WILD PATHWAYS TO BEAUTIFUL FOOD NOW

Farm-to-table was once the main pathway used to get food from its source to dinner. But the path got diverted with the introduction of the industrial food supply chain. The new retro farm-to-table movement, which began back in the 1960’s and revived during the more recent locavore movement, is now fairly common. The newer/older trend is foraging.

Now foraging has made comeback as well. It is a wild-to-table movement -- a forest-to-table, field-to-table, park-to-table, side-of-the-road-to-table thing. And it is playing out in some of the most innovative restaurants around the world, now becoming one of the most exciting food trends.

Say hello to a beautiful new crop of foraged food suppliers, like Galloway Wild Foods, and foraging schools, like The Fat Hen. Foragers also are being added to the restaurant kitchen team, working in collaboration with chefs and sommeliers.

Cutting edge chefs are having their way with ingredients usually enjoyed by wild animals. Sometimes, they are used simply, with leaves, petals, and seeds adding fresh notes to a dish. Sometimes they are manipulated and fancified.

Danish superstar chef Rene Redzepi, of Michelin-starred Noma was one of the first to start cooking with foraged ingredients in 2004. Noma is now considered in several polls to be the #1 restaurant in the world. See our previous post featuring Redzepi: Exquisite Flower Feasts.

Some foragers send images and confer with each other via cell phone to confirm identification  of plants in the wild -- wouldn’t be so beautiful to accidentally poison someone by serving the wrong wild mushroom!

While eating locally sourced ingredients is now quite common, the foraging trend takes it hyper-local, sourcing within and close to urban areas. Many foragers avoid foraging within 25 feet of a road, to avoid pollution residues. And, they need to take care to forage on legally accessible lands -- usually on private property or state parks.

Often, foragers are secretive about where they go -- they don’t want competition for these wild resources. While some, like wild grapes, are abundant and easily found, many others are of extremely limited supply.

Wild and foraged ingredients for food and cocktail recipes are catching on like wildfire at top New York City restaurants.

Evan Strusinski forages in woods, forests, and bogs near New York to find ingredients for New York restaurants such as Momofuku’s Ssäm Bar (wild mushrooms), Atera (sassafras root, pine sap, & lichen), and Aska (lichen, juniper, ash, & cherry bark).

Also check out Acme, where Danish chef Mads Refslund works his magic with foraged mushrooms. Taste the beauty of pine needles in Daniel Boulud’s sauce Diable at Daniel.

Try wild rose hips and bull’s blood (not what you think -- it’s a wild green plant) in some fabulous dishes at Gwynnett St., in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The Pines, also, in Brooklyn, gets busy with local wild mushrooms, berries, and seaweeds. Foraged chickweed and miner’s lettuce follow the path from the forests of Lancaster, PA to the warm squid salad at Northern Spy Food Co. in the East Village.

Adam Block’s PRINT Restaurant, in Hell’s Kitchen, celebrates the beautiful pathways of foraged foods, not only for the novelty but for the soul.

PRINT Restaurant’s food buyer, Meghan Boledovich, is also the house forager. She is particularly concerned about the ethical issues embedded in food supplies. Beyond the ethical guidelines she follows in her own foraging pursuits, she makes sure all restaurant vendors do the same -- for example they source from livestock farmers that are certified humane.

PRINT showcases suppliers on their blog. Look out for Meghan riding her foraging bike either to or from her sources in the city.

Trentina, a new award-winning restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, dries and pulverizes spicebush leaves, using them as a flavoring agent, for example. There is something foraged in every dish they serve.

Its kitchen has so far used stems, flowers, leaves, buds, shoots and tubers from more than 120 wild plants, such as amaranth, burdock, Queen Anne's lace, dandelion, wild garlic, lamb's quarters, nettle, ramps, nettles, wild mushrooms, milkweed buds, and salsify.

Read more about Beautiful Pathways, as it relates to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including Baby, Tonight We’re So Beautiful Now! and The Pathways to Beautiful Ideas Now.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: Courtesy of of Fat Hen. Wild Food Foraging. Cornwall, England.
2. Image: Courtesy of of Galloway Wild Foods. Edible Wild Flowers.
3. Image: Courtesy of Olympic Peninsula. Raw and wild ingredients for a local, wild feast. Washington State.
4. Image: Courtesy of Four Magazine. Spring recipe from Rene Redzepi.
5. Image: Courtesy of Phaidon Press. Rene Redzepi.
6. Image: Courtesy of Food Snob. Rene Redzepi.
7. Image: Courtesy of Humble By Nature. Foraging. Wye Valley, South Wales.
8. Image: Courtesy of of Galloway Wild Foods. Foraged foods.
9. Image: by Andrew Hetherington. Evan Strusinski.
10. Image: by Sam Breach. Foraged mushroom.
11. Image: Courtesy of Northern Spy Food Co. Foraging.
12. Image: Courtesy of PRINT Restaurant. Dessert Decomposed.
13. Image: Courtesy of T. Edward Wine Blog. Meghan Boledovich, the House Forager at PRINT Restaurant.
14. Image: Courtesy of Trentina. Trentina dish.
15. Image: Courtesy of Trentina. Trentina dish.
16. Image: Courtesy of Thunder In The Night. Foraged herbs.
17. Image: Courtesy of Henry E. Hooper. Amaranth.
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19. Image: by Peter O'Connor. Lesser Burdock.