What are Wild Foods?
Foraged flavors are all around you - here's how to explore them (without foraging).
‘Wild Food’ is a catch-all term applied to all sorts of edible mushrooms, nuts, flowers, fruits, shoots, tubers, seaweeds, seeds, and weeds that grow without someone planting them. To the uninitiated, it can look bizarre: dandelion salads, alien mushrooms, and nuts that taste like blue cheese. But the foragers know something you might not: that all these foods are delicious.
Wild ingredients literally grow all around you - but if you’re not ready to forage for yourself, you’re still in luck. Wild foods are more accessible and available than ever before: in the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in foragers, wild food brands, and communities that share ingredients with each other. Whether or not you realize it, an entire world of foraged flavors is right at your finger tips - but you may need some help to see it.
I created The Wild Grocery to show you how to bring these foods into your regular cooking. As a forager, recipe developer, and wild food professional, I’ve dedicated my career to making these foods more accessible to everyone (because I happen to think they’re really important). Each week I give you an easy-to-read newsletter that explores the tantalizing flavors of a wild ingredient, along with links to purchase and resources to explore. But that’s not all -
The Wild Grocery also provides recipes designed to teach everyone about wild flavors - not just foragers. I create recipes you can cook whether you harvest the ingredients yourself or purchase them from a forager. In fact - you don’t even have to do either of those things, because I also cross-test the recipes with non-wild ingredients. That means you can explore the flavors, learn about the world of wild foods, and still cook every recipe by just going to the grocery store. Pretty neat, right?
Here are all the things that TWG has to explore:
Flavor Newsletters
Every Friday, TWG sends you a short (free) newsletter packed with flavorful information about a wild ingredient. It covers what the food tastes like, lists where to (easily) find it for purchase, and links to a bevy of recipes and resources. Past newsletters are available for free and can be found here.
Newsletters also link to our original recipes and podcast content:
Recipes
Each week, TWG publishes at least one original recipe that corresponds with the flavor newsletter (and sometimes more). Each recipe is cross-tested with a non-wild ingredient, meaning you can cook every recipe we publish, regardless of whether or not you have the foraged ingredient on hand. Recipes also come with lots of original photos and helpful notes for culinary success! (Check out our Spicebush Hot Chips as an example)
Podcasts
Subscribers get access to The Wild Grocery Podcast, which brings you along into the the recipe development process each week. Get more information on the week’s featured ingredient, hear what other subscribers like to cook, and listen to JB try to figure out how best to make the flavors shine. Then, be sure to call in next week!
Articles
In addition to regular culinary content, TWG also publishes longer articles about foraging culture, food sustainability, and why wild foods are important. These are typically published every 2 weeks, and are usually available only to paid subscribers. But here’s a free one, just for you.
Resources
TWG is not into gatekeeping, so we continuously update articles that link to continued learning and eating. They’re always free - and you can explore them here.