I used to squish yew berries because it was fun. I also did the same with belladonna berries, and had no idea at the time that the poison can be absorbed through the skin...so I had a couple of years when I was about 7-9 where I was constantly tired and regularly had nightmares...and no one could figure out why. I'm pretty sure I know now.
I used to put the whole berry in my mouth as a kid and spit out the seed. Did it all the time and I never got poisoned. You probably have to chew the seed to be in danger
Actually I understand that generally somebody would have to consume quite a lot of it in order to cause death. That said, I’m glad Jared tried it and let me know what it was like. Nobody should be eating Yew, any of it, ever, though.
I like eating the yew berries (spitting the seeds out of course) just to freak people out around me lol I never do it when there is a kid there though, don't wanna risk them seeing me eat it and following my example, doing it wrong and dying...
Yeah its great if I'm on a date and want to sound like a rebel nerd. I'll just pick one, eat it and put on a pair of sunglasses. "This is taxus baccata babe, if you eat it wrong it kills you"
I live in the southern United States and have never seen a yew tree in person but always wondered what the berries would taste like. Thanks, I no longer wonder.
Its an important lesson to get when you're little. Knowing me, if my parents hadn't told me not to eat random berries, I would have eaten everything in site.
The berries are fine, it's the seed that's toxic. Very easy to spit out the seed. The seeds are very hard, you're not likely to break it by accident. I've nibbled on a lot of those, but not all at once. There isn't much flavor, they're tiny, it would take too long to get more than a nibble.
I’ve seen yew berries. I’m on east coast, mid Atlantic. I’m a pretty adventurous forager but never knew you could eat these or thought to try. I love this channel
Hey, quick question. Have you ever had a Korean melon? I found one in my local Asian Food Market and was just curious if you've ever had it. Okay, and another question. Have you ever eaten Fox Grapes? I'm not sure if they grow mainly in the Central US or just everywhere, but they make good wine if you're ever in the mood to make your own.
There are TONS of them in central park zoo in NYC!!! I was really curious when I was there as to what they were, so I researched them up. Comparing many google images I determined they were Oregon grapes and tried one. I did not particularly enjoy it, but it DOES GROW IN NYC!
There are related barberries that are also used ornamentally. Around the northwest in the wild one more often sees M. nervosa, which is shorter. M. aquifolia one mostly sees planted in like parking lot dividers. Actually I've been to Riverfront Park in Spokane and along that very path. Z Nation unfortunately wasn't filming at the time.
the front of my apartment building in NYC is lined with yew. my parents always told me the berries were poison, guess it was just the everything else thats poison.
I recently tried the 'yew-berrie', or 'Eiben-beere' how it's called here in Germany, and I actually liked it. My mother was with me going for a walk that day, and she thought that I'm out of my mind for wanting to try it, but I did it anyways. Too bad that my mom removed the old yew-tree in our own garden back when we moved to this house, but I understand why she did it at the time, because me and my sister were very young back then and my mom just wanted to protect us children from such a dangerous plant. Unfortunately I don't know any place here in my area where there is yew-tree growing other than on peoples property, so I'm not able to pick a large amount of berries. But If I find one, then I would rub the berries gently through a sieve or something to separate the flesh from the seeds, and then I would make a jam out of the fruit flesh.
You're quite the adventurous spirit. I have always wondered about those yew berries but have stayed clear for safety reasons. But I have tried mayapple jam (seedless). We have them growing everywhere up here. A few years ago I bought some sandwich bags from a dollar store and tied up the budding fruits of a patch near my house. It stopped the birds and bugs from getting at the fruit. At first frost I went out and picked them to make the jam. Have you tied the mayapple fruit? (podophyllum peltatum)
Tried May Apple last year. Picked them a little early so I decided to ripen them. I placed them in egg cartons and set them on the counter. It took probably a month. You'll know they are ripe when you smell them! Oh my, the aroma is actually very pleasant and fruity. The flavor was very sweet. I only ate a couple, as I did not want to get sick. I would recommend it.
Ah Mahonia angustifolius (?) - nice ornamental plant. Especially the flower. This year I will do a jam from them. I wanted to last year but the Cornus mas was enough work for me :D
If you get to the west side of the Cascades in the fall or early winter you should try the fruits of some of the Asian Mahonias (“Oregon Grapes”). They’ve now been reclassified as Berberis but they all share the holly-like leaves. The fruits are a lot sweeter and more pleasant all around. You’ll find them all around the city and also in the Arboretum. Yew: Totally agree. It’s semisweet snot. And if you get here in May, you gotta have salmonberries! They’re the almost-first fruit to ripen, and definitely the first tasty one.
Wow those berries where always so tempting to me as a kid. They just always had a nice gooey texture when smooshed. As a kid I was always afraid I could get really sick from eating unfamiliar things though.
I have a yew bush in the yard, it must be over 25 years old so its huge. I read somewhere that cutting down a yew tree and inhaling some of the sawdust can be enough to kill yew
I actually try the taxxus baccata berries every time I see them (not that I look out for them though) and somehow they remind me a bit of the kousa dogwood berry I've once had.
Oregon Grape shrubs are generally available in nurseries. I see them occasionally in landscaping here in NW Arkansas. The Yewberry flesh is sweet and delicious, but great care must be taken to not swallow the seed or any other part of the plant.
I get a nice hint of pine from yew berries (a low growing variety, not that small tree you showed). I don't think you have to be quite so careful with them. I've eaten large quantities, with no I'll effects. The seeds aren't that easy to crack. Bear scat around here turn to a giant mass of yew berry seeds when they're in season. They pass right through.
I dig it. I've noticed a lot of people pick up on it when it's Cannibal Holocaust, but maybe The Black Cat is a little less well known. Anyway, I like this series a lot. I want to try the best fruit ever someday but I live in midwestern Canada, so... not much in the way of exotics out here (seriously, I get excited over pineapple). This series is gonna help me narrow down what I have to seek out.
We have them on the front of the park in front of the Sacrée Coeur as decoration, nice to know what a yew berry is now never ate one unlike some other people in these comments cause I wasn't a dumb risky kid, but I did squeeze a few cause it was so fun, didnt like how sticky they were tho so didnt do it too much
You should try juniper. Its going to be slimy, resiny , pinelike...and try the communis variety. But also pleasant in a weird way(i guess) I think others are poisonous...Also, not really...fruit in a traditional sense...they are...cones...modified ones...
Yeah that is a scary one. I remember those bushes as a child and being warned how poisonous they were. That slime that the red berries emit was enough to keep us from tasting them.
We had these growing in our front yard when I was a kid. Parents told us they were poisonous... probably wise on their part, even though false. We used to call them antberries because we'd pluck them off the bush and throw them at the pavement, and within 5 minutes they'd be swarmed by ants.
I always snack on yew berries when I see them. I suck the flesh off and spit out the seeds. I've had hundreds and I am completely fine. Just don't chew them and you will be good. Tastes like syrup, sweetest berry I've ever tasted.
I don't think what is shown here is necessarily Taxus Baccata (English yew). It could be Taxus brevifolia (pacific yew) which is native to the western pacific coast or Taxus cuspidata (Japanese yew) which is extensively planted for landscaping throughout North America. There is also Taxus canadensis (Canada yew) which grows in North America but is limited to the north-eastern part of the continent. Whatever the variety, the fruit is similar and should not be eaten.
This is a bit of a nitpick, but yewberries aren't actually fruit. The tree is a conifer so it's not a flower or fruit bearing tree. What it is though is a seed aryl, which is kind of the coating of the seed
Ohh, Mahonia? really? Gotta try that for sure, they use those a lot around here in city green because they flower so nice in the middle of winter. Dull dark weather, suddenly.... BRIGHT YELLOW FLOWERS! :) Eeek! Did we just watch the last episode? Yew takes some guts. I don't think i would eat it unless i was absolutely desperate. Won't risk it.
Hmmm. Until the production and marketing of food became an industry, organ meats were the most highly desired part of the animal. They are much more nutritious than the muscle meats we in America now eat almost exclusively. Very tasty! Yes, even brains. River Cottage did a show on that, which sometimes appears on TH-cam.
also Oregon Grapes are a bit metallic in aftertaste, so the jelly is not actually very fun cuz the aftertaste concentrates in the jelly. The other amusing thing is that earwigs LOVE living on the plants, [not inside the fruits themselves luckily] so if you actually do pick a bunch of Oregon grapes to make jelly out of and then leave the bucket sitting somewhere, earwigs galore will scatter out of that bucket into your house... which is also not very fun. Also you apparently touched LOTS of earwigs while picking the berries wtf...
We were always told to stay away from those berries growing up. Everyone always said that the berries were poisonous and that even the birds wont eat them and to this day I don't remember ever seeing a bird eat the berries on the Yew bushes. Far too much precaution for a teeny tiny bit of sweet red snot.
+Peter Ripson Birds here in Germany eat them, so this plant spreads it's seeds. It is toxic for Mammals I take one fruit in my mouth and gently suck the Pulpa, not to damage the seed and spit the seed out. In the Ukraine women make a kind of jam of it. How? Don't know. It is named to be very healthy there.
The native tribes in the Pacific Northwest mixed Oregon grapes with salal berries, pounded them into a paste and then dries the paste in the sun to make cakes that could be stored for long periods of time
Awe man 1:19 behind your hand is salmon berrys and it wasn't on season yet contractors in Washington plant those everywhere not realizing the berry pickers it draws in
diskord42 honestly ive never ran into a bitter salmon berry you must be picking them early. They should basically fall off the inner pith when ripe and are best enjoyed in a jam of its own or mixed in with other bramble berrys such as the black caps, blackberrys or thimble berrys because although sweet salmon berrys are lacking in any particular flavor but i love straight salmon berry jelly myself it truely is a seasonal treat for me
during our lab, we took a stroll into a forest. i was very interested in the yew berry, it looked really tasty. i grabbed one and started to smell it, my professor ran over and smacked it out of my hand. im glad he did lol
I had to watch this episode as it made me remember how risky I was as a child. We had Yew shrubs. I was intrigued by the berries. As I reached for one, an adult slapped my hand and told me not to touch them, as they were poisonous. Well, I didn't believe them and waited for a time when no one was around. I picked one of the berries, noticed the seed, so I squeezed the berry until the goo came out enough to glisten on the berry. I licked the goo, and it tasted like honey. I did not eat the berry or seed, as I did know there was a reason they said it was poisonous. I love the taste of honey, so next time I see them, I will just gather the goo to eat. LOL. If you wait until the top of the seed starts to nearly protrude, they are much sweeter.
When I was growing up, we had a yew bush in front of our house. I never ate the berries, though, and it doesn't seem worth the bother. There are too many other good fruits out there that don't carry a risk
If you make it to the wetter western side of Washington or Oregon you should try eating Salal berries. They have a pleasant taste. Might even be able to arrange shipping you some wild berries (providing its not illegal) if you want to try all the fruits and berries.
Oregon grapes are about as common as blackberry bushes here in western Washington I could have told you that there's as sour as lemons nice to see you in Washington State 4 years ago The Yew Berries are slimey sweet.
The PNW has a lot of cool berry-ish options. Someone else mentioned salal or Gaultheria shallon -- a fleshy sepal technically -- pretty decent! Although you will find more of it nearer to the coast. Also saskatoon serviceberry.
I noticed that mahonia(oregon grape) is less sour later in it's season. Some I ate in August were very sour, and I put them in a smoothie with honey to sweeten(though the pits added a bit of a bitterness). But I had some in mid September that were much less intense, and actually mildly sweet. This is in the Puget Sound area.
I grew up with one of those bushes in my front yard we played with the berries but we never tried to eat one of them, and now I know. Lol that's a 45 year old mystery solved, we used to call them snot berries.
Edible part of Podocarpus macrophyllus is similar to this, but much safer to eat, because the seed is not inside the "cup". It may worth a try, but in my experience it was just sweet, without any special flavor.
My mother made Oregon grape jelly a few times growing up. I didn't like the flavor because it has a weird aftertaste. I think it would have been better mixed with something.
In elementary school, my friend's neighbour had a yew tree/bush up against the chain link fence separating their properties, and we ate all the yew berries that we could reach because they taste good. I didn't know until about a year ago how poisonous the whole tree is except for the berry meat lul. I don't remember if we ate the seeds or spit them out, but we didn't die or have any ill effects, so probs didn't eat them
I foraged yew berries in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco... the berries are made just right for disposing of the seed so you can enjoy all that sweet slime... Tolerable in the late fall to winter cold... but not worth eating twice!
I enjoy your videos. i enjoy trying new fruits but i do have to be careful because I have a latex allergy. I dont think i would have tried the yew berry. But props to you for trying. Are you still feeling ok?
you missed out on Or-ee-gun Oso berries, twin berries, salal, trilium, salmonberries, huckleberries, filberts, thimbleberries, and the horribly invasive Himalayan blackberries
these grew in front of our house (or something very like these) on little coniferous bushes when I was a kid. They're just about the most "POISONOUS!!!!"-looking things in the world: red, weirdly shaped, filled with snot. Never ever even wanted to try one.
We have a big Plum Yew at the garden I work at, and it's berries are slightly larger and they taste like mangoes and when they're a little older they kind of remind me of persimmons
I ate a dozen or so yew berries as a little kid. I didn't die, because I assumed they were like cherries and spit out the cones as if they were cherry pits. As my grandmother frantically explained this to Poison Control, the lady on the other end told her what to watch for, but as I hadn't eaten cones or leaves, I probably wasn't going to die. I seemed recall finding them "tomato-y", but I was at most four and not that discerning. XD
I won't underplay how poisonous taxus can be, but I do believe you need to chew and crack the seeds for them to be poisonous. I eat the berries all the time, I just spit the seed out, but I swallowed a seed a few weeks back and didn't feel a thing. And I do think it makes a bit of sense, red berries are almost alway dispersed by birds or mamals, so the plant wants the berries to be eaten and the seeds pooped out, but the plant doesn't want it's seeds chomped on...
Ive eaten one. Probably not the best idea. I saw the tree in England and jumped and grabbed a berry. I know a lot about them so I felt safe in what I did. It tastes like a grape but a bit less flavor. The juice is also incredibly sticky haha.
That copper aftertaste of the yew berry is fear.
I have been eating them for years. They are sweat, juicy and taste like jello. I eat them one by one - and I spit the pit out.
@@enlightening_bubblesSame, I'm not as cautious as he was in this video. I've never had any issues.
@@SubjectiveFunny - wow and I thought I am the only one :-)
you are a brave man! lol! i love that total 70's music in your intro. with the scenes you shot... so perfect!
Ashley Jo what is that song??? I feel like I've heard out before
It's the title theme from the 1981 horror film "The Black Cat."
@@TheProtronic know if it can be found anywhere on TH-cam? I tried looking it up but keep finding anime crap
Has anyone found the song yet?
Thanks me later
th-cam.com/video/yyiYaBc506I/w-d-xo.html
I used to squish yew berries because it was fun. I also did the same with belladonna berries, and had no idea at the time that the poison can be absorbed through the skin...so I had a couple of years when I was about 7-9 where I was constantly tired and regularly had nightmares...and no one could figure out why. I'm pretty sure I know now.
I used to put the whole berry in my mouth as a kid and spit out the seed. Did it all the time and I never got poisoned. You probably have to chew the seed to be in danger
Correct. An unbroken seed can actually pass through the body without harm but if the seed is chewed, poisoning can occur with as few as just three.
Actually I understand that generally somebody would have to consume quite a lot of it in order to cause death. That said, I’m glad Jared tried it and let me know what it was like.
Nobody should be eating Yew, any of it, ever, though.
@@parsnipfingers I ate 5 yesterday.
@@parsnipfingers and no I did not die.
@@thesmoviemaker21 well done, mate. I’ll open a beer to celebrate on your behalf.
I like eating the yew berries (spitting the seeds out of course) just to freak people out around me lol
I never do it when there is a kid there though, don't wanna risk them seeing me eat it and following my example, doing it wrong and dying...
Yeah its great if I'm on a date and want to sound like a rebel nerd. I'll just pick one, eat it and put on a pair of sunglasses. "This is taxus baccata babe, if you eat it wrong it kills you"
I can already hear the panties droppin' ;)
Dude, I have done the same. It pays to know your botany/bushcraft!
@@catherinedufresne3543
(☞ ͡ ͡° ͜ ʖ ͡ ͡°)☞
I live in the southern United States and have never seen a yew tree in person but always wondered what the berries would taste like. Thanks, I no longer wonder.
We had a yew tree in my yard as a kid. It made for a fun time playing with the berries, we knew not to eat them.
Its an important lesson to get when you're little. Knowing me, if my parents hadn't told me not to eat random berries, I would have eaten everything in site.
"...in site." LOL! You are very funny!
The berries are fine, it's the seed that's toxic. Very easy to spit out the seed. The seeds are very hard, you're not likely to break it by accident. I've nibbled on a lot of those, but not all at once. There isn't much flavor, they're tiny, it would take too long to get more than a nibble.
I’ve seen yew berries. I’m on east coast, mid Atlantic. I’m a pretty adventurous forager but never knew you could eat these or thought to try. I love this channel
The music makes it sound like a documentary
Hey, quick question. Have you ever had a Korean melon? I found one in my local Asian Food Market and was just curious if you've ever had it. Okay, and another question. Have you ever eaten Fox Grapes? I'm not sure if they grow mainly in the Central US or just everywhere, but they make good wine if you're ever in the mood to make your own.
There are TONS of them in central park zoo in NYC!!! I was really curious when I was there as to what they were, so I researched them up. Comparing many google images I determined they were Oregon grapes and tried one. I did not particularly enjoy it, but it DOES GROW IN NYC!
Cool! I've never seen them here.
There are related barberries that are also used ornamentally. Around the northwest in the wild one more often sees M. nervosa, which is shorter. M. aquifolia one mostly sees planted in like parking lot dividers. Actually I've been to Riverfront Park in Spokane and along that very path. Z Nation unfortunately wasn't filming at the time.
the front of my apartment building in NYC is lined with yew. my parents always told me the berries were poison, guess it was just the everything else thats poison.
I recently tried the 'yew-berrie', or 'Eiben-beere' how it's called here in Germany, and I actually liked it. My mother was with me going for a walk that day, and she thought that I'm out of my mind for wanting to try it, but I did it anyways.
Too bad that my mom removed the old yew-tree in our own garden back when we moved to this house, but I understand why she did it at the time, because me and my sister were very young back then and my mom just wanted to protect us children from such a dangerous plant.
Unfortunately I don't know any place here in my area where there is yew-tree growing other than on peoples property, so I'm not able to pick a large amount of berries. But If I find one, then I would rub the berries gently through a sieve or something to separate the flesh from the seeds, and then I would make a jam out of the fruit flesh.
My friends and I called those yew berries "deathberries" when we were kids. Didn't know you could eat them.
As long as you're very careful with the deadly seed within it's fine
Warrior cats?
You're quite the adventurous spirit. I have always wondered about those yew berries but have stayed clear for safety reasons. But I have tried mayapple jam (seedless). We have them growing everywhere up here. A few years ago I bought some sandwich bags from a dollar store and tied up the budding fruits of a patch near my house. It stopped the birds and bugs from getting at the fruit. At first frost I went out and picked them to make the jam. Have you tied the mayapple fruit? (podophyllum peltatum)
I haven't, but i really want to try them. They are very hard to find in NYC but they do grow in Central Park.
Tried May Apple last year. Picked them a little early so I decided to ripen them. I placed them in egg cartons and set them on the counter. It took probably a month. You'll know they are ripe when you smell them! Oh my, the aroma is actually very pleasant and fruity. The flavor was very sweet. I only ate a couple, as I did not want to get sick. I would recommend it.
Ah Mahonia angustifolius (?) - nice ornamental plant. Especially the flower.
This year I will do a jam from them. I wanted to last year but the Cornus mas was enough work for me :D
Sounds great!
If you get to the west side of the Cascades in the fall or early winter you should try the fruits of some of the Asian Mahonias (“Oregon Grapes”). They’ve now been reclassified as Berberis but they all share the holly-like leaves. The fruits are a lot sweeter and more pleasant all around. You’ll find them all around the city and also in the Arboretum.
Yew: Totally agree. It’s semisweet snot.
And if you get here in May, you gotta have salmonberries! They’re the almost-first fruit to ripen, and definitely the first tasty one.
Ive been wanting to try salmonberries! hopefully the times will work out sometime
Wow those berries where always so tempting to me as a kid. They just always had a nice gooey texture when smooshed. As a kid I was always afraid I could get really sick from eating unfamiliar things though.
I have a yew bush in the yard, it must be over 25 years old so its huge. I read somewhere that cutting down a yew tree and inhaling some of the sawdust can be enough to kill yew
I actually try the taxxus baccata berries every time I see them (not that I look out for them though) and somehow they remind me a bit of the kousa dogwood berry I've once had.
interesting! I didn't find that similarity, but it could be the variation of the tree/cultivar
Oregon Grape shrubs are generally available in nurseries. I see them occasionally in landscaping here in NW Arkansas.
The Yewberry flesh is sweet and delicious, but great care must be taken to not swallow the seed or any other part of the plant.
I get a nice hint of pine from yew berries (a low growing variety, not that small tree you showed). I don't think you have to be quite so careful with them. I've eaten large quantities, with no I'll effects. The seeds aren't that easy to crack. Bear scat around here turn to a giant mass of yew berry seeds when they're in season. They pass right through.
What's with you and innocuous-sounding old horror movie themes anyway? :)
Just amusing myself :D
I dig it. I've noticed a lot of people pick up on it when it's Cannibal Holocaust, but maybe The Black Cat is a little less well known. Anyway, I like this series a lot. I want to try the best fruit ever someday but I live in midwestern Canada, so... not much in the way of exotics out here (seriously, I get excited over pineapple). This series is gonna help me narrow down what I have to seek out.
We have them on the front of the park in front of the Sacrée Coeur as decoration, nice to know what a yew berry is now
never ate one unlike some other people in these comments cause I wasn't a dumb risky kid, but I did squeeze a few cause it was so fun, didnt like how sticky they were tho so didnt do it too much
we have a yew berry bush and yes, its just slimy and sweet nothing much to it
this year there weren't too many berries lol
Got to say, I love the Yew arils, they are delicious.
You should try juniper. Its going to be slimy, resiny , pinelike...and try the communis variety. But also pleasant in a weird way(i guess)
I think others are poisonous...Also, not really...fruit in a traditional sense...they are...cones...modified ones...
The fleshy part of the yew berry is called an aril.
Yeah that is a scary one. I remember those bushes as a child and being warned how poisonous they were. That slime that the red berries emit was enough to keep us from tasting them.
Yehey...Jared goes foraging for wild fruit again....
It has very good flavor that is overpowered by the sourness. If you boil it and add honey to it, you will taste the flavor of Oregon grape.
yew berries are indeed nice however i remember my first i didnt take the connection of the seed to the berry out all the way and got very sick
What species of acorn are you going to use?
We had these growing in our front yard when I was a kid. Parents told us they were poisonous... probably wise on their part, even though false. We used to call them antberries because we'd pluck them off the bush and throw them at the pavement, and within 5 minutes they'd be swarmed by ants.
I love your profile pic so much😅
The wild pacific yew in Vancouver has pretty good tasting berries. Still slimy, but no metallic taste
oregon grapes can sometimes taste good and like grapes.
I always snack on yew berries when I see them.
I suck the flesh off and spit out the seeds.
I've had hundreds and I am completely fine.
Just don't chew them and you will be good.
Tastes like syrup, sweetest berry I've ever tasted.
I have what one could call the biggest Oregon grape bush in my backyard.
I like yew berries
I don't think what is shown here is necessarily Taxus Baccata (English yew). It could be Taxus brevifolia (pacific yew) which is native to the western pacific coast or Taxus cuspidata (Japanese yew) which is extensively planted for landscaping throughout North America. There is also Taxus canadensis (Canada yew) which grows in North America but is limited to the north-eastern part of the continent. Whatever the variety, the fruit is similar and should not be eaten.
1:17 “oh-reh-gone”
This is a bit of a nitpick, but yewberries aren't actually fruit. The tree is a conifer so it's not a flower or fruit bearing tree. What it is though is a seed aryl, which is kind of the coating of the seed
As a kid i bit into a yew berry, realized how bad of an idea that was and spit it out faster than it went in. Scary looking back at it.
Ohh, Mahonia? really? Gotta try that for sure, they use those a lot around here in city green because they flower so nice in the middle of winter. Dull dark weather, suddenly.... BRIGHT YELLOW FLOWERS! :) Eeek! Did we just watch the last episode? Yew takes some guts. I don't think i would eat it unless i was absolutely desperate. Won't risk it.
Still here thankfully, but I won't do that again. Not worth it.
+Jared Rydelek Whew!! Thanks, i was getting worried :)
dude , have you ever gotten sick doing this? If so how bad ? runs , vomiting , ER ?
By the way it's pronounced Or-gan for all of us that live here.
Idk about you but organs don't sound very tasty
Hmmm. Until the production and marketing of food became an industry, organ meats were the most highly desired part of the animal. They are much more nutritious than the muscle meats we in America now eat almost exclusively. Very tasty!
Yes, even brains. River Cottage did a show on that, which sometimes appears on TH-cam.
Oree-gone lol
Yew berries, natures KY.
also Oregon Grapes are a bit metallic in aftertaste, so the jelly is not actually very fun cuz the aftertaste concentrates in the jelly. The other amusing thing is that earwigs LOVE living on the plants, [not inside the fruits themselves luckily] so if you actually do pick a bunch of Oregon grapes to make jelly out of and then leave the bucket sitting somewhere, earwigs galore will scatter out of that bucket into your house... which is also not very fun. Also you apparently touched LOTS of earwigs while picking the berries wtf...
We were always told to stay away from those berries growing up. Everyone always said that the berries were poisonous and that even the birds wont eat them and to this day I don't remember ever seeing a bird eat the berries on the Yew bushes. Far too much precaution for a teeny tiny bit of sweet red snot.
yeah, definitely not worth the risk for humans or birds :)
+Peter Ripson Birds here in Germany eat them, so this plant spreads it's seeds. It is toxic for Mammals
I take one fruit in my mouth and gently suck the Pulpa, not to damage the seed and spit the seed out.
In the Ukraine women make a kind of jam of it. How? Don't know. It is named to be very healthy there.
very interesting, thanks for sharing!
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Birds_in_Taxus_baccata
Perhaps, American birds are not familiar with European yew :)
I never knew you could eat those things. The more you know...
While you're PNW'ing, have you tried sea-berries?
Bright Orange, and the same super-sour taste.
Hippophae rhamnoides
No I haven't, but I've heard of them. I'll look next time I'm there.
The berries are fine the seeds will mess you up though.
Huh,Oregon grape looks like a pink olive.A tiny deadly pink olive.
You weren't paying attention. The purple one at the beginning was the grape. The red berry was the yew berry.
Be careful! I am not so brave to try Taxus.
I guess the yew berry is the fugu of the fruit world
I live in Oregon 😆
Only yew...can eat those berries right...
They taste like slimy blood.
I hate to tell you this after you risked your life, but Yew are modified cones and therefore not actually a fruit
lalala I'm not listening lalala
+Jared Rydelek Haha, at least you're maintaining a sense of adventure and curiosity
Obligatory you're pronouncing Oregon wrong
Depressing song... Why, just why
+Kaisy Armstrong Fruit-eating is serious business.
+Jared Rydelek please chance that song i love your vídeos but the begging song is so sad, unhappy and depressing 😓😩
Check out my most recent videos. That song isn't quite as depressing ;)
Rather nostalgic one, I would say.
I like this theme music.
I wonder if yewberry could be dried for sugar.
My first thought at seeing this video as I was scrolling through was DON'T EAT YEW BERRIES THEY ARE POISONOUS but I see now that you covered that...
The native tribes in the Pacific Northwest mixed Oregon grapes with salal berries, pounded them into a paste and then dries the paste in the sun to make cakes that could be stored for long periods of time
The original fruit roll up! Nice!!
Like pemmican?
Awe man 1:19 behind your hand is salmon berrys and it wasn't on season yet contractors in Washington plant those everywhere not realizing the berry pickers it draws in
Salmon berries are like bitter raspberries. Not my favorite, but good to nibble when walking around.
diskord42 honestly ive never ran into a bitter salmon berry you must be picking them early. They should basically fall off the inner pith when ripe and are best enjoyed in a jam of its own or mixed in with other bramble berrys such as the black caps, blackberrys or thimble berrys because although sweet salmon berrys are lacking in any particular flavor but i love straight salmon berry jelly myself it truely is a seasonal treat for me
They taste like grapefruit
during our lab, we took a stroll into a forest. i was very interested in the yew berry, it looked really tasty. i grabbed one and started to smell it, my professor ran over and smacked it out of my hand. im glad he did lol
They are edible tho, just not the seed. I would eat them as a kid.
I had to watch this episode as it made me remember how risky I was as a child. We had Yew shrubs. I was intrigued by the berries. As I reached for one, an adult slapped my hand and told me not to touch them, as they were poisonous. Well, I didn't believe them and waited for a time when no one was around. I picked one of the berries, noticed the seed, so I squeezed the berry until the goo came out enough to glisten on the berry. I licked the goo, and it tasted like honey. I did not eat the berry or seed, as I did know there was a reason they said it was poisonous. I love the taste of honey, so next time I see them, I will just gather the goo to eat. LOL. If you wait until the top of the seed starts to nearly protrude, they are much sweeter.
When I was growing up, we had a yew bush in front of our house. I never ate the berries, though, and it doesn't seem worth the bother. There are too many other good fruits out there that don't carry a risk
good call!
Lots of fruits have poison in the seeds. All your common stone fruit and apple seeds!
I tried a few yew arils in college, they were just like sugary mucus, not worth potential heart failure...
So...it'*snot* worth it.
If you make it to the wetter western side of Washington or Oregon you should try eating Salal berries. They have a pleasant taste. Might even be able to arrange shipping you some wild berries (providing its not illegal) if you want to try all the fruits and berries.
Salal seconded! Like blueberry and applish tasting... September I guess would be the season for them.
Mmmmm. Yes, Salal berries are yummy. August here in southern BC.
Oregon grapes are about as common as blackberry bushes here in western Washington I could have told you that there's as sour as lemons nice to see you in Washington State 4 years ago
The Yew Berries are slimey sweet.
The PNW has a lot of cool berry-ish options. Someone else mentioned salal or Gaultheria shallon -- a fleshy sepal technically -- pretty decent! Although you will find more of it nearer to the coast. Also saskatoon serviceberry.
Both coming soon!
I noticed that mahonia(oregon grape) is less sour later in it's season. Some I ate in August were very sour, and I put them in a smoothie with honey to sweeten(though the pits added a bit of a bitterness). But I had some in mid September that were much less intense, and actually mildly sweet. This is in the Puget Sound area.
I grew up with one of those bushes in my front yard we played with the berries but we never tried to eat one of them, and now I know. Lol that's a 45 year old mystery solved, we used to call them snot berries.
Edible part of Podocarpus macrophyllus is similar to this, but much safer to eat, because the seed is not inside the "cup". It may worth a try, but in my experience it was just sweet, without any special flavor.
Be careful. There are berries in that area that will drop you just from a taste.
I actually love eating yew arils, they are really tasty, and they are good for heartburn. Just don't ever chomp the seeds!
Well, yew berries aren't technically fruit, so you didn't HAVE to eat them.
Specially for Easterners Ory isn't gone, it's Ory gun. :-)
I was always told those evergreen berries on the hedge were not edible
someone i know tried to commit suicide eating the leaves.
I tried a yew berry once and spit out the seed. Your description is spot on.
we're living life on the edge. haha
Oregon grape holly does grow in New York it’s planted as an ornament
Manito sounds like Man-a-toe.
Another Spokanite?
My mother made Oregon grape jelly a few times growing up. I didn't like the flavor because it has a weird aftertaste. I think it would have been better mixed with something.
Oregon isn't pronounced or uh gone, it's pronounced or eh gun.
In elementary school, my friend's neighbour had a yew tree/bush up against the chain link fence separating their properties, and we ate all the yew berries that we could reach because they taste good. I didn't know until about a year ago how poisonous the whole tree is except for the berry meat lul. I don't remember if we ate the seeds or spit them out, but we didn't die or have any ill effects, so probs didn't eat them
I foraged yew berries in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco... the berries are made just right for disposing of the seed so you can enjoy all that sweet slime... Tolerable in the late fall to winter cold... but not worth eating twice!
I enjoy your videos. i enjoy trying new fruits but i do have to be careful because I have a latex allergy. I dont think i would have tried the yew berry. But props to you for trying. Are you still feeling ok?
managed to survive fortunately haha
you missed out on Or-ee-gun Oso berries, twin berries, salal, trilium, salmonberries, huckleberries, filberts, thimbleberries, and the horribly invasive Himalayan blackberries
these grew in front of our house (or something very like these) on little coniferous bushes when I was a kid. They're just about the most "POISONOUS!!!!"-looking things in the world: red, weirdly shaped, filled with snot. Never ever even wanted to try one.
We have a big Plum Yew at the garden I work at, and it's berries are slightly larger and they taste like mangoes and when they're a little older they kind of remind me of persimmons
I ate a dozen or so yew berries as a little kid. I didn't die, because I assumed they were like cherries and spit out the cones as if they were cherry pits. As my grandmother frantically explained this to Poison Control, the lady on the other end told her what to watch for, but as I hadn't eaten cones or leaves, I probably wasn't going to die. I seemed recall finding them "tomato-y", but I was at most four and not that discerning. XD
Did you ever get really sick from eating weird fruits? I know the episode where you got diarrhea, but I mean sick sick... :D
I always thought yew berries tasted like regular, non-hfcs corn syrup. Just flavorless, sweet and unpleasantly slimy
I won't underplay how poisonous taxus can be, but I do believe you need to chew and crack the seeds for them to be poisonous. I eat the berries all the time, I just spit the seed out, but I swallowed a seed a few weeks back and didn't feel a thing. And I do think it makes a bit of sense, red berries are almost alway dispersed by birds or mamals, so the plant wants the berries to be eaten and the seeds pooped out, but the plant doesn't want it's seeds chomped on...
Ive eaten one. Probably not the best idea. I saw the tree in England and jumped and grabbed a berry. I know a lot about them so I felt safe in what I did. It tastes like a grape but a bit less flavor. The juice is also incredibly sticky haha.
Truly both an explorer and a performer! Cheers Jared God bless you in the name of Yahshua
Yew berry tastes like sweetened bloody mucus. Like if you had a nose bleed while drinking sugar water.
As a kid I saw yew berries in pictures and always wanted to eat them but never saw any. They look like they would be delicious for some reason.