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FORAGER | CHEF

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

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Chicken of the woods

chicken of the woods minnesota

These  are the first mushrooms I ever picked in the wild. Big orange blobs oozing out of a tree. I had seen them before, and had actually had someone give me some to cook, but had disregarded them, not knowing truly what they were.

Chickens will always be in the category of easiest mushrooms to hunt and pick. Their vivid color and lack of any even slightly poisonous species (except those that grow on hemlock, which I have never seen) make them easy to identify with little to no knowledge of mycological terms.

If you live in an are with oak trees, you will have chicken of the woods. As you grow in confidence with your identification skills and hone your mushroom hunter’s eye, you will see them everywhere, fruiting quickly after Spring has passed. Read more about chickens

Chicken of the woods mushroom recipes

Chickens give us a number of fun things to work with, firstly their name; the texture when young is similar to chicken. Their color is also exciting to work with, they do not discolor or turn brown/black like many mushrooms, instead they stay a beautiful orange/yellow, or reddish orange if you have picked a laetiporus cincinnatus. The flavor cannot be overlooked either, it is a high caliber mushroom, aromatic with citrus notes, prized young specimens will exude an aromatic yellow juice when cut which has a particular aroma, I liken it to orange and citrus.

Chicken fried chicken of the woods

This is a play on the chicken texture. To go further with the poetic license, I served it with braised wild greens and bacon gravy, but it is wonderful for a vegetarian entree.

Chicken fried chicken of the woods mushrooms with red eye gravy and greensChicken of the woods, with spring vegetables

A late winter left us with a stunted growing season a while back. Curiously though, ingredient combinations arose I do not typically see. I had never before cooked chicken of the woods with the green vegetables of spring. Here it is.

Chicken Mushrooms with Spring Vegetables, Ramps and Wild Greens

 Pickled baby chicken of the woods

Let me tell you, I see people hauling garbage bags out of the woods ever year, full of chickens. These are not the chickens they are taking. Should you ever come across chicken of the woods so small you feel bad about picking them, don’t feel bad, just pickle them and keep them as a trophy. The soft, tender texture of young mushroom pickles will astound you.

Pickled chicken of the woods mushroom

 

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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
Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot Had a blast on the last day of the @wild.fed shoot cooking in the Garden of Eden, a.k.a Sam Thayer’s orchard. 

We’d planned on making ground squirrel, bullfrog and crayfish gumbo but only the crayfish came through. Luckily I had some back up andouille just in case. 

It’s may not be traditional, but gumbo with crayfish broth, a heap of @mushroomforaginginmn porcini, milkweed pods (in lieu of okra) wild rice and crayfish-chanterelle salad didn’t suck. 6 of us polished off a gallon 😁.

H/o to chef Lenny Russo who I pestered with questions on frog-based foods beforehand. Hyper-local meals like this are what we made at Heartland in St Paul during my tenure there. 

@danielvitalis 
@grantguiliano 

#ditchlobster #mudbugs #gumbo #crayfish #wildrice #wildfed
Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water Long, fun day snatching crayfish out of the water by hand with Sam Thayer and @danielvitalis for @wild.fed 

Daniel and Sam were the apex predators, but I got a few. 

Without a net catching crayfish by hand is definitely a wax-on wax-off sort of skill. Clears your mind. 

They’re going into gumbo with porcini, sausage and milkweed pods today. 

#crayfish #ninjareflexes #waxonwaxoff #normalthings #onset🎥🎬
Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizo Working all day on preps for cattail lateral rhizomes and blueberries for this weeks shoot with @wildfed 

Been a few years since I worked with these. Thankfully Sam Thayer dropped a couple off for me to work with. They’re tender, crisp and delicious. 

Sam mentioned their mild flavor and texture could be because they don’t have to worry about predators eating them, since they grow in the muck of cattail marshes. 

I think they could use a pet name. Pond tusk? Swamp spears? Help me out here. 😂

Nature makes the coolest things. 

#itcamefromthepond #cattail #rhizomes #foraging #typhalatifolia
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
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