From mushrooms to dandelions,
foraged food finds way to U.S. tables

Reuters
March 23rd, 2013

 

Foraging tours have cropped up across the country and farm-to-table dinners are giving way to forage-to-table affairs...

Alan Muskat, a longtime forager who is organizing the Asheville market, said eating wild foods was not only cheap and healthy but good for the environment.

"It really takes on the whole idea of agriculture, which is so foundational to the way we think about food," he said...

Muskat, who studied philosophy and ecology at Princeton University, said he sold foraged mushrooms to high-end restaurants for more than 15 years, often selling more than 500 pounds of them a year at prices of $12 to $40 a pound...

On a recent walk, Muskat was careful to pick only small pieces of a ginger-like root, leaving plenty to keep growing. He insists foraging is good for the long-term health of natural areas.

"Foraging makes the woods more valuable," Muskat said. "And when something has value, you protect it."