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FORAGER | CHEF

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

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Garden

Milkweed Flowers

Milkweed Flowers and cordial (1 of 5)

  Note: This post only covers milkweed flowers. I’ve collected all of my knowledge on milkweed into a mother guide for you that covers all the edible parts in my Guide to Milkweed.  Nothing makes a beautiful Midwestern landscape pop quite like the deep purple milkweed flowers of the summer. They also make gardens look…

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Common Amaranth: Amaranthus retroflexus & Friends

Edible Wild Green Amaranth Amaranthus retroflexus_

For me, amaranth is the king of greens to pick in the mid to late summer. Amaranth is a great-tasting, delicious wild green you should get to know, with culinary traditions around the world, especially in India where it’s used to make saag and other things, and, in Jamaica and the Carribbean, where it’s known…

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Bergamot / Monarda Fistulosa / Wild Oregano

bergamot, monarda, wild oregano,

Wild herbs: two words that conjure up thoughts of exotic flavors, aromas, and special dishes. But what sort of herbs are there you can pick in the wilderness? Hands down, the easiest to identify and harvest, from my experience is bergamot and other species of plants in the family of Lamiacae, also known as the…

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Kale Sprouts

Kale Sprouts or Kalettes

Imagine for a moment the wonder that could be if Brussels sprouts and kale had little babies. Now, contain your excitement, because it is a thing, and has been for a number of years. They also go by the name of kalettes, and they’ve been popping up all over the place, from conventional grocery stores to Trader…

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How to Cook Cardoons

Cardoon

Cardoons. An giant thistle related to artichokes Darwin classified as a pest species. Every since I read about these in a book by Lorenza de Medici I wanted to eat them. It took until I was on the email list of a kooky Eastern European farmer that I got my chance to cook some. I…

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In Search of White Tomatoes

heirloom white tomatoes

If you’re not striving for perfection, you’re striving for mediocrity: a maxim I picked up along the way somewhere and one that I like to share with my staff often. Whatever we are cooking should be the best that we can make in the moment, anything else is just not good enough. The standard should…

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Broccoli Leaves

Baby spigariello or Italian broccoli leaves

  Yes, you can eat broccoli leaves, and they’re delicious, but even as a veteran chef, until I met some farm broccoli growing in a garden I didn’t know about them at all.  I was walking through one of the large gardens at my girlfriend’s family farm, clipping some weeds (purslane, amaranth) to bring to…

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Carrots Glazed in Carrot Juice, with Wild Carrot Flowers and Seeds

Heirloom Carrots Cooked in Carrot Juice, With Wild Carrot Flowers_-4

Wild carrot is up, one of the last wildflowers we’ll see in the Midwest. The flavor is nice and carrot tasting, but it’s delicate, subtle, too many other things in a dish will overpower it. Most of the time I just sprinkle the flowers and seeds on simple things, raw, unadulterated. A couple weeks ago…

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Alan Bergo
Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Pepin used to make for French president Charles de Gaulle. 

You bake eggs in a ramekin with shrimp topped with creamy morel sauce and eat with toast points. 

Makes for a really special brunch or breakfast. Recipe’s on my site, but it’s even better to watch Jacques make it on you tube. 

#jacquespepin #morels #shrimp #morilles #brunchtime
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
Oh the things I get in the mail. This is my kind Oh the things I get in the mail. 

This is my kind of tip though: a handmade buckskin bag with a note and a handful of bleached snapping turtle claws. 😁😂 

Sent in by Leslie, a reader. 

Smells like woodsmoke and the cat quickly claimed it as her new bed. 

#buckskin #mailsurprise #turtleclaws #thisimylife #cathouse
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