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FORAGER | CHEF

Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Charcuterie

Venison liver terrine with pigeon, ramp leaves and wild ginger recipe

Charcuterie is the art and craft of curing meats, and it's a passion of mine. I've cured thousands of pounds of meat for all kinds of projects over the course of my career, and my skill working with various odds and ends is something I pride myself on.

Here you'll find recipes for things to make out of trim and scrap, as well as intensive, show-stopping projects like headcheese, homemade sausages, fancy French terrines, and simpler things like venison bacon.

Traditional Pennsylvania Dutch Scrapple Recipe

Traditional scrapple made with liver, buckwheat, cornmeal and spices recipe

Do you like bacon? Pancakes? Crispy, browned things cooked on a griddle? Maple syrup? Of course you do, so fasten your seatbelt and come aboard Alan’s organ train, because we’re traveling to scrapple country. If you like offal, or even if you don’t partake in the finer parts of animals and you’ve never had scrapple,…

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Elk or Venison Backstrap Bresaola

Backstrap Bresaola sliced on slate

If you like making charcuterie, or are charcuterie curious, bresaola is a great place to start. Bresaola is a traditional Italian charcuterie, and it’s a lot easier to make than other types of cured meats as it’s a whole-muscle cure. With whole muscle cures, all you have to do is season a piece of meat,…

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Wild Fennel Seed Venison Chorizo

foraged wild Fennel Venison Salami

I’ve been making a lot of charcuterie using UMAi DRY casings lately, and, after a month, my first one is done: a Spanish chorizo-style salami recipe made from ground elk and pork flavored with wild fennel seeds. If you’re not familiar, this is a dry cured sausage that’s very different from lump Mexican chorizo beef…

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How to Make Venison Biltong at Home

Elk Biltong sliced on a board

Biltong is a great piece of South African beef charcuterie. If you like making charcuterie at home, or just like a good bag of jerky you’ll love it. Just think beef jerky, but softer, more tender.  If you’re not familiar, biltong is made by cutting meat into slabs about an inch thick, seasoning, with black…

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Smoked Venison Tasso Ham

Smoked Venison Tasso Ham

A venison tasso recipe may not exactly be a traditional piece of charcuterie, but, if you like spicy smoked ham, you’ll love it. If you’re not familiar (it’s kind of an obscure ham) tasso is a smoked Creole ham that typically has a spicy rub of paprika and cayenne, among a bunch of other things….

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Venison Liver Pate

Venison liver pate recipe

Looking for a good pate recipe for venison liver (or any liver for that matter?) here you go, this is my go-to. This is basically the same recipe I was taught by one of my old chefs, who learned it from a master butcher from Rome (Chef Fillipo Caffari). Mostly we would make it with…

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Venison Nduja with Bear Fat

Venison Nduja salami with bear fat (20)

I’m a charcuterie freak: if it’s cured, salted, smoked, aged, potentially strange and delicious, I’m on board. Nduja, a little known spreadable salami from Calabria that’s been a chef secret for years now checks a lot of those boxes. Today, I’ll run you through the process I used to make a venison nduja recipe.  I…

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Creole Blood Sausage Cake

Creole Blood Cake

Blood Sausage Cake is one of the more appetizing names I’ve typed into this website. All jokes aside, I can guarantee you that if you have access to fresh animal blood, and enjoy offal, it’s definitely for you. It tastes great, too, and if you have ancestors from Scandinavia, like I do, they’ll applaud you…

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
James Beard Award ‘22
Host: Field Forest Feast 👇
streaming on @tastemade

Alan Bergo
HALP! I’ve been keeping an eye on two loaded mul HALP! I’ve been keeping an eye on two loaded mulberry trees and both got a bunch of fruit knocked down by the storms and wind. 

If anyone in West WI or around the Twin Cities knows of some trees, (ideally on private property but beggars can’t be choosers) that I could climb and shake with a tarp underneath, shoot me a DM and let’s pick some! 🤙😄

TIA

#throwadogabone #mansquirrel #beattlefruit #mulberries #shakintrees
Lampascioni, or edible hyacinth bulbs are one of t Lampascioni, or edible hyacinth bulbs are one of the more interesting things I’ve eaten. 

These are an ancient wild food traditionally harvested in Southern Italy, especially in Puglia and the Salentine Peninsula, as well as Greece and Crete. I’ve seen at least 6-7 different names for them. 

A couple different species are eaten, but Leopoldia comosa is probably the one I see mentioned the most. They also grow wild in North America. 

The bulbs are toxic raw, but edible after an extended boil. Traditionally they’re preserved in vinegar and oil, pickled, or preserves in other methods using acid and served as antipasti. (Two versions in pic 3). 

They’re one of the most heavily documented traditional wild foods I’ve seen. There’s a few shots of book excerpts here.

The Oxford companion to Italian Food says you can eat them raw-don’t do that. 

Even after pickling, the bulbs are aggressively extremely bitter. Definitely an acquired taste, but one that’s grown on me. 

#traditionalfoods #vampagioli #lampascione #cucinapovera #lampascioni #leopoldiacomosa #foraging
Went to some new spots yesterday looking for poke Went to some new spots yesterday looking for poke sallet and didn’t do too well (I’m at the tip of its range). I did see some feral horseradish though which I don’t see very often. 

Just like wild parsnip, this is the exact same plant you see in the store and garden-just escaped. 

During the growing season the leaves can be good when young. 

They have an aggressive taste bitter enough to scare your loved ones. Excellent in a blend of greens cooked until extra soft, preferably with bacon or similar. 

For reference, you don’t harvest the root while the plant is growing as they’ll be soft and unappealing-do that in the spring or fall. This is essentially the same as when people tell you to harvest in months that have an R in them. 

#amoraciarusticana #foraging #horseradishleaves #horseradish #bittergreens
In Italy chicken of the woods is known as “fungo In Italy chicken of the woods is known as “fungo del carrubo” (carob tree mushroom) as it’s one of the common tree hosts there. 

My favorite, and really the only traditional recipe I’ve found for them so far is simmered in a spicy tomato sauce with hot chile and capers, served with grilled bread. 

Here I add herbs too: fresh leaves of bee balm that are perfect for harvesting right now and have a flavor similar to oregano and thyme. 

Makes a really good side dish or app, especially if you shower it with a handful of pecorino before scooping it up with the bread. 

#chickenofthewoods #fungodelcarrubo #allthemushroomtags #traditionalfoods #beebalm
First of the year 😁. White-pored chicken of t First of the year 😁. 

White-pored chicken of the woods (Laetiporus cincinnatus) are my favorite chicken. 

Superior bug resistance, slightly better flavor + texture. They also stay tender longer compared to their more common yellow-pored cousins. Not a single bug in this guy. 

#treemeat #ifoundfood #foraging #laetiporuscincinnatus #chickenofthewoods
TBT brisket face 💦. Staff meal with @jesseroes TBT brisket face 💦. Staff meal with 
@jesseroesler and crew @campwandawega
📸 @misterberndt 

#staffmeal #brisket #meatsweats #naptime
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