I’m not the only one noticing. The Ethicurean pointed me to Portlander Michael Bunsen, who set up the brilliant wiki urbanedibles.com, a self-described “community database of wild sources in Portland.” The best thing about it is an interactive Google Maps mashup of Portland with pushpins marking the plums, persimmons, eucalyptus, figs, apples and rosemary available for the taking. An article in Edible Portland that gives the story behind urbanedibles.com (apparently, Bunsen was part of something called the Anarchist Gardening and Gleaning Collective) also mentions the Portland Fruit Tree Project, which organizes people in Portland to gather fruit before it falls in order to make it available to the community. Visitors to the site can register a tree on their property, sign up to gather fruit, or attend a workshop on pruning and harvesting.

“Wildman” Steve Brill, a naturalist who takes people on edible tours around Central Park, was most recently parodied/lauded by Adam Gopnik in the recent food issue of the New Yorker. Brill has found mushrooms, black cherries, field garlic, lamb’s-quarter, purslane, field garlic, and sassafras; according to Gopnik, Brill can “construct entire meals around things he finds growing ferally near West Seventy-second Street.”

Try it yourself. If you don’t end up dead (yeah, be careful with that), you might find yourself arms full with things you never even knew were delicious.