Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.
My first book is now available to order. The first in a three-part series, Flora is the vegetable portion of my life, covering wild plants, herbs, spices, garden vegetables, nuts and starches. It will be followed in time by Fungi (mushrooms) and Fauna (meat). Is the book only for North American Plants? No. I wrote…
I bounced around Italian kitchens for years and I picked up a few tricks and special dishes. Cappellini alla Checca with Wild Mushrooms is a contender for my all-time favorite pasta, and I’ve been meaning to share it with you since I started this website nearly 10 years ago. This was hands-down the best selling…
Tender fronds of hen of the woods (Grifola frondosa or maitake) cooked slowly until they just start to brown with butter, sage, garlic and wine make for a good seasonal side dish you can add to all kinds of things. The basic idea is that you peel the mushroom apart to make long, elegant fronds…
Chebureki are a traditional pastry from the Crimean peninsula (Slava Ukraini). Typically they’re made from a lean, thin dough and filled with ground meat, onions and herbs, finished by deep frying to a golden brown. I had my first taste of them during a stage at St. Paul’s Moscow on the Hill under Chef Gary…
Huitlacoche, also known as cuitlacoche, is by far the most famous of any mushroom eaten in Latin America, with a history and tradition to rival any of the most prized wild mushrooms. If you like Mexican food and haven’t had it, you’re missing out on a fascinating culinary delicacy of Central America. I grew…
Wild blueberry upside-down cake made with hazelnut meal, finished with a spoonful of meadowsweet infused cream is a dessert focused on combining acidic soil-loving ingredients of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Soaked in wild blueberry juice, the cake tastes like summer at it’s peak. This was the finale of the meal I cooked for an upcoming…
