There’s nothing better than eating food that you grew yourself (or that your CSA farmer grew on your behalf), right? Well, Steve Brill thinks you can do better – by foraging your dinner.

Also known as “The Wild Man,” Brill is best known for getting arrested in Central Park in the early 80’s – for eating a dandelion. (He was charged with “defacing public property”.) Outraged – Brill called every media outlet in New York, winding up on television and the front page of several city newspapers. Soon after, the Park’s Department changed their minds – and gave him a job leading foraging tours around the Central and Prospect Park. He now leads independent tours across the Northeast showing ordinary, store-buying folks the incredible amounts of edible plant life that grows, unnoticed.

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I traveled up to Stone Barns Center for Barber’s restaurant, Blue Hill. Although we spent time wandering through Stone Barns’ impressive, sprawling greenhouse and watching a staff member buzz the thick wool off a (very pregnant) sheep, we were really there to forage with the Wild Man.

More – and photos – below the jump.

It was a chilly April afternoon – the kind of day conducive to sipping tea on the couch, rather than crouching in a pile of dead underbrush. But where we saw a pile of brown leaves, Brill saw a vast array of food: chickweed (”it tastes just like corn,” he said), field garlic, spice bush, dandelion greens, burdock root – even wild bay leaves which adorned a decorative bush planted by Stone Barns’ parking lot.

Like farming, foraging ties the eater to the seasons. Brill pointed out a thorny red bush, which he promised would be fat with wine berries come July. And the baby shoots of field garlic tasted great, but had a ways to go before they developed their proper thickness. Still, there’s an additional surge of excitement in foraging that isn’t present in farming – the thrill of the unknown. Will that plant be a tasty addition to my salad, or will it kill me? It makes every bite an adventure, and fosters a deep intimacy with the landscape and everything growing on it.

I asked Brill if he thought that chefs would catch on to the foraging trend – and all the untapped food growing in their backyards. He was skeptical, noting that while foraging works for a family – and is very cost-effective (meaning free), it doesn’t promise the consistent quantities needed in a professional kitchen. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if it became the “next big thing” in locavore cooking.

In the meantime, we were just happy to come away with our own stash of field garlic and wild bay leaves for dinner. Check it out below!

Wildman Steve Brill with “just foraged” Dandelion leaves.

Foraging in the underbrush.

Dinner in a basket? (See if you can spot the wild bay leaves.)

Chopping super-pungent, wild field garlic. Next to it, a decidedy un-foraged red pepper.

Dinner!

Check out more photos from our foraging tour and day at Stone Barns, here.
Read another blogger’s account of foraging in Central Park on Culinate.