Our guest today is Lisa Rose, author of the new book: Urban Foraging, Find, Gather, and Cook 50 Wild Plants, as well as a few other titles on foraging and food.
Though urban foraging doesn’t come up much on this show, it's always been important to Daniel. It was how he first started foraging, finding plants that grew in his backyard, snacks that grew up through the cracks in his sidewalk, or most importantly, harvesting fruits from neighborhood trees and abandoned lots around town. So we were glad to see that Lisa took this topic on, as it's a great way to introduce someone new to foraging, without having to simultaneously immerse them in wild places that might otherwise add to the complexity of what they’re experiencing or learning.
Of course, urban foraging poses some unique challenges outside of just land use issues, and that has to do with contamination by pollution. But then again, we face similar threats at the supermarket, where much of the food has also been contaminated by dangerous and pervasive chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. We say that, just to point out that, in 2022 we have to be thoughtful about anything and everything we eat, no matter the source.
Daniel's conversation with Lisa also gets pretty philosophical, because foraging, though intensely practical, is today, something we usually do for reasons beyond the pragmatic. We take it on because it holds meaning to us. At least, that — in addition to foods we can’t get anywhere else — is what keeps us going out there to encounter species that live on the margins of our nearly ubiquitous human settlements.
Though we, as a species, are swimming in excess calories today, relegating foraging to something of an anachronism, we would argue that it’s more important now than ever before. Not because we need to do it for food, but because food is the primary way we interact with other species. Because that's what food is after all. Other species. And when we interact only with each other and the suite of domesticated species that we typically live amongst or eat, it becomes easy to forget we share this planet with other creatures. Creatures much older than us or our way of life, creatures that have been here all along. Food is our doorway to ecological literacy. And without that, our planet, we fear, is doomed to be simplified into — eventually — one giant dystopian factory farm, with humans as much the farmer as the farmed.
So, while much of the world sees foraging as a throwback to a time long passed, we see it as a doorway to a better, more integrated, and more ecologically diverse future.
That makes Urban Foraging a significant act. More than a hobby. It’s an investment in a better world.
View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/157