‘Nature feeds us more than it floods us’: Asheville after-school program teaches kids to forage

In the wake of Hurricane Helene, No Taste Like Home aims to rebuild trust between students and the land

Juniper Stewart just turned 12. She wears a cropped orange sweater and her ginger curls in a bob. She used to like Taylor Swift, but now she's more into the Cranberries and other indie rock.

Juniper also knows how to identify a Pilobolus mushroom, which grows on cow poop", according to Juniper. She can confidently harvest plantain leaf, a ubiquitous wild plant that's tasty in salads and sautees, and useful as a poultice on stings and poison ivy. She has paper bags full of sourwood leaves drying at home to make tea, and she's delighted by the fact that when you touch jewelweed seed pods, they explode.