Wild Foraging in Uttarakhand

Posted by Earthly Notes

Whenever we visit a new place, we try to partake in activities that give us a peek into the region’s local cultural habits. This is how we learn more about people and culture. India is geographically diverse as is the country’s people in terms of culture, everyday habits, diet and way of living. During our recent trek in Uttarakhand (June 2023), we had the opportunity to try out several local delicacies whilst on the trek.

Yes, we had carried our ration for 7 days like rice, atta, potato and onion. But nothing beats foraging for local plants in the wild and then cooking them. I personally had no idea which plants were edible and which were not. But since we expressed interest, our team members were excited to share their local cuisines with us!

I am sharing a few of the things we ate during the trek:

LENGRA

Image: These are ferns, locally called ‘Lengra or Junglee Bhendi’. This particular variety is eaten by the locals here. When they are plucked, they first need to be cleaned by removing the tiny brown hair like structures that grow all over it. Once cleaned, it is chopped into pieces and made into a simple sabji without much masala. The fern shoots can be rubbery to chew.

GOPKYA

Image: This is Gopkya, a small plant that grows at higher altitudes. They have tender shoots and the taste is almost like a mix of a mild-flavoured spring onion and garlic. Dinesh made a plain sabji out of it and it was amazing!

CHIUN

Image: During this trek, we saw more than 25 species of Fungi and many of them were mushrooms. They were red, orange, white, brown, black, white etc. But not all of these mushrooms are edible.
Image: Infact, the thumb rule of the forest is, if you can’t identify the mushroom or if its something new- don’t eat it. Many mushrooms (inclined to say majority) in the wild are poisonous. Ingesting them can be a very bad experience. Therefore its important that its always a local expert who forages for mushrooms. Only 1 out of the 12 types of mushrooms/fungi you see in the above images is apparently edible (as told to us by our team members).
Image: “Chiun” ki sabji. Chiun is the name given to edible mushrooms in Uttarakhand.

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My name is Adithi Muralidhar. I am a nature enthusiast based in Mumbai, India.

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