15. A Beginner's Guide to Foraging with Sam Sycamore
In an era when all the double cheeseburgers you could ever hope to eat are available to you at a moment’s notice, why bother going to all the trouble of learning how to identify and gather wild foods?
The main appeal of foraging, for me, lies in cultivating a more intimate relationship with wild nature in all its beauty, mystery, and abundance. It’s one thing to spend some free time hiking and camping in the woods, but something else entirely to come home with a bag full of wild food from that place – to be nourished physically, mentally, and spiritually by the natural world.
Wild edible plants are almost always hardier, more vigorous, more flavorful, and more nutritious than their cultivated counterparts. Best of all, they require no work on our part, aside from harvesting and eating!
People haven’t always domesticated plants and animals, but wild nature has always supplied us with food. Only in the last century or so have modern people really abandoned the old ways of foraging for wild plants, and it’s up to us as individuals to correct this misstep and learn for ourselves.
We have the ability to take back this fundamental understanding of how to work with the natural world. It’s not hard, but it does require patience, diligence, and careful observation.
Today on the podcast, we’ll cover:
Why I decided to change the name from ‘Permaculture Lifestyle’ to ‘Good Life Revival’
What to expect from this show going forward
Why foraging is such an important part of my daily life
Why eating with the seasons is not just a trendy fad, but a moral imperative
The seasonality of wild foods, and how to work with them
My seven ground rules for foraging safely, responsibly, and confidently
All music was written and recorded by yours truly (unless otherwise noted).
Listen and download through the embedded player at the top of this page, or subscribe through iTunes or Stitcher.
Resources for further reading:*
Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate by John Kallas
The Forager’s Harvest and Nature’s Garden by Samuel Thayer
Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America by David Fischer & Alan Bessette
Backyard Foraging by Ellen Zachos
Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide by Thomas Elias & Peter Dykeman
*These are Amazon affiliate links, which means Amazon will toss me a few coins if you click and make a purchase. This is a great way to support my work, at no additional cost to you.
