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FORAGER | CHEF

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

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Leafy Greens | Basic Profiles

foraged green salad

Wild Parsnip: Harvesting, Cooking, and Safety

edible wild parsnip roots (Pastinaca sativa)

Wild parsnip is undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood plants in the world. In North America, the plant is seen as a scourge and a terrifying weed that can only be killed by Round-Up or other herbicides. Get ready for some forager myth-busting, because I’m going to show you the truth: the plant some people…

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Sweet-Scented Galium / Galium triflorum: A Wild Vanilla Substitute

Galium triflorum, a subtitute for sweet woodruff, tonka bean and vanilla

For most of my career working with wild food I’ve ignored cleavers (Galiums) with one or two exceptions. Galium triflorum or sweet-scented bed straw is the exception, and I now harvest the plant each year for commercial projects and personal use. I struggle to think of a wild herb with as much potential as both…

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Silphium / Cup Plant

Leaves and tender tops of Silphium perfoliatum or cup plant

About a decade ago now, I was walking through a park looking for mushrooms, not finding much. I knew a plant or two, but mostly everything that wasn’t a mushroom seemed to be part of an undecipherable wall of green. I remember coming across a giant, handsome colony of plants, with beautiful toothed leaves and…

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Solomon’s Seal Shoots

Edible False Solomon's Seal Shoots Maianthemum racemosum

Solomon’s Seal shoots (Polyganatum biflorum and Maianthemum racemosum covered here) have to be one of the most under-appreciated wild vegetables out there. If you like fiddleheads, asparagus, or just tasty green vegetables in general, you owe it to yourself to find this plant if it grows near you and give it a try.  I read…

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Goldenrod Shoots and Tips

Edible Canada goldenrod shoots

For a lot of people, Goldenrod probably conjures up images of brilliant yellow blooms in the middle of summer. I like seeing goldenrod flowers too (for their color-not culinary purposes as the flowers are tough, with the exception of the well-known goldenrod tea) but the shoots and young growing tips are actually a vegetable that…

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Dandelion Hearts / Crowns

Digging dandelion crowns / hearts

About 7 years ago while I was playing disc golf, I came across an elderly women digging up dandelions near the parking lot of the course. I’ve always been fascinated by traditional recipes and preparations, so, of course I had to walk up and ask what she was harvesting, and how she was going to…

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Virginia Bluebells

Edible Virginia bluebells or Mertensia virginica

There are lots of spring ephemerals I love, but, Virginia Bluebells might just be the prettiest of them all. As you’re probably gathering, you can eat them too, and, they’re delicious! They’re one of the very first ephemerals to come up in the spring, and one of the most beautiful harbingers of the green landscape…

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Toothwort

Edible toothwort, Cardamine concantenata

Cutleaf toothwort is a beautiful little plant I love seeing around my ramp patches in the spring. There’s a number of toothworts, but for this post I’m only referring to Cardamine concantenata/dentata, since that’s the only on to have experience eating. Like some other edibles that enjoy the same habitat (hardwood forests with rich soil,…

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FORAGER | CHEF®
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Author: The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora
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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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