May we suggest harvesting wild rice in Minnesota, foraging for cacti in Arizona, or fishing for invasive catfish in Chesapeake Bay?

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This article is part of a series of stories about hunting , fishing , and foraging experiences across North America .

My boyhood summers tasted like wild fruit and fish. When I gathered blueberries from the pine and oak woods around my father’s New Hampshire home, he would stir their purple sweetness into pancake batter. When I pulled brook trout from the waters of a long-abandoned granite quarry, I would sauté them in a cast iron skillet until delicate flesh flaked from translucent bone.

Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, where the author learned how to forage and fish.

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At twenty, I went vegan and quit fishing. For food, I looked to the grocery store and, seasonally, the garden.…