Nibbling on the Wild Landscape of Fishers Island

Join us for an illustrated talk with Russ Cohen, author of the book Wild Plants I Have Known…and Eaten, to learn about at least two dozen of the tastiest wild plant species the Island has to offer.

Fishers Island is home to over 70 species of edible wild plants, many of which are more nutritious and/or flavorful than their cultivated counterparts. These include native species, like Fox Grape and Beach Pea; non-native weeds, like Chicory and Burdock; and invasive species, like Autumn Olive and Japanese Knotweed.

This presentation will include plant species everyone knows well, like Daisies and Dandelions, to species people may have never even heard of, like Nannyberry and Meadow Beauty. Keys to the identification of each species will be provided, along with info on edible portion(s), season(s) of availability and preparation methods, as well as guidelines for safe, ethical and environmentally-responsible foraging.

When: Sunday, June 29, 2025
Time: 4-5 pm
Place: At the Museum, 2nd floor and virtual, via zoom

Russ will also accompany his talk with handouts and samples of goodies made with wild foraged ingredients for people to sip and nibble on.

(Please note also the related “Wild Edible Plant Excursion on Fishers Island” Nature Walk that Russ will lead the following day, June 30, 2025.)

Russ Cohen, naturalist and wild foods enthusiast, grew up in Weston, Mass., where he spent much of his free time in the woods, thereby cultivating a strong spiritual connection to nature. Russ’ first formal exposure to edible wild plants occurred while a sophomore at Weston High School, where he enrolled in an “Edible Botany” mini-course offered by the high school biology department. The course taught him about two dozen edible species that grew around the high school grounds, and the class finished with a “big feed”: a communal meal prepared from these plants, at the end of the course. Russ got turned on to the subject, went to the local library and took out every book he could find on the topic, taught himself over fifty more species, and, in his senior year of high school (1974), he taught the Edible Botany class he had taken as a sophomore. Russ added edible wild mushrooms to his teaching repertoire in 1989 after returning home from a trip to the Soviet Union, where he caught the mushroom hunting bug from the Russians.

Russ received his bachelor’s degree in land use planning from Vassar College in 1978, and received a masters in Natural Resources and a law degree from The Ohio State University in 1982. Until retiring from state service, Russ was employed by the Riverways Program (now part of the Division of Ecological Restoration) of the Mass. Department of Fish and Game since 1988, and served as its Rivers Advocate from 1992 until June of 2015. Other past employers have included the Nature Conservancy, the Land Trust Alliance, The Hillside Trust, a land trust in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Since his retirement in June 2015, while continuing to offer walks and talks on foraging for wild edibles, Russ is now playing the role of Johnny Appleseed for native edible species. He has set up a nursery (near his childhood home in Weston, MA) where he is growing over 1,000 plants, representing more than a third of the more than 190 species native to Northeast ecoregions that are edible by people. Many of these plants were propagated from seed Russ gathered himself. Russ is then collaborating with land trusts, municipalities, state and federal agencies, schools and colleges, tribal groups, organic farms and others, to plant plants from his nursery on appropriate places on their properties. You can learn more about this endeavor in the article Russ Cohen’s Wild Edible Adventures, by Cathy Walthers, which ran in the Summer 2018 issue of Edible Boston Magazine; Meet the ‘Johnny Appleseed’ of Edible Native Plants, by Barbara A. Schmitz, which ran in the Spring 2019 issue of the Wild Ones Journal; a March 2020 video podcast interview with Kim Eierman of EcoBeneficial; or, most recently, the profile of Russ and his native edible plant propagation and planting that ran in the January 2024 edition of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s The Leaflet newsletter.