Abstract
Despite the increasing scientific and public interest in wild food plants, their traditional knowledge is undergoing a deep cultural erosion process at a global scale. The paper assesses past and present use of wild food plants in Sierra Norte de Madrid (Spain) in order to understand which are the main drivers of its evolution. We interviewed 132 informants and analyzed the cultural importance and present use of the following: (1) the human food use-category compared with all the other use-subcategories, (2) the food plant species, and (3) the human food use-subcategories (e.g., vegetables, fruits, condiments, or beverages). The useful wild flora included 252 plant species, of which 74 were traditionally used as human food, which is the most culturally important use-category. The most important species were three vegetables consumed cooked (Scolymus hispanicus, Bryonia dioica, and Silene vulgaris), other two greens that were eaten raw (Rumex papillaris and Montia fontana), a condiment (Thymus zygis), and a fruit (Rubus ulmifolius). Among food use-categories, vegetables was the category with a higher cultural importance index, but beverages and condiments had the lowest cultural erosion rate. We found several drivers of change in the use of wild food plants, some enhancing the trend of abandonment that affects differently certain uses and species, and others encouraging their maintenance. Factors that may explain the general erosion trend are linked to the abandonment of traditional agricultural practices and shepherding: (1) the decrease in the abundance and quality of wild food plants; (2) wild food plants are no longer necessary for subsistence; (3) the reduction of time spent in the countryside; and (4) the negative connotations of some species that are considered famine food. On the other hand, there are several motivations for gathering and using wild food plants: (1) gathering is seen as a leisure and community building activity; (2) the intense flavor of wild plants, which cannot be substituted by cultivated or commercial ones; (3) positive values associated with some species consumed as everyday food that are now considered delicatessen; and (4) the medicinal role of food, mainly food uses closer to medicine such as beverages and condiments.
Highlights
Traditional knowledge about wild plants is still important for ensuring food and nutritional security to many people around the globe, especially for poor and marginalized communities (Kaoma and Shackleton, 2015; Ong and Kim, 2017; Ulian et al, 2020)
We focused on quantitative data for assessing the cultural importance and present use of: (1) the food use-category compared with all the other use-categories, (2) the human food plants species, (3) the food use-subcategories, and (4) the relation between food and medicine
The decline of the traditional agrarian society starting in the 1960s has led to the progressive abandonment of several activities, including the gathering and consumption of wild plants
Summary
Traditional knowledge about wild plants is still important for ensuring food and nutritional security to many people around the globe, especially for poor and marginalized communities (Kaoma and Shackleton, 2015; Ong and Kim, 2017; Ulian et al, 2020). It is mainly orally transmitted from generation to generation (Mesa, 1996) This body of knowledge is dynamic, since the relationship between human beings and plants is a coevolution process based on a continuous interaction leading to adaptive responses to the environment (Berkes et al, 2000). In traditional societies, this interaction is intimate, since the management of plants is the key for survival in every realm of life: nutrition, medicine, animal care, fuel, handcraft, symbolic uses, etc. Rural societies all over the country have lost, to a greater or smaller extent, their dependence on the surrounding environment
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