of the banana, though. He passed around a branch and explained as we took a leaf to sample that it was best blanched before eaten, because it could be a little tough by late spring.

A longtime environmentalist,