A forager is a person who collects edible plants or fungi for consumption. Urban foragers may collect in city parks, private lands, and sidewalks. Urban foraging has gained in popularity in the 21st century, as people share their knowledge, experiments, and research about local flora online. [1] One notable urban forager is "Wildman" Steve Brill, who was arrested in New York City's Central Park for eating a dandelion.
Notable foragers include Sean Sherman, a chef who owns "The Sioux Chef" food education business, chef Sami Tallberg, and Alexis Nikole Nelson, a forager and internet personality.
Foragers typically seek out herbs, fruits, roots, and mushrooms from nature to create dishes to eat. Professional chefs often forage or purchase from foragers in order to add these foods to restaurant menus. [2] [3]
While most foragers engage in the activity as a pastime, foraging can also be a free means of obtaining nutrient-dense food for low-income families, and become a significant part of a person's diet. [1]
Buddhist cuisine is an Asian cuisine that is followed by monks and many believers from areas historically influenced by Mahayana Buddhism. It is vegetarian or vegan, and it is based on the Dharmic concept of ahimsa (non-violence). Vegetarianism is common in other Dharmic faiths such as Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism, as well as East Asian religions like Taoism. While monks, nuns and a minority of believers are vegetarian year-round, many believers follow the Buddhist vegetarian diet for celebrations.
Nutrition is the biochemical and physiological process by which an organism uses food to support its life. It provides organisms with nutrients, which can be metabolized to create energy and chemical structures. Failure to obtain sufficient nutrients causes malnutrition. Nutritional science is the study of nutrition, though it typically emphasizes human nutrition.
Taiwanese cuisine is a popular style of food with several variations, including Chinese and that of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples, with the earliest cuisines known of being the indigenous ones. With over a hundred years of historical development, mainstream Taiwanese cuisine has been influenced by Hakka cuisine, the cuisines of the waishengren, Japanese cuisine, and American cuisine, with southern Fujian cuisine having had the most profound impact.
Cassowaries are flightless birds of the genus Casuarius in the order Casuariiformes. They are classified as ratites: flightless birds without a keel on their sternum bones. Cassowaries are native to the tropical forests of New Guinea, the Aru Islands (Maluku), and northeastern Australia.
Slow Food is an organization that promotes local food and traditional cooking. It was founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986 and has since spread worldwide. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds, and livestock characteristic of the local ecosystem. It promotes local small businesses and sustainable foods. It also focuses on food quality, rather than quantity. It was the first established part of the broader slow movement. It speaks out against overproduction and food waste. It sees globalization as a process in which small and local farmers and food producers should be simultaneously protected from and included in the global food system.
Allium tricoccum is a bulbous perennial flowering plant in the amaryllis family Amaryllidaceae. It is a North American species of wild onion or garlic widespread across eastern Canada and the eastern United States. Many of the common English names for this plant are also used for other Allium species, particularly the similar Allium ursinum, which is native to Europe and Asia. An edible plant, Allium tricoccum is used in a variety of North American and indigenous cuisines, and has also been used by Native Americans in traditional medicine.
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. The word diet often implies the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management reasons. Although humans are omnivores, each culture and each person holds some food preferences or some food taboos. This may be due to personal tastes or ethical reasons. Individual dietary choices may be more or less healthy.
Noma is a three-Michelin-star restaurant run by chef René Redzepi, and co-founded by Claus Meyer, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The name is a syllabic abbreviation of the two Danish words "nordisk" (Nordic) and "mad" (food). Opened in 2003, the restaurant is known for its focus on foraging, invention and interpretation of New Nordic Cuisine. In 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014, it was ranked as the Best Restaurant in the World by Restaurant magazine. In 2021 it won the first spot in the World's 50 Best Restaurants Awards.
David Chang is an American restaurateur, author, podcaster, and television personality. He is the founder of the Momofuku restaurant group. In 2009, Momofuku Ko was awarded two Michelin stars, which the restaurant has retained each year since. He co-founded the influential food magazine Lucky Peach in 2011 which lasted for 25 quarterly volumes into 2017. In 2018, Chang created, produced, and starred in a Netflix original series called Ugly Delicious, and through his Majordomo Media group, he has produced and/or starred in more television and podcasts. On November 29, 2020, he became the first celebrity to win the $1,000,000 top prize for his charity, Southern Smoke Foundation, and the fourteenth overall million dollar winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
Rosa californica, the California wildrose, or California rose, is a species of rose native to the U.S. states of California and Oregon and the northern part of Baja California, Mexico. The plant is native to chaparral and woodlands and the Sierra Nevada foothills, and can survive drought, though it grows most abundantly in moist soils near water sources.
Mousefood, Melqurat, Maqaruaruat or Anlleq is a native foraged food and medicine highly prized by Yupik people on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.
Kimbal James Musk is a South African restaurateur, chef, and entrepreneur. He owns The Kitchen Restaurant Group, a collection of "community" restaurants located in Colorado and Chicago. He is the co-founder and chairman of Big Green, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has built hundreds of outdoor classrooms called "Learning Gardens" in schoolyards across America. Musk is also the co-founder and chairman of Square Roots, an urban farming company growing food in hydroponic, indoor, climate controlled shipping containers. Musk currently sits on the boards of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, both of which his brother Elon is the current CEO. He was on the board of Chipotle Mexican Grill from 2013 to 2019. He is the brother of Elon Musk and Tosca Musk, son of Errol and Maye Musk, and a major shareholder in Tesla.
Viet Pham is a chef and a previous winner of Iron Chef America.
The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen is a recipe book written by Sean Sherman with Beth Dooley, published by the University of Minnesota Press in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sean Sherman is an Oglala Lakota chef who was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and is currently based in South Minneapolis. Sherman opened an Indigenous cuisine restaurant within the Water Works park development project overlooking Saint Anthony Falls and the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis in 2021.
Holly Schmidt is a Vancouver-based artist whose practice moves across disciplinary boundaries, and incorporates pedagogical, collaborative and social practice approaches. She has taught at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and as an educational programmer at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver.
Moshe Basson ( is an Israeli chef, restaurateur, and food folklorist. An early proponent of the Slow Food movement in Israel, he is the owner and head chef of The Eucalyptus restaurant in Jerusalem. He specializes in traditional regional cuisine, biblical ingredients, and the use of wild plants and herbs that he gathers himself on foraging expeditions in the Jerusalem hills. He is a member of the Israeli-Palestinian group Chefs for Peace and a two-time winner of the international Couscous Fest in Italy.
The Eucalyptus is a Jerusalem fine dining restaurant. It is noted for its use of biblical ingredients and the use of wild plants and roots foraged from the nearby hillsides, and for preparing traditional and innovative Levantine, Arab, and Jewish cuisine.
Sean Sherman is an Oglala Lakota Sioux chef, cookbook author, forager, and promoter of indigenous cuisine. Sherman founded the indigenous food education business and caterer The Sioux Chef and cofounded with then-partner Dana Thompson the nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NĀTIFS). He received a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award and his 2017 cookbook, The Sioux Chef's Indigenous Kitchen, won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best American Cookbook. In 2022 the restaurant he co-owned with Thompson, Owamni, won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant.
Kamini Pather is a South African chef, food blogger, and television and radio personality. She won the second season of MasterChef South Africa in 2013 and hosted the food travel series Girl Eat World.
Coopers Hall Winery and Taproom, or simply Coopers Hall, is an urban winery and restaurant in Portland, Oregon.