For decades, urban foraging was shrouded in stigma, widely dismissed as the domain of only the most eccentric hippies and naturalists. Who else, after all, would be so brazen to eat a wild city plant when there’s perfectly fresh, clean produce available at the supermarket? Foraging was seen as dirty—one step removed from dumpster diving.
These days that stigma is disappearing rapidly; especially over the last decade as food culture has grown more locally oriented, foraging has gone mainstream. Food publications now write about the delights of savory ramps and herbaceous nettles, and new foraging classes are continually springing up around the state. Many of them fill up quickly.
“I wouldn’t say it’s the new norm yet, but foraging has become more popular for sure,” said Shannon Francis, who teaches wild edible classes through her organization, Resiliency Training. “I’ve taught a variety of classes for the Milwaukee Rec Department, and when I did my first foraging class it was filled, and I couldn’t have been more surprised. Then I kept seeing the same people over and over again, and they kept bringing more people to the classes with them.”
For Francis, foraging’s appeal seemed obvious. “These wild plants are more nutritious and more nutrient-dense than domestic plants, and they’re in your backyard or growing just a short distance from your home,” she said.
But she was surprised by how many different reasons people cited for taking her classes. “There were some people who wanted to know how to survive if the world came to an end or they got lost in the woods,” she said. “Then there was another chunk of people who wanted to be close to their local food source. They were interested in sustainability and concerned about their carbon footprint. Then there were the people who just thought it was a fun and interesting thing to do. But it touches so many people’s lives. Once you get into it, it’s literally transforming, because you’ll walk down a path and, instead of simply seeing green or the occasional color, you’ll say, ‘Hey, that’s lamb’s quarters, and I can eat that and it’s delicious and amazing!’”
Foraging’s growing popularity has created a new set of misconceptions, however. Many foodies who have never foraged before have romantic notions of gatherers feasting on a bounty of nuts, berries and wild mushrooms. And to be sure, those foods are out there, but the bulk of the average forager’s haul is considerably more commonplace. Talk to avid Milwaukee foragers and they’ll share the delights of ordinary dandelions (great for making salads and tea) or that most reviled of all invasive species, garlic mustard (it makes a killer pesto). They essentially make meals out of weeds.
But what about those precious morels, the highly coveted, great white whale of Wisconsin foraging? Francis says she can take or leave them. “My classes don’t even focus on mushrooms,” she says. “If I run across a morel when I’m teaching a class, that’s great, but they’re not a part of what I’m trying to do. For me, it’s more about things that are more common, things that are right out my backdoor—things that aren’t going to take an entire weekend to gather. A mushroom is great, but I’m not hunting for them right now. It’s berry season. I’ve got a raspberry bush and a mulberry tree in my background; around the bike path by my house there are a ton of mulberry trees. You can get a huge source of what’s labeled as a ‘superfood,’ and it’s free and all over the place. June berries are in season, too.”
For Kyle Denton, founder of Tippecanoe Herbs, foraging is a way of connecting with nature. He teaches foraging classes and spends much of his time around the Milwaukee River, scoping out a landscape that by now he’s deeply familiar with but nonetheless is consistently amazed by. On a sunny late-June afternoon, he points out patches of red clover (it’s great for wines and teas), wild carrots, wild oregano (considerably spicier and more intensely bitter than its commercial counterpart) and wild spinach (it’s mild but nutrient rich).
Along the way, he plucks some tendrils from a wild grape plant. “They’re a nice little trail snack and high in vitamin C,” he says. They’re pleasantly sour and fun to chew on. “Not all of them are this sweet, but that’s the fun thing about foraging,” he explains. “You learn to train your palate in so many ways. This stuff grows everywhere, so wherever I go I’m always sampling it, and you become something of a connoisseur. You’ll notice, ‘Oh, this one was really sweet, or that one was really sour, or that one was really gross.’ You start to learn what to look for.”
Eating like this helps create an emotional connection to nature, Denton says. “And I think that’s especially important in a time like this, when we have scientists and people engaged in trying to save the planet but coming from a very logical perspective. That’s crucial, and it creates a connection to Mother Nature. But by actually sampling and tasting the land we live on, you become much more emotionally engaged, and we need to balance those two aspects when moving forward to protect the future of the planet.”
“That’s why foraging becomes a very important form of learning about the environment,” Denton continues. “People have this drive to empower themselves about the things they wish they’d learned in school, and to rediscover all these old secrets that had fallen out of favor in the world. People are realizing, ‘Wow, I can learn this stuff. I don’t need to go to a fancy college; I can get a mentor or take a class.’ It’s folk medicine. This is stuff that people have been practicing for centuries, so it’s awesome that it’s becoming popular again."
Learn From The Experts
Cooking with Wild Edibles Class
Thursday, July 21
Hamilton Community Center
6-8 p.m.
($15 Milwaukee residents/$22 non-residents)
Plant Ride led by Kyle Denton
Saturday, July 10
10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Garden Park
$10 (includes sports tea and snacks after the bike ride)