Eating through the mountainside

I spent a significant part of my childhood wanting to be Sam Gribley, the boy in Jean Craighead George’s “My Side of the Mountain” who runs away from the city to live in a hollowed-out hemlock tree. I thought seriously about seeking out a hemlock of my own, eating cattail tips and wild apples, reading by a turtle-oil lamp. Only two things stopped me: I liked my friends, and I liked my mom’s cooking. 

I’m pretty sure the latter wouldn’t have stopped Ila Hatter, a Smokies naturalist who’s one of the best around when it comes to knowing how to find a snack in the woods. 

It was several months ago that I first heard Hatter’s name pop up in an announcement about an edible plants tour, and I’d been waiting for my opportunity to have this fellow plant-lover introduce me to our botanical neighbors. 

“Whatever new place you go to, it seems like in about three years, you begin to understand the land and the land begins to understand you,” Hatter said as she began a tour of the edibles on Western Carolina University’s campus. 

Hatter, 72, has dedicated decades to learning the leafy landscape of the Smokies. She knows what’s safe to eat, what’s good as medicine and how to prepare it. But she doesn’t know it from books so much as from story and experience. 

“I think that the stories make learning more interesting, whether you’re learning about plants or anything else,” Hatter said. “It also makes a walk in the woods like a visit with our friends.”

At her home in Bryson City, N.C., Hatter makes elderberry syrup and saves spicebush berries in addition to stocking food from the grocery store. She picks lamb’s quarter for salad greens and gathers wild blackberries. She understands the land, but she’s quick to point out that she’s not a trained botanist—she’s still gathering knowledge as well as plants. 

That’s knowledge I’ve been hunting for since returning to the Appalachians from a jaunt out West. For me, knowing the plants around me is key to feeling at home, so I listened closely as Hatter pointed out the black walnut tree, a stalwart of Eastern forests, infamous for the permanent inky stain surrounding the edible nut. For the Cherokee, Hatter said, a warm dish of corn, hominy and black walnuts is a staple, with cushaw pumpkin chunks thrown in on special occasions. 

“It’s a really good combination,” she said, adding that she doesn’t much care for the pumpkin kind. 

There’s the elderberry, whose dried flowers make delicious fritters when fried in pancake batter and whose berries yield powerful antiviral syrup, and dandelion’s host of uses include salad green, wart remover and caffeine-free coffee. Dogwood berries often were used during the Civil War to break soldiers’ fevers, Hatter said, and a cut grapevine can release a gush of fresh water, welcome to a thirsty hiker. 

Then there are the non-food uses, just as vital for survival-oriented ventures. Hatter pointed out the sycamore tree, which disburses its seeds in tight, round balls. 

“One of the things we tell children is that they’re buttons in the woods,” Hatter said. 

At the center is a hard little ball attached to the stem holding the seed to the tree. Hunters used to look for sycamores to replace lost buttons during a hunt, Hatter said. 

Cherokee people used to roast the acorns of white or chestnut oaks—red oak acorns are much more bitter—and grind them into flour, which Hatter recommends mixing half-and-half with regular white flour. 

Spicebush berries were ground up as allspice flavoring, the outsides of the berries grated off for pepper flavor, and wild game boiled with the twigs. 

For Hatter, the process of collecting this knowledge and learning the stories behind it has been the work of a lifetime. It takes investment in people to learn their lore.  

“You have to have a good relationship with folks before they’ll share something like that with you,” she explained. 

Hatter’s now at home both in the forest and in the houses of the people who have unveiled it for her, a win-win in terms of both food and friendship. 

I’m still a long way off from creating either elderberry syrup or a mental encyclopedia of botanical lore. But it’s hard to spend a day with Hatter and not have some of it rub off—I went home and promptly found some lamb’s quarter to top my homemade pizza.