FALL FORAGING, I: Foraging for your holiday feast ... we'll 
tell you more on Passport to Texas
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

Wonderful traditional foods will take center stage at your 
family gatherings this holiday season. And guess what - 
that food doesn't necessarily have to come from a market. 
You can savor the flavors of an earlier time in Texas 
when you forage for, and cook with, native produce.

"I almost prefer fall over spring in certain ways because a lot of 
complex foods - the fruits and beans and seeds and things like 
that -- really ripen in the fall."

Scooter Cheatham is a naturalist and co-author of Useful 
Wild Plants of Texas, a twelve-volume set of 
encyclopedias that details the myriad uses for the plants 
growing right under our feet, and just outside our doors 
this fall.

"The Mexican persimmon's a substantial fruit. Many grapes are 
still ripening, Mexican plums are ripening. Malvaviscus, Turks' 
Cap's ... many species of grass. The seteriars are getting ripe 
now. That makes a really nice little seed cracker. Dallas grass of 
Paspalum dilatatum is ripening. Lynn's made some really good 
crackers from those."

Before you put any feral food in your mouth, make sure you're 
100% certain of what it is. Because while you can eat any wild 
food once -- if you don't know what you're eating -- you may 
not get a second chance. Join your local chapter of the Native 
Plant Society to learn about native nourishment. 

You can also log onto www.usefulwildplants.org for more 
information. Tomorrow ... getting nutty about hickories.

That's our show for today ... For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... 
I'm Cecilia Nasti.