Because sometimes you just need to go digging around for your food.
Beyond thinking of flowers as objects of beauty or expressions of love, have you ever wanted to eat them? If so, forageSF and Kevin Feinstein are your combo power team. For more than five years, naturalist and author of The Bay Area Forager and Crash Course in Wild Mushroom Foraging Feinstein (aka Feral Kevin) has led forageSF wild ambles on the lookout for medicinal plants and edible foraged greens.
“At forageSF our mission is to help you explore your world,” says founder Iso Rabins. “With classes on everything from seaweed to mushroom foraging, we teach you how to eat from the wild.”
During these food-focused tours, Feinstein and other guides lead participants across San Francisco, the East Bay, and beyond to locales in Sonoma and Santa Cruz. Folks can choose packages that include three- to four-hour wild edible mushroom hunting expeditions into the Santa Cruz Mountains, where foragers can encounter chanterelles, morels, and other edible species that make it onto the menus of nearby restaurants. Some tours, including the Sierra Foothills tour with Todd Spanier, conclude with a chef demonstration. Then again, you could come up empty. As forageSF’s website cautions: “[W]e are at the whim of nature.”
White Mushroom Salad
Courtesy John Russ, Clementine Restaurant
8 ounces fresh white button mushrooms, sliced as thin as you can manage
4 ounces extra virgin olive oil
4 ounces lemon juice, fresh squeezed, preferably Meyer lemon
1 bunch parsley, chopped fine
½ red onion, sliced as thin as you can manage
2 small red radishes, sliced as thin as you can manage
2 lemons cut into segments, minus the skin and pith
1 pomegranate, jewels only
3 ounces pecorino cheese, parmesan can substitute, shaved with a peeler
Salt and pepper, to taste
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the cheese, toss gently. Shave the cheese over the top of the tossed salad prior to serving.
For more information on forages, visit the tour company’s website.
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Photography: Eva Kosmas Flores, Courtesy Clementine
From the April 2019 issue.