Foraged Foods from Seoul and Surroundings

Did you ever wonder what edible plants and mushrooms grow in Korea? As explained in the first post about foraging, the climate and topography vary on the Korean peninsula, and there are similarities as well as differences among the organisms that inhabit each region. This post shows some of the common wild foods that can be found in Seoul and its surroundings. To be more precise, the area covered here comprises Seoul, the neighboring city Incheon and adjacent mountain forests, meadows and coastal regions of the province Gyeonggi-do. 🗺📍

Countless Korean plants and mushrooms are edible, but not all of them are consumed as food: Many are used in traditional medicine and therefore considered medicinal ingredients. 💊 Others are exclusively used in teas. 🍵 [Korean teas, which include brews made from all kinds of ingredients, are innumerable and could fill an entire book!] But this post focuses on the vegan edibles that are enjoyed as food. 🍽

Please note that the plants and mushrooms introduced here do not reflect the local vegetation in its entirety. There exist literally hundreds of wild plants and mushrooms that could technically be eaten! Accordingly, Korean books about edible wild plants and edible wild mushrooms are filled with hundreds of pages describing each species. 📚 But not all of them taste good [although taste is subjective!] or are worth eating. When something is not poisonous, it is not automatically palatable! In other words, “edible” does not equal “enjoyable”.

This is an introduction to the most common foraged foods as well as noteworthy wild foods in Korea. On top of that, the species are either easily identifiable or easy to find. In some regard, the selection of plants and mushrooms here also reflects the personal experience and point of view of the author.

In the area of Seoul, there are dozens of edible, enjoyable, vegan forageable foods, but they are available at different times of the year. The information below is structured according to the four seasons* and thus corresponds with the chronological appearance of the wild edibles. For each season, the foraged food is grouped by category, i.e. greens, flowers, roots, fruits, nuts or mushrooms. 🌿🌸🫐🥕🌰🍄

• Table of Contents:
• 🌱 Spring
• 🌞 Summer
• 🍂 Fall
• ❄️ Winter
• 🧺 Conclusion

DISCLAIMER: This post aims to provide inspiration for foraging or identifying wild plants and wild mushrooms in Korea. The author is not liable for identification errors. It is recommended to use an official guidebook for identification. Do not eat anything that is not properly identified. ⚠️

🌱 Spring

Greens 🌿

Spring is a special time of culinary delights in Korea, because there is a diversity of spring greens. This includes young plants, leaf tips, tree shoots and similar fresh greens that sprout out of the ground or from branches in spring. 🌱🌿

In and around the area of Seoul, the following wild herbs can be found:

• Korean mugwort (ssuk 쑥; Artemisia princeps)
• dandelion (mindeulle 민들레; Taraxacum officinale, Taraxacum mongolicum and Taraxacum coreanum)
• shepherd’s purse (naengi 냉이; Capsella bursa-pastoris)
• Eastern daisy fleabane (gaemangcho 개망초; Erigeron annuus)
• horseweed (mangcho 망초; Erigeron canadensis)
• chamchwi (참취; Doellingeria scabra)
• danpung chwi (단풍취; Ainsliaea acerifolia)
• palmate umbrella plant (usan namul 우산나물; Syneilesis palmata)
• daylily (wonchuri 원추리; several species, e.g. Hemerocallis hakuunensis)
• bracken (gosari 고사리; Pteridium aquilinum) and other types of fern (gobi 고비)
• long-stamen onion (san dallae 산달래; Allium macrostemon)
• Thunberg’s chive (san buchu 산부추; Allium thunbergii)

What plants are the easiest to forage? Edible wild greens that are easy to find are mugwort, dandelion, shepherd’s purse, daisy fleabane and horseweed. They are very abundant and can grow anywhere in the open, including the side of the road or other small patches of green in the city. Sometimes, they even grow from the smallest bit of soil among concrete! In the eyes of non-foragers, they look like weed. To experienced Koreans, however, they are tasty greens! Thus, between spring and early summer, it is not rare to see middle-aged or elderly women crouching in the grass and poking around in the ground. What they are actually doing is picking edible wild plants! 🧺 For dandelion and shepherd’s purse, the plant including its roots is dug out of the ground and the entire plant is consumed after washing and cooking. 🥕 Regarding mugwort, daisy fleabane and horseweed, only the top of the young plant is harvested, while the rest of the plant lives on. 🌿☘️

The next level of foraging involves plants that grow in forests. 🌳🌲🌳🌲 In Korea, most forests are in mountainous terrain and foraging such plants typically requires hiking. 🥾⛰ [Click on the links to find more information about hiking in Korea and equipment for foraging in mountains.]

Most Korean mountain herbs are actually spring greens. Typical mountain herbs, such as bracken fern, leaves of hardy kiwi and chamchwi, are harvested in the spring and dried so they can be stored and eaten throughout the year. Before consumption, the dried herbs are soaked in water and then used in cooking. Naturally, mountain herbs can also be eaten fresh when they are in season!

Common and desired wild plants that grow in Korean forests are chamchwi, danpungchwi, palmate umbrella plant, daylily as well as several ferns. In most cases, these plants do not grow along the hiking trail – if they did, someone else might have harvested them already! Instead, you have to search for the plants off trail, among the brushwood, on slopes or lightly vegetated areas.

Wild chamchwi,** danpungchwi and palmate umbrella plant are usually not found in stores or traditional markets, so they can only be enjoyed when foraged. They are harvested in the spring as long as their leaves are still soft and pliable. The young greens are lighter in color and thinner than the mature leaves. 🍀 Danpungchwi and palmate umbrella plant are also covered in silvery hair when they are young.

There are several species of daylilies and ferns in Korea, most of which can be foraged. However, daylily shoots and fern shoots are not edible right away. They are poisonous unless you remove the toxins! ⚠️ [More on this in future posts!] Young daylily greens may be reminiscent of leek, but they lack the typical smell of plants from the Allium genus (onion, garlic, leek etc.).

The best known fern in Korea is bracken, which is also largely farmed today. In the wild, bracken is found on meadows or near grassy gravesites in the mountain – locations that are drier and more exposed to sunshine. Most other types of Korean fern grow in the undergrowth of forests, where it is darker and moist. The shoots of ferns are harvested when the fern leaf is still curled up completely. 🌀 Such a fern leaf is also called fiddlehead. The color and shape of fern shoots are very different from the fully developed plant!

Apart from that, Korea also houses several Allium species, i.e. wild onions, chives and garlic. 🧅🧄 Let’s look at two species of wild Allium that are rather common and not endangered. The long-stamen onion, which looks like wild chives, occurs on flat terrain, sometimes along the coast or along sandy roads. The entire plant is edible and it is particularly delicious in spring when its grass-like leaves are soft. It has white and light pinkish flowers, which develop into tiny onions in summer. The Thunberg’s chive is another wild chive, but it grows in mountainous forests. Its flat leaves can be harvested in spring and enjoyed like fresh garlic chives. In October, when it flowers, the purple blossoms are a beautiful and flavorful garnish.

Certain tree shoots and the young leaves of bushes and vines are also enjoyed in spring! 🌳

• shoots of Korean angelica (dureup sun 두릅순; Aralia elata)
• shoots of tree aralia (eomnamu sun 엄나무순; Kalopanax septemlobus)
• young leaves of hardy kiwi (darae sun 다래순; Actinidia arguta)
• young mulberry leaves (ppongnip 뽕잎; Morus australis)
• young leaves of mastic-leaf prickly ash (sancho sun 산초순 / sanchonip 산초잎; Zanthoxylum schinifolium)

The shoots of the Korean angelica and tree aralia are popular delicacies that are nowadays farmed large-scale and sold widely during spring time. The wild trees, which possess sharp spines on branches and leaves, grow inside light forests and at the forest edge. During early spring, the trees sprout new leaves that are light green and soft for a few days. If you miss this perfect moment for harvesting the new shoots, they open up, become tough and develop painful spines! 💥

The hardy kiwi is a climbing vine that grows on other trees near the water, i.e. mountain streams. Mulberry trees, being native or naturalized in the Korean peninsula, can also be encountered in the wild. The young leaves of both, the hardy kiwi as well as mulberry, are edible and well-known greens, albeit less common on food markets or in restaurants. 🍃

When hiking in Korea, a common sight along the trail and in the underbrush is mastic-leaf prickly ash. It is a shrub or small tree with spines. When bruised, the plant emits a strong aromatic scent, which is enjoyed by some and detested by others. The young leaves of mastic-leaf prickly ash are edible as long as they are soft and bright green. 🌿 Mastic-leaf prickly ash is typically not sold commercially and can only be found in the wild.

Flowers 🌸

Another key trait of spring are flowers. The following plants produce flowers that are edible and easily identified:

• flowers of Korean rhododendron (jindallae kkot 진달래꽃; Rhododendron mucronulatum)
• dandelion flowers (mindeulle kkot 민들레꽃; Taraxacum officinale, Taraxacum mongolicum and Taraxacum coreanum)
• flowers of black locust (akasia kkot 아카시아꽃; Robinia pseudoacacia)

The blossoms of Korean rhododendron, aka jindallae, are probably the most famous edible flowers of Korea, but they are available only for a short time. The mountains, even in the city of Seoul, develop pink-purple speckles when the plant is in bloom. 🌸💜 Jindallae grows abundantly on the mountains, sometimes directly along hiking trails. A simple way to distinguish it from other species of rhododendron, which are not edible, is the location: In the city, there are all kinds of cultivated azalea. 🏙 Jindallae, however, only grows in the wild! ⛰ Another key trait of jindallae is that the flowers bloom without leaves. The green leaves appear after the flowers begin to wither. 🥀

Other flowers that are common and easy to identify are locust flowers and dandelion flowers. 🌼 The black locust, which is actually an invasive species in Korea, is a common tree that is sometimes planted on the side of the road or it grows in open land. Dandelion, again, is a herbacious plant that can grow like weed almost anywhere. Dandelion flowers are a commonly foraged food worldwide.

🌞 Summer

Fruits 🍎

After the flowers have withered, certain fruits may be developing in their stead. The first fruits ripen in early summer. Here are some of the fruits of summer that are good for foraging:

• wild peaches (gaeboksunga 개복숭아; Prunus davidiana)
• julttalgi (줄딸기; Rubus oldhamii)
• mulberries (odi 오디; fruits of 산뽕나무; Morus australis)

Starting in June, foragers can harvest unripe wild peaches, which are still hard and green but good for fermenting. 🍏 In late August, the wild peaches are ripe and can be eaten as they are. 🍑 If you wait too long to harvest them, chances are the fruits are eaten by other people or by insects. Unlike domesticated peaches, however, wild peaches are less sweet and taste sour and slightly bitter.

Another fruit that ripens in June is julttalgi, a kind of wild raspberry with a color ranging between orange and red. This berry grows on thin, creeping stems in the forest. There are actually a dozen different species of Rubus in Korea, but julttalgi is the one that is most common in the wild! 🍓

The fruits of Korean mulberry trees are edible when they are fully black. 🍇 Wild mulberries are much smaller than cultivated mulberries, but their taste may be just as sweet!

🍂 Fall

Fruits 🍎

Fall is one of the most plentiful times for foraging. There are fruits, nuts, roots and mushrooms that can be foraged. Here are wild fruits that can be found around Seoul in autumn:

• fruits of the hardy kiwi (darae 다래; Actinidia arguta)
• fruits of the five-leaf akebia (eureum 으름; Akebia quinata)

In September, the fruits of the hardy kiwi mature and taste sweet and sour like tiny kiwis. 🥝 When ripe, the so-called kiwiberries are soft to touch and easily come off the vine. Again, timing is important here, since overripe fruits quickly fall off the plant. Kiwiberries that are not fully ripe yet can be harvested nevertheless, as they soften at home with time. Although it is relatively easy to spot a vine of the hardy kiwi, it may be difficult to reach its fruits because this plant tends to climb into high trees.

There is another native vine that grows edible fruits: Akebia, also known as chocolate vine. 🍆 In Korea, the fruits of wild akebia plants have a brown skin when ripe, which is some time between September and October. Akebia tastes best when the fruit opens up while still hanging on the plant. The flesh is sweet and contains many seeds.

Nuts and Seeds 🌰

Besides fruit, there are many nuts and seeds that ripen in fall. The following nuts and seeds are either popular or easily foraged foods in Korea:

• ginkgo nuts (eunhaeng ssi 은행씨; Ginkgo biloba)
• chestnuts (bam 밤; Castanea crenata)
• acorns (dotori 도토리) from different species of oaks, e.g. sawtooth oak (sangsuri namu 상수리나무; Quercus acutissima) and Mongolian oak (sin-gal namu 신갈나무; Quercus mongolica)
• unripe fruits and seed hulls of mastic-leaf prickly ash (sancho yeolmae 산초열매; Zanthoxylum schinifolium)

Ginkgo seeds are edible when heated, but they are hidden inside a hard shell and a very stinky fruit! 🦨 Ginkgo trees are often planted on the side of the road or in parks, where their fruits fall on the ground and get crushed by cars or shoes. But it is easy to forage ginkgo seeds in the city as long as you have a disposable glove and an airtight container or plastic bag. It is best to collect the hard-shelled ginkgo nuts, while discarding the smelly outer fruit, then wash and dry the ginkgo nuts. 🟡

The trees of the Korean chestnut produce edible seeds that fall off the tree between September and October. Underneath most chestnut trees, you can find chestnuts of different sizes, sometimes still inside the spiky shell. When foraging chestnuts, you might want to protect your hands with gloves, and use sturdy shoes or another tool to pop the chestnuts out of the thorny hulls. 💥 Note that the longer the chestnuts lie on the forest floor, the higher the likelihood that they house insect larvae. Thus, it is recommended to forage chestnuts as early as possible in September. With some luck, you may pick several kilograms of chestnuts on one foraging trip! 🌰🌰🌰

There are multiple species of oak on the Korean peninsula and their acorns have been an important source of food for millennia. The most common species of oak in the vicinity of Seoul are the sawtooth oak and the Mongolian oak. Acorns can be foraged easily and consumed after leaching out the tannins. 🌰 However, it is a comparably laborious process and most Koreans simply buy acorn flour in the supermarket these days…

As long as the fruits of mastic-leaf prickly ash are still green and soft, they can be foraged and used e.g. in pickles or fritters. 🟢 The season here begins around August and September. Just like the young leaves, which are available in spring, the unripe fruits are very fragrant. The young seeds inside have a crunchy texture. When the fruits mature and crack open, which usually happens between September and November, a shiny, black, pearl-like seed is revealed. The seed hulls of ripe mastic-leaf prickly ash are dry, greenish or brownish gray in color and edible. 🟤 After removing the seeds, the hulls can be ground up and used as seasoning.

Roots 🥕

In fall, when leaves change color and eventually wither, many perennials gather energy in roots, rhizomes and tubers below the ground. Thus, their nutrients concentrate in the root system during fall and winter. Because most hibernating plants are not visible in winter and the earth may be frozen, harvesting edible roots is best done in fall. 🍂 The following root vegetables are forageable foods around Seoul:

• rhizomes of Solomon’s seal (dungulle 둥굴레; Polygonatum odoratum)
• tubers of Chinese yam (ma 마; Dioscorea polystachya) and Japanese yam (sanma 산마; Dioscorea japonica)

Solomon’s seal grows from rhizomes that lie not too deep below the surface and spread horizontally across the forest floor. 🌿 Solomon’s seal plants usually grow in groups, and foraging them is rather easy. The rhizomes grow thicker with age, while bigger ones are considered better. If you harvest Solomon’s seal, replanting the front piece from which the stem grows, keeps the plant alive. Although dried and roasted roots of farmed Solomon’s seal are used for a common Korean tea, dunggulle cha (둥굴레차), the roots are not available commercially in their fresh state. The smell of fresh and wild Solomon’s seal root is reminiscent of ginseng when being cooked! When raw, they are crunchy and taste slightly sweet.

The vines of yam plants have elongate, heart-shaped leaves, which are a distinctive trait leading you to its roots below the ground. 💚 The edible tubers grow vertically and get longer with age. 🥕 Accordingly, you might have to dig deep to get the entire tuber out of the ground. A shovel or hoe are necessary tools for digging up this kind of yam! For a small yam, it may not be worth the effort… Look for vines with a thick stem, because such plants seem to be older and have larger tubers. Also dig carefully since the tubers break easily!

Mushrooms 🍄

Many edible mushrooms appear in early fall between the end of September and late October. 🍄 Most noteworthy are the following types of mushroom, which can be found in the area around Seoul:

• lion’s mane mushroom (noru gungdengi beoseot 노루궁뎅이버섯; Hericium erinaceus)
• chicken of the woods (deokdari beoseot 덕다리버섯; ‎Laetiporus sulphureus and bulgeun deokdari beoseot 붉은덕다리버섯; Laetiporus miniatus)
• oyster mushroom (neutari beoseot 느타리버섯; Pleurotus ostreatus)

In late September, you can find lion’s mane mushroom. ☁️ The lion’s mane mushroom is white or off-white when fresh, and it may even be eaten raw in this state. Later in the season, the lion’s mane continuously dries out while remaining stuck on the tree. As it dries and shrivels up, its color changes from white to yellow and eventually orange-brown. ⚪️🟡🟠 Dried lion’s mane mushroom can still be used for tea, broths or infused liquor, but the white stage is the best for eating! The size of wild lion’s mane mushrooms ranges between the size of a chicken egg and a grapefruit, the biggest one I’ve seen so far had the diameter of a basketball. Usually, you can find one mushroom per tree, although sometimes 2 to 3 mushrooms grow from one tree.

Chicken of the woods is a mushroom that is currently not widely known or appreciated in South Korea, but it is generally cherished by mushroom enthusiasts in Europe and North America. [Particularly as a vegan substitute for chicken breast because of its unique texture!] Since the mushroom is not sold on markets, you can only enjoy it when directly foraged. The mushroom grows in clusters which can become rather large and heavy. Young chicken of the woods is edible after cooking, and the flesh remains dense and dryish in texture. 🍗

From mid-October to the winter months, wild oyster mushrooms appear in the forest. 🦪 Oyster mushrooms usually grow in clusters, so you can harvest a handful to several dozens of mushrooms from a single tree. Depending on the stage of development, the mushrooms are either dark gray and compact, or light brown, flat and larger than a hand. Oyster mushrooms are edible and enjoyable in both stages, but they need to be heated prior to consumption.

These three mushrooms all grow on deciduous trees – mostly oak – that are either decaying or already dead. 🌳🪵 Sometimes, they grow high up in the tree, so proper tools or climbing are necessary. Note that wild mushrooms look different from farmed mushrooms. And they taste differently, too!

❄️ Winter

In terms of foraging, winter is the time when nature rests.

All plants are hibernating. 🛌 Except for evergreens, most leaves have disappeared and small plants are hiding below the ground. Many mushrooms have rotten and shriveled up into black mushroom mummies. For some foragers, there may be some medicinal mushrooms worth going after, e.g. turkey tail (unji beoseot 운지버섯; Trametes versicolor) and reishi (yeongji beoseot 영지버섯; Ganoderma lucidum). [But this topic is not covered here.]

Because of the weather, hiking off trail is also more dangerous. The ground is usually icy and slippery, making crampons or spikes that provide traction for boots a necessary equipment when hiking in winter. Snow and frozen puddles can last long, even if the sunny side of a mountain may suggest otherwise. ❄️☀️

🧺 Conclusion

Each season offers diverse plants and mushrooms that are edible and enjoyable. In the area around Seoul, there are more than 30 species of wild plants and mushrooms which are easy to forage and/or delicious. 🧺🍀🍄🍑 Many of these can be found all over the country.

In other parts of the Korean peninsula, there are additional and different forageables. Bamboo, for instance, grows best in warmer regions such as Jeolla-do. Thus, bamboo shoots cannot be foraged in Seoul or the northern provinces. The prized matsutake (songi beoseot 송이버섯; Tricholoma matsutake) and shingled hedgehog (neungi beoseot 능이버섯; Sarcodon imbricatus) do grow in South Korea, but they are very rare. Korea’s wild garlic or ramson (myeongi namul 명이나물) is a delicacy originating on Ulleung Island. North Korea’s vegetation is different again, as its located in the colder northern region. More local specialties could be introduced in separate posts.

If you ever went hiking in Korea, or simply took a walk in Seoul or another city, did you notice any greens, fruits, nuts or mushrooms that looked like they were edible? Maybe some of them truly were! Did you see anything that was introduced in this post? Feel free to talk about your experiences or discoveries in the comment section below! 😊👇

Additional notes from the author

*) In Korea, the year was traditionally divided into 24 different seasons (jeolgi 절기), referred to as solar term.

**) Wild chamchwi looks and tastes very different from the farmed plants that are sold under the name “chwinamul” and are often attributed the same scientific name.

Book recommendation for identifying and studying edible plants of Korea:
국립산림품종관리센터: 산과 들에 자라는 식용식물. 서울: 국립산림품종관리센터, 2019.

Book recommendation for identifying and studying wild mushrooms of Korea:
고평열, 구재필, 최석영, 홍기성: 한국 야생버섯 도감. 파주: 光文閣, 2021.