Week 9 - Foraging with Wildman Steve Brill

This week we took a foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill and his daughter Violet.

Then we returned to the classroom to cook with the things we found in the park using some of Steve's recipes.


Wildman Steve Brill shows us garlic mustard which has leaves that taste like garlic with bitter overtones and a root with a horseradish taste.




Violet tells us about common plantain


Violet scales a tree to gather small twigs and branches of the black birch, which has a wintergreen taste and is used as the base flavor for Steve's stick pudding recipe


Sydney shows off her pokeweed berries which are NOT for eating as they are poisonous but can be used to create ink. According to Steve, the ink used to sign the Declaration of Independence was made from poke berries.



Back at school Steve guides us in making some of his famous vegan recipes from the plants we have just foraged.



Students snack on roasted ginkgo nuts harvested from inside fallen fruit of a ginkgo tree. The nuts were surprisingly good which is impressive as the flesh of the ginkgo fruit is poisonous and foul-smelling.


A delicious lentil creation which incorporated violets, burdock and some of the other greens we foraged


Boyan works on the stick pudding which uses the black birch twigs as its base flavor.


Our meal was supplemented by a tasty sassafras tea created by boiling sassafras root with water to give a root beer-like flavor.


Some of Steve's many books on foraging, plant identification and cooking.

HOMEWORK + CLASS on 11/9

Many of you have not completed last week's proposal for the final project, which was due last week. If you have not completed ALL parts required as detailed in the final project handout, please make sure that is completed by next week.

If you have already completed your final proposal there is no new homework, just get to work on your final project.

Next week, 11/9, we will have a short lecture on food waste and introduce the work for Tattfoo Tan whose studio we will visit the following week on 11/16. We will also watch a movie on Gleaners and have individual meetings  during class time to discuss your midterm grades and final project ideas.