cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22446624
Have you ever had an especially rewarding, adventurous, dangerous, or really stupid experience of harvesting/foraging fruit?
I tend to live a sheltered life, so I don’t have anything too exciting to share. I’ve harvested bananas with a hornets’ nest on the underside of a leaf multiple times, but nothing unusual ever happened. I’ve gone wading through the swamp looking for aguaje, but the anacondas had already been hunted to extinction in that area. I’ve stood under a fruiting durian tree without a helmet, but it seems that durians don’t just fall from the sky when I’m hungry.
Does anyone have an exciting or uplifting story to share?
My elderly neighbor had amazing mandarin and grapefruit trees in her yard when I was young. I have a distinct memory of being up on her roof on a particularly cold and windy day, harvesting the mandarins, trying not to get poked by the massive 6-8cm spikes along the branches while we combed through each part of the tree. She was grateful to have our help and I really enjoyed time spent around her. Great memory that I didn’t think about until your post, so thank you!
Experiences like that are worth remembering. :)
The people who lived next door to my first home had some amazing apples - very climbable trees for a kid and delicious apples. They used to give me a quarter for each apple I picked (this was decades ago and I was maybe ten, it felt like a lot).
Several years ago I was working for the landscaping crew of a nearby resale nursery and we were helping to clean up an elderly couple’s garden. They had a beautiful Kousa dogwood in the middle of their yard, loaded with hundreds of fruits within reach and more towards the top. When we hit our lunch break that day I asked the couple if I could have a few of the fruits (they’re small mouthfuls of yum) and when they agreed I picked some and popped the skinned fruit into my mouth - right when one of the owners came around the corner. He started freaking out about eating strange fruits until I showed him multiple foraging guides for them. Ended up getting him, the rest of the work crew, and the couple to try them. Before we left the lady was gathering more because she had found a jame recipe and wanted to make it.
Never heard of those dogwood fruits, but sounds like something that I would eat if I ever found it growing. Cool that you were able to educate those folks!
