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FORAGER | CHEF

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

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Stalks and Shoots

Swamp Saxifrage Shoots

Swamp saxifrage shoots (Saxifraga pensylvanica)

Swamp saxifrage (Saxifraga pensylvanica) is a little-known edible spring plant that doesn’t get a lot of attention in foraging literature. I own a lot of foraging references, but the only one I have that describes the plant comes from Sam Thayer.  Saxifrage is something to look for in early spring around April or early May,…

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The Forager’s Guide to Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)

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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Foraging and Cooking 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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Rainbow Trout with Fiddleheads and Pheasant Backs

Trout with pheasant back mushrooms, spring shoots and ramp oil

Last week we had a couple over for dinner and the woman, a friend of my girlfriend I’d met many times before, was, unbeknownst to me, a fly-fishing apex predator. I still have trouble catching anything but rocks with my rod, but she showed up with an entire cooler filled with 8 whole brook trout,…

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Simple Fiddlehead Fern Salad with Mint

Fiddlehead salad recipe with olive oil lemon and herbs

This simple salad is a go-to fiddlehead recipe for me. There’s all sorts of advice out there on how to cook fiddles: blanch five minutes, blanch ten minutes, sauté afterward and cook them to death in oil, put them in lasagna and bake them to oblivion, then pull out long, soft and stringy noodles as…

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Foraging and Cooking Goldenrod Shoots

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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Foraging and Cooking Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica)

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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Hosta Shoot Kimchi

Hosta Shoot Kimchi recipe

It’s hosta shoot season, and besides just throwing them in a hot pan (which is great) kimchi makes a great hosta recipe.  It’s easy. To prepare them for fermentation, you don’t even need to cook the hostas before you first, just cut them into 1 inch pieces, macerate in a bit of salt water, drain,…

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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 👇
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Alan Bergo
I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so I liked the staff meal I made for Mondays shoot so much we filmed it instead of the original dish I’d planned. 

Cooked natural wild rice (not the black shiny stuff) is great hot, cold, sweet or savory. It’s a perfect, filling lunch for a long day of berry picking. 

I make them with whatever I have on hand. Mushrooms will fade into the background a little here, so I use a bunch of them, along with lots of herbs and hickory nut oil + dill flowers. 

I’m eating the leftovers today back up in the barrens (hopefully) getting some more bluebs for another shoot this week w @wild.fed 

#wilwilwice #wildrice #chanterelles #campfood #castironcooking
Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine Baby’s first homegrown mushrooms! Backyard wine caps on hardwood sawdust from my lumberjack buddy.

Next up blewits. Spawn from @northsporemushrooms

#winecaps #strophariaaeruginosa #allthemushroomtags
It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from It’s wild cherry season. I’ll be picking from my favorite spot tomorrow a.m. and have room for a couple helpers. It’s at an event on a farm just south of St. Cloud. 

If you’re interested send me a message and I’ll raffle off the spots. Plenty of cherries to go around. I’ll be leading a short plant walk around the farm too. 

#chokecherries #foraging #prunusvirginiana #summervibes
Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking Special thanks to the beach in Ashland for hooking it up with on-site garnishes. Beach pea flowers taste strong and leguminous, similar to vetch, or like a rich tasting pea shoot. 

#lathyrusjaponicus #beachpeas #peaflower #foraging #northshore #bts
Great, long day of filming in near the south shore Great, long day of filming in near the south shore of Lake Superior yesterday. 

Blueberries were sparse, and some kind of blight seems to be affecting the serviceberries. Chanterelles weren’t as good as 2020, but they were there. 

Quick dip in the Lake Superior after we broke set was a bonus. 

W/ @barebonesliving  @misterberndt @jesseroesler

#barebonesliving #foraging #lakesuperiorrocks #serviceberries #chanterelles #bts
Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just pu Green ramp seed make a great lactoferment. Just put the green seeds in brine in a jar, leave for 2 weeks. 

After they’re sour they can be water bath processed, although I’ve stored them at room temp without an issue too. 

Finished product is great minced or puréed into places where you’d like garlic, capers, or both. 

Makes a great tzatziki with a little crumbled, dried bee balm. 

#tzatziki #ramps #rampseeds #foraging #fermentation
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