Transcription
All right, I'd call all that a mouthful right there. This is Eastern black Nightshade, *Solanum emulin*, and I'm about to eat all of it right here in a single sitting, completely raw. And then we'll get to discover what happens from that together.
First bite. That actually tastes really delicious.
Last bite. Okay, I'm going to upload a completely uncut version of that, just so you know that there wasn't any video trickery going on. But for now, let's fast forward to the future and and find out what happened immediately after I ate them.
I'll be honest, I I felt pretty great. I felt completely fine. And when I ate them, they actually tasted really good. It was kind of like an extra sweet cherry tomato. Actually, 2 days later, I I still felt pretty great. But here we are now, 5 days later, and this time I feel amazing, completely amazing. And to be honest, it's probably from all of the antioxidants that can be found in Black Nightshade. So, you know what? I'm probably going to continue to feel great, and I'm probably going to continue to eat them.
Confused? Let me clear that up. A lot of you, when you heard Nightshade, you may have immediately thought of deadly nightshade. The scientific name for that plant is *Atropa belladonna*. But the plant that I'm talking about right now is black nightshade, which refers to *Solanum nigrum* and several other species that I'll show you as well. *Solanum* is the same genus that gives us tomatoes, *Solanum lycopersicum*. They do not contain chemicals like atropine, scopolamine, and the other principal constituents that actually makes deadly nightshade toxic. Instead, black nightshade gives us perfectly edible berries that are delicious, they are nutritious, they're found across the globe, and they're extremely common. Like, you'll find them in your gardens and even just around your homes. And that's why I think everyone should know this amazing edible plant.
In this video, I'm going to show you where and when to find and forage black Nightshade. I'll show you exactly how I eat it, and of course, I will show you how to distinguish it from lookalikes like deadly nightshade. But there are others that I think look even closer to black Nightshade that are toxic. And here is one of the plants right now.
So, you might be wondering, why is it that we even think that this plant could be toxic? Even if you were to Google it right now, you'll find many articles and blogs and things like that that will list it as a toxic species. If you called Poison Control and told them that you ate black Nightshade, they would tell you to, you know, be wary because you just ate a toxic plant. Well, there's a couple reasons for this. A lot of it stems from the fact that when tomato was initially brought to Europe from the New World, it actually comes from South America. In Europe, the most common Nightshade berry that they have that kind of looks like the tomato was the deadly nightshade, *Atropa belladonna*. So naturally, they were quite skeptical of it. And for a long time, tomato plants in Europe largely were not eaten. They just grew them because they're really pretty as a decorative plant.
And this European wariness for nightshade family fruits, it still persists today, primarily in Western cultures. Like in a lot of those carnivore diet corners of the internet, and you know, the whole "what plants are trying to kill you" people. They're all still claiming that even cultivated Nightshade fruits are they're actually dangerous and inflammatory. And the only reason that they're kind of edible is because we bred them from these poisonous wild plants to be marginally edible. And that is just completely not true. There are dozens, possibly even hundreds, of wild Nightshade fruits that are perfectly edible and safe to eat in their wild form without any cultivation necessary. And further, around the world, collectively, there are billions of people that eat and enjoy black Nightshade, both the fruit and the greens. Funny enough, which we'll talk about more in a second.
Many articles will also mention this toxic chemical in black Nightshade that you should completely avoid at all costs. It's called solanine, and it is also found in green tomatoes and other unripe Nightshade fruits like eggplant or bell pepper, other peppers, things like that. But with ripe black Nightshade, the levels of solanine will be so incredibly low that they're basically negligible. This is just another scenario where, uh, if we have a wild plant, we have to be extra cautious and extra dangerous of it, even though the thing that the articles claim that we're worrying about can be found present in many other cultivated foods and plants as well. You see this all the time. But even so, later on in the video, I'll show you how just by taste, you can easily detect whether you're getting a fruit that is unripe that may have higher levels of solanine in it. It's very easy.
But first, I would like to define a little bit further what I mean when I say black Nightshade. And you'll understand why this is important in a second. Remember at the beginning of this video, I said that black Nightshade really refers to several species in a species complex. And a species complex is kind of where like botanical taxonomy and the actual practical application of botany for us as foragers, they kind of diverge a little bit. The collection of different species that make up the black Nightshade group can be found all around the globe. The most well-known is *Solanum nigrum*, which is European black nightshade. But we also have *Solanum americanum*, *Solanum emulin*, American black nitrates species. We also have *Solanum retroflexum*, which is commonly sold as Garden Huckleberry. Yes, Garden Huckleberry is just black Nightshade. There's *Solanum douglasii* and many more.
All of these different species are quite difficult to distinguish from one another. But here's the important thing: is that they can all be eaten and used interchangeably. Now, that's important because I've seen people claim that the only black Nightshade that you can eat is the black Nightshade, the European one, *Solanum nigrum*. And then all the other ones are actually poisonous. And that's why you have to be super careful because they're nearly indistinguishable from one another. So there are these crazy similar lookalikes, and all of that is not true at all. Just for myself, I've eaten at least three different species of them. And as I come across more, you better believe I'll be eating more and more species of the black Nightshade species complex group.
So then the question becomes, how do we know if a Nightshade is in the black Nightshade group? Well, I'm going to show you the identification characteristics of the black Nightshade group, and then we're going to compare them to the lookalikes, and you'll see how easy they are to tell apart from other plants. There are five distinctive characteristics that I want you to be looking for to identify this plant. And don't worry about memorizing them, by the way. I put them all in the pin comment for you.
Black Nightshade has flowers with one, two, three, four, five white petals, and then they have a little yellow anther in the center. There. They're usually quite small, not much more than a quarter of an inch across. So, white, tiny flowers. That's number one.
Next, moving on to the fruit of black Nightshade. Here's an immature one right there. When the fruits are mature, they are black, for which it gets its name. That is number two. But staying with the fruit, they also come in clusters. They're not born in a single one. They will come grouped together. That's number three.
And then we have this top part of the fruit right here. That is called the calyx. Now, the calyx of the fruit on black Nightshade will never go past the actual width of the fruit itself. It's smaller than the diameter of the fruit. That's number four.
And then number five, the plants do not have any sharp prickles or spines on them or anything like that. And that's it. If you have all those traits, then what you have is a black nightshade.
Actually, I want to clarify this point on identification a little bit further. Even though I can't think of any plant in the world that has all the characteristics of black Nightshade that you could mistake for, when I'm talking about applying these patterns, I really mean after you've determined that the plant that you're dealing with is a Nightshade plant. Now, that might sound difficult, but it's actually fairly easy to do. And if you thought, "Hey, those flowers kind of look like tomato flowers," or "They kind of look like pepper flowers," then you're already well on your way to being able to do this. And I have a free class that's going to walk you through every single detail and pattern that you need to know to be able to recognize plants by their families. This is very important for foragers.
And while we're here, I also wanted to mention this book right here, Nature's Garden by Sam Farrow, which really helped me out with the research for this video and goes into even more depth debunking all of the myths and claims about black Nightshade toxicity. It's really, really good read. The link to it is in my description, along with other books that I recommend.
And while we're talking about the myth of black Nightshade toxicity, whenever I make a video about this plant, no matter how much I explain it, you always are going to get naysayers that write comments. I just cannot believe that can't fathom that it actually isn't toxic. So check out the comments, 'cause they might be down there, and it'll be a fun viewing experience for you. But back to identification, you'll see when we go through all the lookalikes how easy it is to distinguish black Nightshade from any plant that I can think of that even kind of looks like it.
Now let's talk a little bit more about gathering and eating this incredible plant. We'll start, believe it or not, with the greens of this plant. Now, the ones that I have here, this is, we're getting into the beginning of autumn, and that's going to be pretty late for gathering the greens. We really want to get them in the springtime when they are just coming up and they're tender and juicy. In addition, this is one that you cook and prepare very similar to how you do something like poke salad, where you'll do like one to two changes of water to remove any bitterness in the greens before you eat them. This is not one that you want to eat raw. In my area, they really don't grow that vigorously and they aren't that tender, so I don't eat the greens that much. But when I was visiting, talking to Sam Farrow about this, he calls black Nightshade like one of his favorite wild vegetables ever. So maybe I need to try and grow them in really rich soil to try that out myself.
The part that I really, really love is the fruit. Oh, there's some ripe ones right here. So, so good. Really, it it's like a sweeter and juicier cherry tomato. They taste incredible. But then when I was up in Wisconsin, I found some growing in really rich soil, and the berries were pretty big, like triple the size of these tiny ones right here.
Now, an important thing is you only want to eat them when they are fully, fully ripe. The berries right here, they're going to start off and they're going to be green, and then as they mature, they're going to turn darker and darker until they are a really dark purple, nearly black. Again, that's why we call them black Nightshade. One thing that I want you to do is I want you to check out the bottoms of the berries, 'cause sometimes they can look dark on top, but they're still a little bit green on the bottom. So make sure to look out for that. And if they are dark and fully purple all the way around, you're good to go. They're ripe and they're ready for you to pick and eat them.
You can eat them cooked, or you can eat them raw. I've eaten them raw in handfuls and handfuls without any issue whatsoever. They start to ripen in my area of North Alabama around July, but these plants are very indeterminate. They will continue to fruit over the entire course of the life of the plant. I started gathering them around July, but now we are, and it's almost October, and there are ripe fruits on them. There are green fruits that are still ripening, and there are flowers on them that are going to continue to produce fruits as well. But if you want to find more exact timing information for black Nightshade, as well as just more information about it, then you can find it on my interactive foraging calendar for black Nightshade and dozens of other incredible wild edible species as well.
Now, you might be a little bit worried about gathering them unripe and not knowing about that and getting sick from it. But don't worry, because if you were to happen to get one unripe and taste it, then you would get a slight, kind of like, bitter, acrid reaction in your mouth. Uh, and that would let you know that it's not ready to go. But I'm telling you, any of them that I've ever gathered that are completely dark purple all the way around, I've never had any negative reaction to it at all. I've used these in salads, I've cooked them into sauces, people even make jam with Garden Huckleberry. Basically, any way that you can think that you would use a cherry tomato, you can use black Nightshade as well. But personally, I really just like to eat them raw because they are so, so sweet.
Everyone can use this amazing plant, which is why I'm so excited that you're watching this video right now. But let me put your mind at ease that you're going to somehow mistake it for something else. And we're going to compare it to its lookalikes. Let's go ahead and cover the lookalike that everyone envisions when they hear the word black Nightshade, which is, of course, deadly nightshade, *Atropa belladonna*. There is a laundry list of details that we can use to distinguish these two, but I'll focus on the three most obvious ones. First, deadly nightshade has shiny berries on it that do not come in clusters. Second, deadly nightshade has a very, very large calyx, and they do go way past the edges of the fruits. Three, deadly nightshade has large, burgundy, tubular flowers that don't look anything at all, in any way, shape, or form, like black Nightshade.
I actually had to find stock footage of deadly nightshade because, again, it is extremely uncommon in North America. I don't really expect that I'm ever going to find it here in the wild. But for all the European foragers who are watching my videos, you all should definitely be familiar with this plant.
So now that we've covered that one, we need to talk about two other plants that personally I think are even closer lookalikes to black Nightshade that do grow in North America. The first one is called Bittersweet Nightshade, *Solanum dulcamara*, which is toxic. You may come across its flowers that are very, very similar in shape and form to black Nightshade, except for the fact that they are purple. And think, "Oh, is this black Nightshade?" No, it isn't. Black Nightshade does not have purple flowers. But another detail is that as the berries of Bittersweet Nightshade ripen, they turn to a red color, not a dark purple or black color.
This next one does have white flowers like black Nightshade, but they're a little bit larger, and its fruits will be an orange-yellow color at maturity, and it has sharp thorns all over it, for which it gets its common name, Horse Nettle, *Solanum carolinense*. This one is toxic as well. And to be honest, those are the only lookalikes that I can think of that look anything like black Nightshade. But if there are any that you have in mind, then let me know, and we'll cover them together in the pin comment.
And if you would like to learn about another plant that has a reputation for only being toxic but can be eaten as well and is incredibly delicious, then you should check out this video right here. I really think that you're going to like it, and I hope to see you there.
There was a bunch of super glue in my mouth, and a lot of them have popped off now. So we only had one shot at that, and I, uh, hope we got it, 'cause I do not want to do that again.