Foraged...The New Organic?

On a recent Dinner Party Download podcast we learned of an organization in San Francisco that is promoting "community supported forage." I found this concept to be extremely different from any business model I've ever seen and thought it was interesting enough to share.

The organization is called ForageSF, and their mission is "to rediscover a forgotten food system, reduce carbon miles,while helping to build a local food economy based on a true respect for the skills of our rural neighbors. Through a network of individual foragers, all harvesting what they know best (and getting 50% of the profit), we can bring an amazing array of selections to your table. As an aspect of our co-operative philosophy, 50% of the profit from the sale of our products will go straight to the forager (the person collecting). We hope to create a situation where foraging full-time can be a sustainable lifestyle for those who enjoy it (and who doesn’t like to spend all day in the woods?)."

The organization provides "wild edible food walks" where participants learn how to forage for themselves, and will be organizing potluck events in the future. You can also order a monthly box of wild foraged foods, which they call community supported forage, to be delivered to your doorstep! Boxes include wild mushrooms (Chanterelles, black trumpet, morels), nettle, miners lettuce, halibut, nettle pesto, sea bean pickles, acorn bread, sea beans, fresh fruit, cattail rhizomes, and a seasonally rotating selection of all wild foraged food. They note that none of the food is raised on farms or touched by human hands until the day of its harvest, and they also include recipes and suggestions on how to prepare the foods that are less familiar. Some of the foraged foods include locally gleaned fruit from urban backyards, which they promote as reducing waste and connecting neighbors.

I can't say I'm jumping for the chance to try acorn bread or miners lettuce, but it seems to me that with all of our modern conveniences and prepackaged foods, this is an expressed example of yearning for "simpler" times. To read more, visit www.foragesf.com.