This weekend’s Wild Food Walk with Forage SF is fully booked, but there are two more opportunities coming in August to walk the public parks and learn what’s growing wild and good to eat in San Francisco.
Foraging for food is nothing new - our ancestors depended on it for their survival - but it seems to be the latest trend in food. A recent aricle in the New York Times profiled a Norwegian chef who includes many wild foraged foods on his uberlocal menu (A Nordic Chef Explores His Backyard) and Bay Area chefs are going the same way. David Patterson at COI Restaurant in North Beach is big on foraged ingredients and plans to launch a new cooking website designed to celebrate wild food. (Watch for Ingredient Lab.) Mourad Lahlou of Aziza on Geary and David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos also forage wild foods for their menus.
If the popularity of Forage SF’s wild foods dinners are any indication, there are plenty of curious people willing to give wild foods a try and connect more intimately with their local foodshed. At their last gathering, Forage SF hosted 130 diners over two days, each paying $80.
There are hygiene and legal considerations in collecting “found” food, none of which should warrant abandoning the practice, but it is good to educate yourself before setting out. And certainly, if you’re unfamiliar with plant identification, learn what’s okay to eat. Poisonous plants and mushrooms grow right alongside the good stuff.
If you would like to learn more, Forage SF has two sessions scheduled for San Francisco in August that still have open spots:
August 15, 2-4pm: Tickets
August 29th, 2-4pm: Tickets
Urban Food Foraging on the California Report
Foraging information and resources at foraging.com
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