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. 2020 Dec 29;10(1):61.
doi: 10.3390/foods10010061.

The Power of Wild Plants in Feeding Humanity: A Meta-Analytic Ethnobotanical Approach in the Catalan Linguistic Area

Airy Gras  1 , Teresa Garnatje  1 , Jon Marín  2 , Montse Parada  2 , Ester Sala  2 , Marc Talavera  3   4 , Joan Vallès  2   5
Affiliations

The Power of Wild Plants in Feeding Humanity: A Meta-Analytic Ethnobotanical Approach in the Catalan Linguistic Area

Airy Gras et al. Foods. .

Abstract

Wild food plants (WFP) have always been present in our kitchen, although they have not always been given the same importance as crops. In the Catalan linguistic area (CLA), covered in this paper, WFP were of great importance as a subsistence food not only during the years of the Spanish civil war (1936-1939) and World War II (1939-1945), but also long before these periods and in the years thereafter. The CLA has been well studied at the level of traditional knowledge on plant biodiversity, and much of this information is collected in a database by the EtnoBioFiC research group. The aim of this work is to carry out a meta-analysis of the WFP dataset of he CLA (only regarding edible uses, drinks excluded) and to identify the most quoted plants, and the information associated with them. With data from 1659 informants, we recorded 10,078 use reports of 291 taxa (278 of which at specific or subspecific levels and 13 only determined at generic level) belonging to 67 families. The most reported taxa, also with highest cultural importance indexes, are Thymus vulgaris, Foeniculum vulgare subsp. piperitum, Laurus nobilis, Rubus ulmifolius and Mentha spicata. The ethnobotanicity index for food plants is 6.62% and the informant consensus factor, also for food uses, is a very high 0.97, supporting the robustness of the information. The results provided and discussed in this work concern a significant part of the edible resources in the territory considered, which is, often and mainly, underestimated and underutilised. Its consideration could be an opportunity to promote closer and more sustainable agriculture. From the state-of-the-art of this question, it is possible to propose old, in some cases forgotten foods that could be newly introduced onto the market, first, but not only, at a local level, which could be interesting for new crop development in the frame of a valorisation of territorial identity.

Keywords: Catalan countries; Catalan linguistic area; edible plants; ethnobotany; traditional knowledge; wild food plants.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Territories studied (black drops) in the Catalan linguistic area and its location in Europe. The blue line defines the current zones where Catalan language is spoken and the red line the borders between states. The small subdivisions in the continental part correspond to administrative districts (called ‘comarca’, pl. ‘comarques’, in Catalan).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Most reported families, with number of taxa per family, of wild food plants in the area studied.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Parts of the wild food plants used in the area studied.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Modes of preparation of wild food plants in the area studied.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Modes of preparation of the most reported wild food plants in the area studied.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Examples of wild food plants prepared for consumption. (A) Molopospermum peloponnesiacum in salad; (B) Chenopodium bonus-henricus in omelette; (C) Arbutus unedo preserved in jam.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Examples of wild food plants present in markets (A,B) or restaurants (C). (A) Crithmum maritimum; (B) Asparagus acutifolius; (C) Urtica dioica.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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