I was doing some internet research yesterday and ended up on the Georgia Organics web page. I checked the calendar just to see if there was anything interesting scheduled. A wild edibles lecture was listed for a different organization, Mushroom Club of Georgia. It had not been two weeks since I had attended a wild edibles hike in a nearby state park. It was conducted by the summer intern and she did a great job, but she was not local and she was still early in her education. I didn’t learn anything and that left me wanting. You never know, you could end up lost and hungry. Russ and I decided to go.

The visiting lecturer was Jerry Hightower, a 30 year veteran of the National Park Service and a local who grew up wandering the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area before it was a part of the National Park System. His lecture was a hum tater. That is a word he used to describe one of the refreshing beverages he was telling us how to make. “What does that mean?” he was asked. “You’re not from around here are you?” he answered, and then he said “Hum tater means that it is good”. And, by the way, I learned that acid content is what makes refreshing beverages refreshing and that there are several things you might have in your own backyard to make one.

Ranger Hightower had a great sense of humour and he was so jam packed with information that not even he could remember to say it all. Great questions from the room brought out even more. While the talk was given at a mushroom group meeting, none of his information was actually about mushrooms. He will give another presentation with a walk in the spring and promised to send us an email to let us know when. I’m looking forward to that.

The meeting was held at the Central Congregational Church in Atlanta, a very nice setting. Mushroom Club members were friendly and welcoming and there were plenty of well placed signs. The church has a long driveway that forks and other activities were also happening in the building. The signs kept us from needing to ask any questions anywhere along the way. Refreshments were served and there was a specimen table. I’ll definitely be going back.

Ranger Hightower had a table full of recommended books. Some of his recommendations are below. He cautioned that some of the books had great information, but were slim on actual identification (a pretty important part huh?). One book in particular had common names and was written from an European perspective, so that some of the common names were not the same as the ones that would be used here. It sounded like the best idea might be to get a few books and use the best parts of each. He said that most of the books were readily available from a number of sources, book stores, Dover. I didn’t hear him say so, but I expect they might also be available at the Island Ford Visitor’s Center.

Ranger Hightower singled out the next two books as recommended:

His version of this book was older and shared authorship with Dykeney

He also had several books by this author, including this one.