California Foraging: Hahamongna

Everywhere you turn in California, there's something to eat -- if you know what to look for.
Foragers Mia Wasilevich and Pascal Baudar of Transitional Gastronomy shop at the grocery store, but they also head out into the woods regularly, carrying backpacks and knives and compasses, finding edible plants scattered across public lands. They like it so much they've turned it into a business, with Pascal leading interested food nerds out into the woods to collect cattails, purslane, wild radishes and more, while Mia cooks up a feast using wild ingredients.
www.kcet.org/socal/food/califo...
Eli Newell went out on one such veggie hunt with Pascal, and learned about native versus invasive plants in Southern California's parks (which do you guess peaches are?), ate flowers, and asked Pascal just why, exactly, he makes a habit of rubbing poison oak on his face. Enjoy the video, and be cautiously hungry out there!

[@dominique.gonzalez622]

I wish highschool had classes that will teach you how to identify specific species of plants and trees.

[@horustortoise6110]

You get the building blocks of that in biology and if you’re lucky, botany. You can then take more advanced courses in college. Happy studying!

[@hairywitch4063]

I agree with you. Would be so much more interesting and useful than a lot of the stuff they teach in school these days.

[@hopefulskeptic42]

Nice little video. I would have liked more and closer pictures of both the plants and their habitat though. Also recommendations of books or field guides.

[@joshyyy777]

Where can I see more of this host? Such a heartwarming guy! His positive personality and wholesome comments seriously made this for me.

[@sheagaier7582]

The high school i went to is right across the street from that park!!!!

[@lovecatspiracy]

I look forward to trying these recipes with the free stuff that grows in my yard. Lambsquarter is a big favorite, I made a chickweed and lambsquarter lasagna in the spring that made everyone's mouth water. I just now posted a video of feeding my hens an armload of lambsquarter gone to seed. I plan on propagating forageables on this city park that has a chaparral zoned hill in the middle of it. It burns down every 4th of July, but I think I can rehabilitate it with wild edibles. Thanks so much for the knowledge.

[@mariaguild2024]

I wish you would have showed the plants a little better I am trying to learn how to identify edible plants :) But great show

[@asamusicdude]

his face when he ate the pepperweed tho lol

[@Foxyfreedom]

How did they find passionfruit? lol

[@Mrscupcakeful]

Hi! I am a San Diego native and am super interested in your cooking. I am only 20 but have always loved cooking/baking and am super interested in what you are making here :) Do you host private or public cooking classes? I would really love to learn from you!

[@shrimpbynightbythomas8212]

Have you come across a seed that would make a loud popping sound when add to water, look like a brown rice in it shell? They grow on the end strick.

[@thederb720]

I know Pascal knows his stuff, so he must have been distracted at 3:43 when he said that the top part of the cattail flower was the female. It 's the male (because the female does not give off pollen, the male does) and at 3:47 when he calls the bottom part of the cattail the male--it's the female. I eat the male part like corn on the cob, not the female as he stated. (The male has more meat on it.)

[@brucethedruid]

He is obviously bilingual so he just got his terms mixed up, otherwise his description is accurate.

[@cloudoftime]

You can also eat the root of the cattail.

[@miathapapaya]

Where can I try her dishes? Id pay big money to eat a meal made from all Northern Californian foraged stuff!

[@MrDsokleang]

The fruit that he picked. He said it’s passion fruit. Is that a different kind of passion fruit? Cause I never seen one that is yellow, soft on the outside and red in the inside. I’m use to ones that is hard, red on the outside with yellow inside.

[@jonathanmacias5450]

Lynn S. Douk yeah there’s a variety of California native passion fruit it’s different than the one from South America

[@smileyhappyradio]

Wild peaches in California? Wild passionfruit, how common is that?

[@MaddConnekRecordz]

very, birds eat the seeds then spread all over.

[@jonathanmacias5450]

@@MaddConnekRecordz that's how we get a lot of invasive species

[@brucethedruid]

Not really wild, more like feral. Peaches are native to China, so either a remnant of an orchard or spread through animal means.

[@horustortoise6110]

@@brucethedruid yeah everything picked was non native besides the cattail (Typha) and mugwort. The pepper weed (lepidium latifolium) is very invasive and should all be eaten, as long as herbicide wasn’t applied first of course.

[@SurvivalOfTheFittestvideos]

Great video, thank you for posting! I myself had a tough time foraging in the Wasatch Mountains of Central Utah, check out my video and let me know what you think? Hank vs Wild - Joe's Valley Part 2

[@camillesylvester5424]

SurvivalOfTheFittest there is a long t to forage in the Wasatch mountains I used to be a volunteer there but way more in the north west

[@life-landscapeintegrityfil6821]

There's already ample scientific evidence. Ecology 101: Habitat is defined as the food and shelter an organism needs in order to survive. Loss of habitat is the primary cause of extirpation and extinction. Therefore, it's a matter of logic: If people are taking the plant food from wild lands that wild insects and animals need in order to survive, this will decrease the habitat of those insects and animals and decrease their chances for survival. Insect and animal populations rise and fall with food availability. When foragers take the wild plant food that insects and animals depend upon for survival -- here in Southern California, walnut, bay laurel, white and black sage, buckwheat, elderberry, currant, to name but a few -- the food supply of the insects and animals goes down and their numbers go down accordingly. More scientific evidence: Up to 90% of all leaf-eating insect species can eat ONLY native plants. Those insects are essential for maintaining the food web, because they turn leaves into protein (the insect bodies) that fuel the food web. Fewer native plant forage food for insects = fewer insects = harm to the food web. Here's a link to a website run by an entomologist at the University of Delaware, Professor Douglas Tallamy: www.bringingnaturehome.net/ In Southern California, most of our butterfly species' caterpillars can eat only native plants as their forage food. For example, buckwheat flowers and/or leaves are the forage food for several species of blue butterflies. If we take away those leaves and flowers, the number of caterpillars goes down, and bird populations therefore go down because caterpillars are the main food of baby birds. It takes 100-150 caterpillars to feed a finch-sized bird from the time it hatches to the time it fledges 17 days later. Native plants produce 35 times more caterpillars than non-native plants. So, if we want to support our bird populations, we need to leave the native plants intact. Here's the book on caterpillar forage food and butterfly nectar foods: www.amazon.com/Introduction-Southern-California-Butterflies/dp/087842475X The California Floristic Province, and especially Southern California, has been identified by numerous scientific organizations as a biodiversity hotspot -- i.e. one of the most biologically diverse and threatened areas OF THE WORLD. We need to do everything we can to support the health of our remaining wild lands and leave them intact, not extract things from them, other than invasive non-native plants that negatively impact the food web and the health of those wild lands. Here are some links: www.cnrs.fr/inee/recherche/fichiers/Biodiversite_hotspots.pdf www.calacademy.org/explore-science/biodiversity-hotspot-case-study-california www.cepf.net/resources/hotspots/North-and-Central-America/Pages/California-Floristic-Province.aspx Foragers should grow the plants they desire at home, rather than extracting them from our remaining wild lands. People's actions should be a gain for Nature, not a loss. We must conserve, not consume, our remaining wild lands. By planting native plants at home and foraging at home, we provide a net gain in so many ways for the environment: We create more habitat for birds and butterflies and other insects and animals while providing food for ourselves. We increase the yield of our conventional edibles by having native plants nearby because the native plants support the native pollinators that increase the yield of the conventional edibles. And we also use less water on our landscape, since native plants use 80% less water than conventional non-native landscaping, which also requires soil amendments, fertilizers and pesticides, which can harm aquifer and ocean health. Growing native plants at home for foraging is a win-win solution all the way around.

[@lillgill156]

Yes! When foraging, forage for the invasive non natives

[@EditPost365]

Author Pascal Baudar’s re-exploration of the native plants and insects he finds so delicious will only intensify the decimation of our ecosystems and few remaining wild areas by metropolitan gastronomes who, like Baudar, may not fully understand the harm they do. Leave trees their bark, native animal species their acorns, and stones in place to do their part for the watershed and shelter. Then create urban farms to grow the native plants and attract the insects, sell them in farmer’s markets, and create an industry that embraces nature without harming it. Find the native species at Native Plant nurseries, not in our local landscapes.

[@MaddConnekRecordz]

I like the knowledge but does anyone consider you are taking from the animals that need it. and you wonder why yogi and boo boo are in your yards looking to survive. Cultivate a few and regrow at home. I like the idea but not the method.

[@brucethedruid]

Many of these wild plants are not cultivars. Some you can grow, others you cannot.

[@brucethedruid]

Many of these plants are not browsed by animals. What harms the animals far more is when people build houses in the country, roads are built through travel areas, and farming activity. Picking a few plants on occasion is trivial in comparison.

[@horustortoise6110]

@@brucethedruid yeah these are mostly nonnative weeds. Of course the term weeds is subjective, but they are invasive species that displace California native habitat, which would be used by endangered migratory birds and lots of other mammals, insects and herps. Although non native species do attract certain insects and can help improve diversity, most outcompete native species and become monoculture or reduce diversity

[@life-landscapeintegrityfil6821]

Given that Southern California wild lands and wildlife are extremely stressed due to drought, invasive non-native plants and the population pressure from SoCal's approximately 26 million people, it is extremely environmentally damaging to forage native plants in the wild. Foraging wild native plants deprives wildlife of the food they need for survival. People have other options -- wildlife does not! Pascal Baudar and anyone else interested in wild flavors should grow the native plants themselves, not pillage the few wild places that remain. If everyone took no more than 10-20 percent of what they found, as Pascal suggested is the foremost rule of foraging, our wild lands will be devastated in no time of both native and non-native plants. Foraging should be allowed for First Peoples ONLY, and everyone else should grow the plants at home or, better yet, farm the wild plants, as the French have done with lavender, for example. Here in SoCal, we have not only appropriated most of the land for our own use and erased the natural landscape, but now, through foraging, we are furthering the ecological devastation of the few wild lands that remain.

[@evanherrera7182]

well said bro

[@jefjeffrey5847]

i agree with you. i was thinkin the same thing

[@nicholaswarner9274]

I am sure that elephant and rhino poachers use the same logic in justifying their actions. You state the obvious: there are many other major contributing factors to ecological devastation but thoughtless, self-serving idiots can drive the destruction of species over the final precipice. You correctly identify overpopulation as the primary problem but one of the ways that manifests itself is ridiculous numbers of people foraging on threatened species. In the contest of the illogical and absurd, I am afraid your comment has everyone else beaten.

[@iSniffStuff]

Who's pascal?

[@christianfoley2781]

You say this as if all 26 million californians are packing up and going foraging every weekend to feed their family but they are not. Foraging is a skill that not too many people have mastered.

[@neverhomepnw]

If u put poison oak to your mouth i cant trust you. I had poison oak spread to my whole body and to my bed sheets. No matter how many times I washed my sheets I always got it back.

[@brucethedruid]

For goodness sake. Everyone has a different level of sensitivity. I can gently handle it myself and be fine. Native Californians made baskets out of it. My sister however will develop a rash simply by walking through a stand of it. Just because you had a bad reaction doesn't mean this gentleman doesn't know what he is talking about.

[@LazyIRanch]

I'm not allergic to poison oak or poison ivy. I was a terrible Summer camp counselor, I took the kids on a hike and they all got poison ivy rashes except for me and my cousin. Oops!

[@greenroomdude]

poison oak...is not edible. lol.

[@miathapapaya]

Do NOT eat or touch or especially burn poison oak, people!

[@ggstatertots]

Native Americans would use it as tea and were immune to it.

[@daphneszeles28]

if you cook it it might be edible. i know poison ivy is edible when cooked

[@michaelsherman3472]

yuppies shouldn't be foraging.

[@TravisHeinze]

California should be broken up as a state so people don't confuse the foraging areas. You won't find these wild edibles in the southern regions. It's too inhospitable.

[@deviparvathi9152]

Travis He

[@vervor]

You can find this stuff in the chaparral and areas that aren't desert in the south - lots of microclimates. Plenty of this to be found all around SD and LA and in between.