From Fast Fashion to Foraging
How to delight your hunter-gatherer brain with nature’s seasonal offerings
A chat between Elise Nye and Kelsey Wolf
Kelsey Wolf Instagram | Elise Nye Instagram
“I think foraging has helped in a way by redirecting my need to find interesting things without spending money; you can learn about the ecosystem a particular mushroom thrives in, but it's often timing and luck, so you kind of get the same thrill from finding a rare item on an estate sale or snatching a cute one-of-a-kind dress.”
Elise: When did you start foraging?
Kelsey: I’ve always enjoyed finding treasures in the woods. Growing up, I would go fossil hunting in my friend’s shale driveway. I was often out in the woods looking for things, but foraging really got serious with mushrooms. It's been two or three years (I would need to check my mushroom instagram for the exact date!). It all started because my friend Stacey, the one with the shale driveway, got into mushroom foraging and she showed me her secret chanterelle spot. We found chanterelles and black trumpets and cooked them over a fire at our campsite.
Pictured: A mushroom for all occasions. On the left, chanterelle mushrooms are being sautéd on a cast iron skillet over a campsite fire. On the right, chanterelles are shown perfectly plated over lemon pepper pappardelle pasta, backyard garden herbs and tomatoes, and freshly grated cheese.
Elise: That sounds magical!
Kelsey: It was! There were a lot of mosquitos, but it was very exciting and delicious, and that was the big official start for me. I was looking at mushrooms before, but I didn’t really know what I was looking at, so she really ignited that interest and I started learning and searching. Pretty soon after that — maybe a week or two — my roommate at the time and I went hiking at a spot where a friend had seen loads of mushrooms. Thanks to a combination of timing, the weather, and luck, we found truckloads of “chicken of the woods” (Laetiporus sulphureus and cincinnatus) and cauliflower mushrooms (Sparassis crispa) that taste like noodles. That year was great for getting into foraging mushrooms because of the weather conditions, so I was constantly stumbling across edible mushrooms.
Pictured: Left: young chicken of the woods. Right: fully mature chicken of the woods. Learning how mushrooms appear at all stages of growth is key to safe and accurate identification. Identifying young mushrooms means you know to come back in a week or so. Identifying dead and rotted mushrooms over the winter means you have a spot to go check in spring or fall. Some mushrooms can look like others depending on their stage of growth. For example, white Agaricus species (many of which are not edible, some even toxic) in their button stage can look like puffballs (of which there are a few edible species). Also at an older stage, some mushrooms (like yellow pored chicken) become too dry and tough for eating.
Elise: That’s awesome. So basically you started off with some pretty easy-to-identify mushrooms, and from what it sounds like, you had someone with you that was more experienced?
Kelsey: Not really! My roommate at the time knew even less than me. When I did have questions, I had field guides, or I could ask my cousin Stacey. Also mushroomexpert.com, the New Jersey Mycological Association (I’m a member), and Reddit mycology were all very helpful resources. When I found my first hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa) I posted a photo of it on Reddit and wrote, “I’m pretty sure this is it but I’m so new to this!” And they helped me. Plus there’s a whole mushroom Instagram community!
Pictured: Left: A flush of hen of the woods (G. frondosa) around a dead tree stump. They are weakly parasitic on oaks. Middle: Young G. frondosa. Right: G. frondosa ready to pick! Hen of the woods mushrooms can be easily farmed, so you can find these at the grocery store.
Elise: So most of the resources you used were online?
Kelsey: Yeah, a lot of online and books — I have a couple different field guides. So, books and the internet. You want to have different sources because some mushrooms are trickier to identify. That’s why I started with the ones that are much more simple to ID. If I wasn’t sure, you know, I wasn’t going to eat them.
Elise: Are mushrooms hands down your favorite things to forage?
Kelsey: I think they’re the most exciting because they’re ephemeral, so wildly varied, and weirdly fleshy. Especially in white American culture, we’re pretty funghi-phobic. They’re seen as this strange, rubbery food. It doesn’t help that the ones you can get at a typical chain grocery store are actually one species at three different life stages (Agaricus bisporus): button mushrooms are the round, white immature stage; cremini mushrooms are also in the immature stage, just brown. Once they are in the mature stage and the cap is fully open, they are called Portabella mushrooms. These can be foraged but they have deadly lookalikes. The other type of mushroom often found in stores is shiitake, so it’s likely that many folks have only tried button and shiitake mushrooms.
Elise: Yeah, I love going to fancier grocery stores where there’s 20 different types of mushrooms and it’s a whole different world! But being able to find them out in the wild is way more fun!
Kelsey: Yeah, they’re just so interesting! The variety is just mind-boggling, just like how many different species there are, the way they grow, their relationship with trees, how they spread. It’s so different from plants! There’s a lot to learn in that field and a lot still being discovered. It’s just not as well studied and mushrooms have a wild variety of different methods of surviving. I also think that they’re very alien, and tactile. That’s what my instagram is called @itouchthemushroom, and it’s like me poking different mushrooms. Some of them are very squishy and slimy while others are stone-like in their solidity.
Pictured: Left: Waxy-looking squishy brown mushrooms shaped like cups (edible jelly ears, Auricularia americana) grow on a piece of bark covered with lichen. In the center, an ivory-colored coral fungus (edible crown tipped coral, Artomyces pyxidatus) with distinctive upright “branches” sits on top of a fallen tree trunk. On the left, a lime yellow jelly-looking fungus (probablyTremella mesenterica) on a small branch, being poked by one of Kelsey’s fingers.
Elise: Especially since you mentioned how at the grocery store it’s the same mushroom at three different life stages: Has going out and looking for mushrooms and finding things on your own impacted your view of consumerism, the food industry, or what you purchase?
Kelsey: It’s definitely made me more aware of what is in grocery stores and what isn’t. Even in Wegmans (an east coast supermarket chain) there will be a couple more species, but then you just go to a basic Asian grocery store in your neighborhood and you can get fresher, cheaper varieties of mushrooms. It’s wild how so much of America is still not interested. And I get it. When I was a child I hated the texture, the weirdly delicate black gills, the smell. My mom would cook a variety of Chinese dishes, she would use this extra rubbery mushroom that was just called black fungus, which sounds so unappealing!
And yeah, I tend not to buy overpriced mushrooms at grocery stores because when they do have chanterelles at Wegmans. A lot of the time they’re not in great shape because they’re coming from the West Coast. They’re expensive and not in the best condition so it’s like eehhh. Something I need to look into more, but have come to realize, is that for a while I was kind of proud because near me, in Pennsylvania, is Kennett Square, which is well known for mushrooms, and there are farmers growing different varieties. There’s even a mushroom festival every year, which I thought was really cool, you know, supporting local farmers! But then I found out that there’s a history of exploitation behind it. The people who are actually harvesting and growing the mushrooms are mostly migrant workers who face occupational hazards (especially respiratory symptoms), are vulnerable to abuse by those in power, and are still fighting for their rights to this day. So it’s not as positive of an industry as I thought it was, and that is not OK.
Elise: You’ve also mentioned doing lots of DIYs with things you find! What kind of things do you use in your DIYs and what do you make?
Kelsey: By spending a lot of time out in nature and in a variety of different environments, you encounter a lot of plants, so I started learning about them and finding edible plants. More recently I’ve been gathering art supplies and stuff for decor, which makes foraging rewarding even when I don’t find the mushroom that I was looking for. For example, I’ll head out to a bamboo grove. Bamboo grows really fast and it is hard to uproot; if you grow it in your yard you will not be able to stop it. With certain plants I know their impact on the environment, so I feel OK harvesting them, especially the ones that are invasive. So I recently harvested bamboo and I’m drying it right now. It’s young bamboo so it’s flexible, and I’m going to see how it does for basket weaving. I also use it for plant stakes and curtain rods.
Now that I’m learning more about basketry I like to forage for materials as much as I can. I’ve been learning that if you’re purchasing seagrass and reed, it’s probably processed and then shipped from China, so I have no idea how much the people that process it are earning. Probably not much! So it’s been a big goal of mine: If I’m going to continue in basketry, I want to be able to source all the materials myself. Right now there’s so much new plant growth so I’m experimenting with different plants and seeing if they are flexible enough for weaving.
Pictured: Left: A basket in process made from foraged cedar, wisteria, and ivy. The greenbriar vine hasn’t dried out. Right: a finished basket with a handle made of a deer antler, filled with white pored and yellow pored hen of the woods and a beefsteak (Fistulina hepatica) mushroom that "bleeds," tastes sour, and looks kinda like an organ.
Elise: Oh nice, that’s so cool!
Kelsey: Yeah, it works with my aesthetic, which is woodsy and witchy. Plus it’s free so I’m not going to the store and buying things like new curtain rods. Sometimes I’ll find some bones I can clean and use as decorations! Now I’m collecting polypore mushrooms. They’re named like that because they have pores on the underside instead of gills. They tend to be tougher, so they lend well to paper-making supplies!
Pictured: Left: Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) mushroom with gradient coloring, growing on a log. Right: Cauliflower mushrooms.
I’d love to make paper and then bind it into books. So once again, my goal for book binding is all either foraged or secondhand materials. So I’m also looking for things in nature that can work for book covers. I found some larger shells along the river and some pieces of driftwood that I plan to use as covers. Oh, and you can make string (cordage) out of certain plants like dogbane and wisteria and then use it in basketry or book binding.
Pictured: Woodsy witchy decor. Left, a protection burn bundle of dry herbs and plants foraged from nearby meadows and forest habitats, surrounded by a rosary box, an Art Nouveau casket box, an antique book and a pyritized ammonite fossil. On the left, glass bottles in different sizes, an ammonite fossil, a spirit quartz crystal, and part of a crocheted doily. All the glass bottles were found in the woods.
Elise: Very very cool! So a book fully sourced in nature by you!
Kelsey: Nature or secondhand for sure! I’m also saving paper scraps that I would normally recycle so I can blend that up and make paper. I’ll use whatever I can repurpose. I also go to estate sales and get old art supplies. When this lady who was a taxidermist, leatherworker, and a painter passed away, I got a big box of some of her strings, so I’m good on strings for a while!
Elise: This ties into something I’m very interested in as a philosophy! Obviously you're combining stuff you’ve foraged with finds from estate sales, and you said you will take a lot from fast-growing invasive plants. Has this experience impacted your consumption habits elsewhere? Do you find that there’s a connection between your foraging practices and shopping?
Kelsey: There’s definitely a connection. I really enjoy searching and hunting for things. As I grew older and had a source of income, that hunt could mean looking for one of a kind art pieces from sculptors, limited run dresses from a local seamstress, or rare vintage items like an Edwardian tea dress in great condition and a larger size. Basically, things that are harder to find and go fast! You just want to buy it and you don’t think about budgeting for it or saving up since it’s so unique. I just think, when am I going to find something like this again? It’s kind of now or never. As much as I like supporting smaller artists and makers, it’s also tricky because everything is so limited that you kind of go for it because you don’t want to miss out! So just like foraging for mushrooms, maybe you found this special piece because you were there at the right time, and that’s just sort of exciting.
Pictured: Kelsey’s feet in front of a cluster of honey (Armillaria tabescens) mushrooms she found growing next to the roots of a tree during a lunch-break stroll in the woods. She’s wearing very unique “witchy” pointy lace-up boots with cut-outs representing the moon and stars.
I like very specific niche things, and those tend to be in short supply, so suddenly I’m spending all my money on this thing because I’m kind of addicted to the hunt. Take, for example, searching for second-hand Gothic Lolita dresses online. There’s all these Japanese websites I can check every day to see what pops up. It becomes quickly consuming. I also follow all these makers on Instagram, so I’m constantly seeing and wanting new things that they’re making or selling. It’s been difficult.
I’m trying to step away from that and I think foraging has helped in a way by redirecting my need to find interesting things without spending money. Especially with mushrooms. I mean yes, you can learn about the ecosystem a particular mushroom thrives in, but there are a lot of variables at play. Were you there before other foragers? Did it rain recently? What is the slug population like this year? Some mushrooms have a symbiotic relationship with trees, so you need to be able to identify certain trees. Some mushrooms are parasitic on other mushrooms. Some grow in certain types of soil. Discovering a specific mushroom often comes down to timing and luck, so you kind of get the same thrill from finding it as you would a rare item at an estate sale or snatching a cute one-of-a-kind dress.
So I think foraging has given me a healthier outlet to hunt for things, and honestly the most exciting part, as far as a high, is just stumbling upon and finding something you didn’t expect. In a way, I like that feeling even more than actually having the mushroom. I spent a year looking for morels and then I finally found them on my own and it was so fucking exciting! It was such a thrill. This is especially cool since morels, especially Morchella virginiana, are tiny and velvety but also savory and delicious!
Pictured: Left: Kelsey’s hand is delicately holding a fresh morel (Morchella virginiana) with her thumb and index finger. On the right, cooked morels are the star of a burrata crostini decorated with foraged redbud flowers and ramps.
“Foraging can become consumerist and destructive, so it’s important to learn how to appreciate and understand nature without exploiting it.”
Besides hunting, I try to learn about the natural world and consider sustainability when I’m harvesting. This way I can avoid overharvesting a really slow-growing native plant, and focus on the ones that are invasive or harmful to the ecosystem. I also try to be really thoughtful about my mindset going into it, because I’ve definitely had walks where I was kind of mad because I didn’t find anything, so I’ve been trying to be more aware of that and appreciate being in nature and how amazing it is. That’s why I’ve been learning about things that don’t serve me — things that I can’t use — but that I can appreciate for their unique adaptation. Like pitcher plants and how they survive in poor quality soil by catching insects. I can’t do anything with a pitcher plant, but I can learn about it and appreciate it. This way I don’t get upset if I don’t find what I was looking for. You know, I’ll find what I find and that’s OK.
Also teaching others really makes the experience more positive for me. If I can share my knowledge with someone else, that can be just as great as finding things. It’s so fulfilling to see someone learning and discovering, and share that excitement. This is important because I think foraging can become consumerist and destructive.
I think we’re very far removed from nature, but we are nature and nature isn't just in the woods. It’s in our backyards or on a city street. Nature adapts and changes and it’s everywhere. Differentiating between an “untouched” forest and our yard is an unhealthy distinction in a way because then we’re not responsible stewards of the land that we do have. Lawns are a true desert since they’re one species of plant that you have to actively water and spray to keep it alive. Lawn grass is terrible for native pollinators and other native species that live around us. The American obsession with lawns is a classist European remnant.
Elise: Don’t get me started on lawns!
Kelsey: Well it’s just wild. I don’t think people even think about it; they just want a “pretty” lawn and they don’t realize how destructive it is. Humans are just obsessed with orderliness, but that’s not how nature works. Stuff that might be considered “ugly” to you might be an animal’s home. I think a better alternative is to create and maintain a native meadow for pollinators, or a rain garden to help prevent flooding. Leave your dead leaves instead of packing them up for the landfill. Stop spraying dangerous shit on your land!
Elise: I hope that’s something that will change in a little bit, even as taking care of lawns becomes less of a possibility due to climate change.
Kelsey: There is so much water wasted on lawn care! My partner works for a water company and they were trying to push for more efficient water use in an area where there is a limited reservoir of usable water. Prices were going up and supply was going down because people were using way too much water without thinking about it. They were using automatic sprinklers which would run even when it was raining! So my partner and his coworkers were encouraging residents to install an app where the sprinklers respond to the weather. It’s really hard to convince citizens to conserve water and think about it as a limited and vital resource, so we have to encourage baby steps.
Elise: I’m totally behind you on that, but it’s tough to convince people!
Kelsey: We need more education and outreach. A lot of people would be open to change if they knew better. It’s even so interesting what we consider weeds and tend to remove because we don’t take the time to learn about them. I went to this empty lot next to a highway and it was beautiful and full of edible plants. There were thistles, Queen Anne’s lace, mugwort...
Elise: It’s sad!
Kelsey: Dandelions even! People hate dandelions, but they’re super nutritious and you can eat basically every part. Once you start to learn about what plants you can eat, you see them everywhere! We’re so disconnected from our environment! There are so many things you can pick and you don’t have to pay anyone for that.
Pictured: Left: Kelsey is holding a small crystal glass filled with a drink made of violet syrup and lime (Fun fact: violets contain pigments known as anthocyanins that change color when you add acidic or basic substances). Right: A piece of toast is topped with bright red garden tomatoes, avocado, scrambled eggs from Kelsey’s backyard chickens and foraged ramps and violets.
Elise: There’re so many places that don’t have access to fresh and nutritious food! I’m at the very beginning of learning what plants I should eat and which ones I absolutely should not, but I’m starting to see dandelions and little plants you can make tea out of. I realized the tree in my backyard is a mulberry tree!
Pictured: Kelsey holding different parts of edible plants. Left: Leaves from sweetfern that can be used for tea. Center: Elderflowers (they have inedible lookalikes so be careful!) Right: Invasive wineberries.
Kelsey: Oooh that’s soon!
Elise: Yes they started popping out because I’m in Texas! I haven’t been able to get many because there are so many squirrels and birds going absolutely nuts over them. It’s honestly just fun to watch them. So I haven’t been able to make great use of it. There’s a squirrel who’s made it his full-time job to eat every ripe berry on that tree. I watch him all day.
Pictured: Left: Kelsey is holding a recently harvested Winecap mushroom. Right: a spore print of the same mushroom.
Kelsey: I think that’s a good attitude to have from the start though, to just enjoy the tree even though you can’t always get a harvest for yourself. I found a wine cap mushroom (Stropharia rugosoannulata) recently that was old and chewed on, but I was really excited because it would have been edible if it had been in better shape. I had not seen that one around that often, so it was still a nice find.
I’m a vegetarian, but I really support people hunting because that’s a much more ethical way of eating meat than what is common and normalized. Recently, my friend and I took a little road trip for 17-year Brood X cicadas. He was collecting the younger ones to eat in tacos.
Pictured: Three Brood X cicadas (likely Magicicada septendecim) perched on bright green leaves.
Elise: Oh wow!
Kelsey: I don’t know if I would do that because I have fuzzy feelings about cicadas. But I was supportive of him because there’s very little suffering for the cicadas and it’s so much better for the environment than eating any meat you get from the grocery store.
Elise: Yeah! I am fascinated by the idea of eating insects and how sustainable it can be, but it’s a little hard for me to get past the idea. Especially since I’m vegetarian as well, and I do eat some fish, but I’m not quite there yet. I hope one day I will be because that’s so cool!
Kelsey: I’ve had crickets before! Since they’re tiny they mostly just taste like crunchy snacks. Recently I made some burn bundles for protection and I harvested aromatic plants in my area.There are many aromatic plants that grow in the pinelands. I pick up fallen twigs from cedar and pine. I pick mugwort pretty aggressively because that grows everywhere! Mugwort is invasive and secretes chemicals that actively discourage other plants from growing.
Elise: Oh, good to know!
Kelsey: Everything changes from season to season, and is different depending on what ecosystem you’re in. It kinda replaces the fast fashion thrill of “new new new!”
Elise: So foraging has changed how you see newness and buying things. Do you think foraging — and your ability to see nutrition everywhere and feel a true connection to nature — has changed your relationship to your body?
Kelsey: I don’t generally enjoy exercise, and my brain likes to give me a hard time. So if there’s an activity that resembles exercise at all and I enjoy it, I really go for it! With foraging, you’re not going fast, but you’re moving and bending. It’s more about endurance. I’m not feeling like it’s a competition or that I need to hit certain goals or that I’m doing something wrong. I’m doing something that I enjoy, and as a bonus I’m getting exercise out in the forest, so it’s better for my body and especially for my mental health.
If I am exercising in a way that I’m enjoying, just moving and doing stuff without focusing on things like losing weight, I just feel more positive overall. So even if I’m the exact same weight and have the same things that I don’t like about my body, I have a different mindset.
Elise: I love that! Does it make you think about beauty differently?
Kelsey: As for beauty, I’m definitely very critical of my appearance and I feel like I’m never good enough, but learning about the natural world, especially how things adapt to survive, is a cool way to perceive beauty differently. For example, there’s a mushroom that looks like a brightly colored dog penis (Mutinus caninus); the tip is coated in a brown slime that smells kind of like rotten poo. The stink attracts flies, the flies land on the slime (which contains spores) so the flies are inadvertently spreading this mushroom’s spores. So yeah, the mushroom looks gross, but it’s also so neat!
Learning about nature can change your idea of beauty. There are plenty of animals like frogs, insects, and fungi that are commonly thought to be gross or ugly, but if you stop and take time to understand them and appreciate their ways, they become wondrous.
Elise: That’s so cool I love that! I’m even more excited to learn about foraging. Thanks so much, Kelsey!
But wait, there’s more!
If you’re interested in learning more about foraging and are living in the Northeast, Kelsey recommends the book Northeast Foraging by Leda Meredith. Some other great foraging resources are Mushroom Expert and iNaturalist.
Facebook might not be the coolest, but it’s a great way to connect with people in your area that have lots of foraging knowledge and can help answer your questions. Elise is currently part of the Texas Foraging Community and has enjoyed seeing people post plants as they come into season. It’s wild seeing how many of the recognizable plants in your own backyard are actually edible. Search for a group in your local area for information that pertains to where you live!
Be sure to follow Kelsey on Instagram (@itouchthemushroom) if you can’t get enough of the stunning nature pictures in this piece. If you want to learn even more about foraging while you scroll on socials, we also love following Alexis Nikole aka Black Forager on Instagram (@blackforager) and TikTok (@alexisnikole). She will brighten your day while transforming how you see the outdoors! Alexis Nicole also has an amazing episode of the podcast Ologies on Foraging Ecology.
And finally, grass is the WORST! Lawns, specifically in America, have deep roots in racism, classism, and war. Plus, they are a huge resource suck by design, and are a huge bummer for birds, bees, and other native critters. If you’re interested in learning why lawn grass, which is completely not native to North America, is the number one irrigated “crop” in America, Elise suggests reading The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession by Virginia Scott Jenkins. If you don’t want to read an entire book on grass, you can listen to Elise’s podcast episode on the truly mind boggling existence of lawns here in the US. This video from the New York Times is also incredibly informative, and Grist has a pretty rad video on the American lawn as well.
If you know someone who loves their lawn and isn’t willing to give it up for a beautiful native meadow lawn, there might be a way to make things a bit more eco-friendly. This NASA study showed that if you let lawn clippings compost on the lawn, you can halve the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed and turn the lawn into a relatively effective carbon sink. Baby steps.
Editor: Iris Aguilar | Designer & Photographer: Kelsey Wolf | Copy Editor: Katie Frankowicz | Communication/Support/Outreach: Elise Nye
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