There are edible plants all around us, but without an expert, you shouldn’t go tasting random bushes. 

So where should you start? It may feel daunting, but the ability to find your own food, whether in urban parks or an untouched forest, opens up a world of cultural and culinary opportunities. A plant you may have considered a weed could be a salad for six the next time you have friends over. A mushroom hunting expedition could connect you to a new community. The opportunities are endless.

That’s why this week, we unpack foraging practices. We’ll start small – literally speaking – to learn how smartphone apps are paving the way for a new generation of mushroom foragers. We offer some safety tips for budding foragers and hear about the significance of foraging on Indigenous North American lands. Finally, we explore one entrepreneur’s resourceful use of foraged ingredients.

Further Reading and Listening:

Learn more about “Wildman” Steve Brill’s foraging tours.

Find out about the New York Mycological Society’s membership and foraging walks on their website. They use the iNaturalist app to document and identify fungi. Tom Bigelow also highly recommends the app La fonge du Québec.

Listeners from Massachusetts can learn more about the Nipmuc Nation at nipmucnation.org. To learn more about indigenous tribes in other parts of the U.S., visit native-land.ca. To support the I-Collective, head to icollectiveinc.org. 

Listen to the full episode of The Speakeasy with guest, Bianca Miraglia, here.

Keep Meat and Three on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. 

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