Free, almost free, or frugal food sources.

[Denninmi]

Well, since the bottom is going to fall out, apparently, I thought it might be both fun and actually helpful to someone to start a thread about really inexpensive ways to feed ourselves.

A couple of free food items for me this week -- puffballs and meadow mushrooms. Our July drought turned into about 8 inches of rain in August so far, and mushrooms are growing in many places. I found some white puffballs in a lawn at a cemetery, and I have meadow mushrooms (Agaricus campestris) growing in my own lawn. Both of these are wonderful edible mushrooms --puffballs actually are about the closest thing I know of in flavor to a truffle, but can be quite substantial in size, and you can make nice, large slices which can be floured or breaded, fried, and then used to make a dish similar to eggplant parmesan, or just eaten as is. Meadow mushrooms are extremely closely related to white buttons and criminis, the only difference being gills are pink instead of white. Yum, yum. As with ANY wild mushroom, please be sure you know EXACTLY what you are eating, if you have ANY doubt, don't do it!

And, a kind of frugal recipe, well, semi-frugal -- Corn Cob Jelly -- I am going to try this this weekend, and I'll let you know how it turns out -- 12 corn cobs after the sweet corn has been cut off. Break into quarters, put into a kettle, add just enough water to cover, and boil for 15 minutes. Strain off the liquid, and discard the cobs. Measure 3 cups of the liquid, and dissolve a box of powdered pectin in it. Then, add 4 cups of sugar, bring to the boil, and then stir constantly for 2 minutes. Add a couple of drops of yellow food color if desired. Also, some recipes suggest 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon or a tablespoon of lemon juice as an option. Skim the foam, ladle into prepared jars, add lids and bands, and bwb process for 10 minutes.

[Warpy]

1. You can also make pea soup out of the pea pods

and a great veggie stock out of peels, ends, trimmings and yes, corn cobs.

[pengillian101]

2. I always like to share Clara's insights that she learned during the Great Depression

Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/DepressionCooking

Book: http://www.amazon.com/Great-Depression-Cooking-Clara-season/dp/B002KQ6PII

:hi:

[trud]

3. foreclosed or abandoned houses

The Times had an article in the last week or so about people foraging fruit and vegetables from the yards of foreclosed and empty houses. If the legal owner is a bank and the people are truly gone, I think that's acceptable. It's not like the bank is going to be out there harvesting the food. One could make the argument that it's better to harvest it than to have it rot and attract rats.

[Warpy]

4. Rodents are more attracted to animal products

but rotting fruit attracts other stuff you don't want around, either, like flies, roaches, pigeons, raccoons, and every other critter out there you find rummaging through garbage cans overnight. In addition, it looks like hell littering what was once a lawn.

Birds will eat the stuff high up in the tree. People ought to be able to forage anything they can reach.

[Retrograde]

5. Be very careful with mushrooms

A lot of poisonous ones look very much like edible ones in different areas: there are cases of immigrants being poisoned every year because they ate some that looked almost exactly like what they found back home.

I know a spot to forage wild blackberries - but so do about a hundred other people. I have a large patch of volunteer miners' lettuce in my yard during the winter. Otherwise, the area's too dense for many foraging activities.

I use corncobs to make stock for corn chowder. I also cook down squash rinds for more body for squash soups. A lot of vegetable trimmings can go into the stock pot, although I'd be careful with stuff that's overly wilted* - the end product is only as good as what you put in. Chicken carcasses, of course, shouldn't be discarded until you've gotten all the goodness out of them.

*Veggies that are just a little bit old can often be revived by soaking them in acidulated water (i.e., add lemon juice or vinegar to cold water) for a half hour or so.