disaster dining

from Tony Nester of Ancient Pathways, an Arizona-based survival school:

Dandelions

Benefits: Vitamin A, serious roughage
Taste: Like arugula, without the spice--or flavor
How to prepare: Pop the heads off the flowers, discard, rinse the leaves and roots, and chow down on a true-weed salad.

Cattails

Benefits: Vitamin D, carbohydrates
Taste: Like a cucumber, only grosser
How to prepare: Peel the stalk from the root up and eat, or roast first for 40 minutes to an hour, then peel and eat.

Pine needles

Benefits: Vitamin C
Taste: Like furniture polish
How to prepare: Simmer a handful of needles in water (don't boil, or you'll kill the nutrients), and drink it like tea. Enjoy the Pine-Sol aroma.

Acorns

Benefits: Protein, portable
Taste: White oak acorns (round leaf) taste like biter walnuts; red oak (jagged leaf) taste how a burning tire smells.
How to prepare: Roast whites; boil reds two hours