Eat the Planet notes that although wild cherries are typically safe to eat, it can be simple to mistake them for other wild fruits or berries, such as the deadly nightshades or moonseed berries.
Why Eating Wild Fruit Is Risky
Eat the Planet notes that although wild cherries are typically safe to eat, it can be simple to mistake them for other wild fruits or berries, such as the deadly nightshades or moonseed berries.
It is probably best to stay away from eating any wild plants at all unless you are absolutely certain that the fruit you found is safe to eat.
If youre on a hike with small children, keep an eye on any plants or berries they may see along the way. American Bittersweet berries, Cotoneaster berries and Holly berries look extremely similar to berries you may buy at the grocery store but can be dangerous if you eat them, according to the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.
Remember that depending on the species, cherries typically ripen between May and June. Therefore, you definitely won’t want to eat any of the fruit if you’re outside in October and see something that resembles a cherry in a forest.
It can be easy to confuse fruit in the wild. Some foragers might mistake poisonous plants that resemble black cherries or grapes, like deadly nightshade or moonseed berries, for black cherries.
It’s best to leave the plant alone and purchase your cherries from the store unless you are absolutely certain they are cherries.
Food Foraging and Processing Wild Cherries
In North America, wild cherry is a widespread and common plant, and it is also common where I live in California. People are frequently surprised to learn how widespread wild cherries are in the West because they do not anticipate that this semi-desert region, which experiences few frosts, could support cherries. However, due to their deep roots and thick, almost waxy leaves, these varieties are well suited to this climate and can withstand droughts.
And although the native Indian population did in the past enjoy the pulp of these cherries, they thought the seed was a more significant food source. Seeds were saved, and their thin shells removed. Just like with the cherry pits that can be purchased at stores, there is a solid pulp inside the pit. That pulp has a pleasant blend of sweetness and bitter almond flavor when you chew it. These seeds were always shelled and leached if substantial amounts were going to be consumed, even though it might be fine to nibble on a few.
Similar to how acorns are processed, the hydrocyanic acid must be removed by shelling the seeds and boiling the pulp for 30 minutes while frequently changing the water. As a rule, cherry seeds don’t require processing as much as acorns do. Cherry seeds can actually be made safe to eat by boiling them three times. According to Dr. Approximately 30 minutes of boiling the mashed cherry pits in water destroys all the cyanide, according to James Adams, co-author of Healing with Medicinal Plants of the West. The cyanide boils off. The finished product is then ground into flour and combined with other foods like breads, pancakes, soups, and mush. It is good, and is a sweet flour.
To try this, you must first consume the cherry flesh before shelling the seeds. The seeds can then be cooked whole while having the water changed at least three times. After that, you can either eat them straight away or turn them into flour. After that, wheat is added to this flour to create tiny pancakes.
This plant was known as cha-mish by the Cahuilla people who lived in the desert near Palm Springs; today, it is known as a chokecherry. They almost exclusively used the leached seed for soups or mush, rarely for breads. Sometimes, they turned the meal into tiny cakes for storage purposes. When dried, they were quite hard and black. After that, they could be kept for a long time and reconstituted in water before consumption.
The fruit of these chokecherries was also combined with deer or elk meat to create one type of pemmican. Dr. James Adams prepares cherry seed mush and adds applesauce to it; he reports that all of his students like it.
Additionally used for its medicinal benefits was the inner bark of wild cherries. The bark was used to make a tea that was used to treat diarrhea, stomach irritations, and — among the Cherokee people — was said to lessen labor pain when giving birth. This medicine was also listed in the U. S. Pharmacopoeia in 1820 as a sedative.
In the 1800s and before, people used cherries to make syrup and soup that they used as a whooping cough remedy. Eating raw fruit was considered beneficial for the voice by the Miwok Indians of Northern California. Cherry bark has been widely utilized in cough medications. Cherry fruit or bark were used in cough medicines for reasons other than flavor.
However, like with so many traditional medical treatments from the past, the contemporary equivalents that are currently sold in stores are typically made entirely of sugar and artificial flavors. Thus, marshmallows do not contain marshmallow extract, horehound candy rarely contains horehound, and even “cherry” cough medicines do not always contain real cherries. Our “advanced culture” has cost us more in the form of increased sugar consumption and related health issues, but that is a different subject.
This common plant served as a source of wood for numerous projects. Archery bows, backrests, baby cradles, and various other crafts are frequently made from the long, straight branches of the various wild cherries.
How to identify wild cherry
Typically, wild cherry trees can be recognized by their leaves and bark. On newer growth and occasionally older growth too, the bark will have horizontal lenticels and the leaves will have finely serrated edges. Black cherry and chokecherry trees look very similar, but chokecherry trees typically have smaller, glossier leaves.
Another helpful characteristic for identifying cherry trees is the presence of a fungus called black knot, which produces both large and small cankers or burls on the tree. Numerous plants in the Prunus genus, such as cherries and plums, are afflicted by black knot. Always adhere to the Safe Foraging rules when gathering wild foods.