Can’t eat many of the native plants round here unfortunately. There’s a type of native palm tree that apparently has a tasty heart but removing it kills the tree which can take a few hundred years to mature! It also used to be relatively common to eat some of our native fern species (especially here on te waipounamu where it was too cold for kumara) but they had to be cooked right to be edible, allegedly taste terrible, and are a bit carcinogenic.
You can eat quite a few native mushrooms and berries! Kawakawa have peppery berries that can be used as laxatives in large amounts and karaka have nice edible berries with poisonous seeds off the top of my head. There are fungi worth cultivating for food but yeah the plants are not all that appetising
You’re right, I’ve got no idea how I forgot about kawakawa! Had a delicious kawakawa chocolate a few years back that was one of the nicest chocolates I’ve had!
Can’t eat many of the native plants round here unfortunately. There’s a type of native palm tree that apparently has a tasty heart but removing it kills the tree which can take a few hundred years to mature! It also used to be relatively common to eat some of our native fern species (especially here on te waipounamu where it was too cold for kumara) but they had to be cooked right to be edible, allegedly taste terrible, and are a bit carcinogenic.
You can eat quite a few native mushrooms and berries! Kawakawa have peppery berries that can be used as laxatives in large amounts and karaka have nice edible berries with poisonous seeds off the top of my head. There are fungi worth cultivating for food but yeah the plants are not all that appetising
You’re right, I’ve got no idea how I forgot about kawakawa! Had a delicious kawakawa chocolate a few years back that was one of the nicest chocolates I’ve had!