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    About

    Table of Contents

    • My Story
    • Contact

    Tragedy to Triumph: A Chef’s Story

    Hi, I’m Alan

    chef alan bergo outside

    I’m a chef from Minnesota, and all my life I’ve been in love with food. I like to tell people I’m a little Anthony Bourdain, and a little Indiana Jones, because I hunt wild plants and mushrooms for this website as my full time job. But, it wasn’t always like that.

    pots and pans from the salt cellar saint paul minnesota
    I grew up in the kitchen. For 15 years it was all I knew.

    I started working in fast food as a teen and found myself sucked into the culinary industry. Over the years I climbed the ladders in the kitchen, trying to work under the best chefs I could find. I did that for 15 years. 

    Food was always more than food to me and I cook reflexively. When I need to celebrate I cook, when I’m sad, food becomes therapy-something I can lose myself in.

    Chef Alan Bergo
    2008?

    On the job foraging lessons

    Eventually I got into nice places: restaurants that only worked with local ingredients. I started to notice the most expensive, precious things we worked with were the wild ones: things like nettles, ramps, and of course, wild mushrooms.

    A basket of common nettles (Common nettles Urtica dioica)
    Nettles are worth more per pound than any heirloom green I ever purchased.

    Over the years, working with the best wild products that people could find in the area became on-the-job speed learning. Before I ever found a wild mushroom outside, I’d probably already cleaned and processed them, as well as cooked and served them to the public.

    As sous chef of St. Paul's Heartland, 2013.

    One day playing disc golf, I saw a chicken of the woods after having just cleaned one the day before at work. It was like a light switch turned on, and I knew in that moment that wild ingredients weren’t crazy, unattainable things-it was more being in the right place at the right time.

    Chicken of the woods mushroom or sulphur shelf on a tree
    Chicken of the woods was the first mushroom I found, and the door to a whole new world.

    From there I bought myself every piece of literature I could find on wild mushrooms, and tried to teach myself everything, going out early before work to harvest things I could put on my menus. Life wasn’t easy though.

    From my first newspaper article. 

    Working as a chef is backbreaking labor, and the pay, at least for line cook and sous chef positions, meant that I lived below the poverty line for most of my career. The only thing I owned was debt from student loans. Making expensive tasting menus at work, and then going home not having enough money to buy food never really felt right. 

    Lyme

    In 2012 after being careless and picking a deer tick off me, I got Lyme. It quickly spread to Bell’s palsy, paralyzing half of my face. I could barely see out of one eye, was extremely sensitive to light and sounds, and developed a speech impediment.

    chef with bells palsy and eye patch from lyme disease
    Me on the line with Lyme, half of my face paralyzed from the Bells Palsy.

    What was worse was that the Lyme affected my neurology, giving me paralyzing headaches no pain killer could touch, 3, 4, 5, or more times a day. At the lowest point, the doctors prescribed me an oxygen tank and a mask that I would have to bring into the kitchen. 

    I spent months cooking with ear plugs and an eye patch on the line. At the time I had no insurance, was crippled by student debt, and had to give up my apartment from the bills. I moved into my friend’s basement, then to another basement after that. 

    The Darkest Days

    Facing the loans, Lyme, and what I saw as a bleak future working in a career I loved that couldn’t pay my bills, I entered the darkest part of my life. For a few weeks I contemplated suicide.

    Around this time a friend of mine encouraged me to start a website sharing and discussing my experience with foraging and cooking wild plants and mushrooms. After working the long kitchen shifts, I would go home and write, and it functioned as a sort of therapy-the only kind I could afford. 

    The site's had a few iterations over the years.

    Broke, damaged and depressed, foraging was something I could do that was free, and a challenging, rewarding hobby I could lose myself in. In those days I didn’t have much at all, but picking a bag of nettles or mushrooms made me feel rich.

    The solitude of being outside is partly therapy for me.

    In 2016, by a stroke of luck and the generosity of my old chef, I landed my first executive chef position. For the first time I could support myself.

    Chef Alan Bergo, portrait

    I poured my heart and soul into the restaurant, and started to refine my cuisine focused on celebrating wild ingredients I brought to the restaurant.

    salt cellar st paul mn image by chef alan bergo
    My first restaurant, The Salt Cellar, lasted for two years. 

    As happens, restaurants close. I was heartbroken. Luckily, I ended up accepting the position of executive chef of Lucia’s Restaurant-one of the cornerstones of farm-to-table cuisine in the Midwest.

    Opening crew of The Salt Cellar.

    Again, I poured my heart into the restaurant, which was on its deathbed when I walked in the door. It’d been open for over 30 years.

    After a year of making the best food of my life, and using more wild food than ever, the restaurant closed, and I was heartbroken, again, but this time it was worse.

    At Lucia's.

    Besides the mental and emotional trauma, I’d lost 15 pounds during the restaurant closing, couldn’t move my right arm, and had trouble walking after breaking some toes being tired and careless with heavy equipment.

    The last crew of Lucia's.

    I was shellshocked and I couldn’t understand how the only career I had ever loved could hurt me so much. I dipped my toes back into the restaurant business here and there as a consultant, but I was still too dazed to take a job running a big kitchen.

    Again and again, foraging helped me find my true north when I was lost. 

    How Wild Food Changed My Life

    I felt lost without a compass, so again, I tried to heal my wounds the best way I knew how. I sold a book series idea to a publisher, and spent the next few years outside nearly every day I could working on the first volume, which was released in 2021. I'd been published in over 15 books already, so I figured it was time.

    the forager chefs book of flora by chef alan bergo
    The Forager Chef's Book of Flora: my first book I wrote and took over 6000 images for was released in 2021. 

    During that time I also worked on the website more. I only ever intended this site to be a sort of business card to help me get chef jobs-a journal for me to write about the things I love. Readers started to come, and all of the comments, messages, letters and notes let me know I was doing something good that was useful for people. I finally felt like I knew my purpose. 

    Now, instead of a cramped, hot kitchen, the wild places are where I work. 

    Triumph

    Forager Chef now gets millions of visitors a year, and I have friends from Alaska to Australia I get to talk about the world of wild food. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect that the silly online journal I had would actually be something people read.

    Foraging is my therapy and connection to nature, as well as something that feeds me. In searching for ingredients, I found myself, and what it means to be truly happy. 

    The Show 

    In 2019 during the pandemic, filmmaker Jesse Roesler and I decided to start filming a show when all the big companies has stopped filming due to lockdown. It was a labor of love, and a reminder that giving us things to eat is only one way that Nature fulfills us.

    The Wild Harvest Show | Episode 6: Autumn
    The Wild Harvest Show by Alan Bergo and Jesse Roesler Episode 5
    The Wild Harvest Show with Chef Alan Bergo. Episode 4 Mid Summer.
    The Wild Harvest with Chef Alan Bergo Title Screen. Images by Jesse Roessler.

    In 2022 the show won two Taste Awards and a James Beard. It was the crowning achievement of my career, and a lifelong dream I'd given up on after leaving restaurant work. I'm proud to be able to give a voice to my plant and mushroom friends who have given me so much. 

    James Beard Award

    Now, I hunt plants and mushrooms as my full-time job, sharing what I do with the visitors who stop by. Foraging re-ignited my purpose and passion for life, and I haven’t looked back since.

    I owe a debt to wild food, and part of my repayment of that is to share my experiences with others to help them the same way it helped me. I’m excited to share it with you no matter where you're a long time forager, or just wondering what it's all about. 

    Chef Alan Bergo walking through a hedgerow. Image by Jesse Roesler.

    Thanks for stopping by. 

    Alan

    Contact

    Speaking with readers is one of the highlight of my job. If you have questions or comments, you can send me an email @alanbergo3 AT gmail.com. Business Inquires should see my partnerships page.

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Valentine Falcon

      January 18, 2019 at 8:33 pm

      So damn beautiful and inspiring

      • Alan Bergo

        January 19, 2019 at 8:53 am

        Thanks, Valentine.

    2. Daniel Herbison

      March 09, 2019 at 11:48 pm

      Hola Alan I am a forager and organic gardener in Torres del Paine NP Patagonia Chile. tomorrow I am cooking puffballs for the restaurant chef's thanks for your advice and recipes on puffballs

      • Alan Bergo

        March 10, 2019 at 2:41 pm

        Glad to help, good luck with your event!

    3. Doris

      March 17, 2019 at 12:36 pm

      Absolutely Extraordinary! Thank you, Chef!

    4. Michael

      April 05, 2019 at 8:37 pm

      Hello ,
      I'm the programming director for 'We Cook TV ' network. We are a network centered around all things food. Our monthly visitors to our website total between 6-8 million per month. Our VOD platforms such as Roku, iTunes and Amazon Fire reaches 62 million households in the USA. I'm looking for some real chefs to put on the network. Can you please send us your best cooking show video you have done? You can correspond to the email below.
      Thanks
      Michael Thorton
      Director of Programming
      programming@wecooktv.com
      http://www.wecooktv.com
      516-809-9503

      • Alan Bergo

        April 06, 2019 at 12:23 pm

        Thanks for inquiring. I prefer to speak through email.

    5. matias garcia huidobro

      May 06, 2019 at 3:16 pm

      This blog is awesome dude.
      been reading it for hours, so informative
      you gonna bring hours of fun

      Greetings from Norway

      Matias

      • Alan Bergo

        May 06, 2019 at 9:14 pm

        Thanks.

    6. Nancy

      May 10, 2019 at 8:17 pm

      Wow, just found your site. I heart. Keep up the amazing work!

    7. Amanda H.

      May 11, 2019 at 11:58 am

      The first time I took something people labeled as a "weed" and made it delicious, I was instantly obsessed with this wild view of the world.
      Seeing you take that same method to a master's level has given me an amazing goal to strive for.
      I'm sending a very sincere THANK YOU for creating this.

      Happy hunting!

    8. the Grandma Reinhart

      June 03, 2019 at 10:39 am

      I see you do not have Devil's Club (Echinopanax horridum) in your list of foraged foods. Well-named "horridum", this plant is covered with spines and is the bane of hunters and hikers The just emerging, thumb-sized shoots (grown on old stalks) are delicious steamed or sauteed, especially served with our wild caught winter king salmon. Blanched, they keep in the refrigerator for days and are good added cold to salads.

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    Chef Alan Bergo

    HI, I'm Alan: James Beard Award-winning Chef, Author, Show Host and Forager. I've been writing about cooking wild food here for over a decade. Let me show you why foraging is the most delicious thing you'll ever do.

    More about me →

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    The Forager Chefs Book of Flora

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