A century of changes in wild food plant use in coastal Croatia: the example of Krk and Poljica

Katija Dolina,Marija Jug-Dujaković,Ivana Vitasović-Kosić,Łukasz Łuczaj

doi:10.5586/asbp.3508

Abstract

The aim of this study was to document the use of wild foods in two locations in the coastal part of Croatia – on the island of Krk and in the Poljica area, near Split. We chose these places as they have historical data on plant use (1900 and 1903 respectively). We carried out 67 interviews in Poljica and 55 interviews in Krk to estimate the current use and knowledge of wild foods. Altogether, 80 species of wild food and herbal tea species of plants were recorded in Poljica and 76 in Krk. On average, 13.2 species were listed by per interview in Poljica, including 7.1 species of wild vegetables, and in Krk 14.6 species, including 7.9 species of wild vegetables. Out of the list of plant names recorded in the past, in Krk, we identified 82% of the taxa and in Poljica 86%.

Highlights

Due to the increasing availability of agricultural crops, the knowledge and use of wild edible plants has been decreasing in Europe and on a worldwide scale [1,2]
Out of the list of plant names recorded in the past, in Krk, we identified 82% of the taxa and in Poljica 86%
The aim of the study was to compare wild food plant use nowadays to the uses reported in the archival materials from the turn of the twentieth century

Summary

Introduction

Due to the increasing availability of agricultural crops, the knowledge and use of wild edible plants has been decreasing in Europe and on a worldwide scale [1,2]. One of the domains where this change is most profound is the use of wild greens. They were used in the majority of human populations, especially in times of food scarcity, but nowadays their consumption survives mainly in regions where they are regarded as healthy food [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. It is sometimes even said that eating wild greens is a “hidden” part of the Mediterranean diet [11,12]. Even there this use is declining [10,12,13,14,15,16,17]. The decrease in the usage of other categories of wild foods in the Mediterranean is probably less profound (e.g., [15,18])

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Conclusion