Good Qs with Alan Bergo, Forager Chef

A growing number of chefs are incorporating foraged foods into their menus, resulting in intriguing dishes made with unconventional ingredients like lambsquarters, purslane and chanterelle.

To learn more about this fascinating cooking style, we spoke with Chef Alan Bergo, who is leading the way in the foraged food movement.

Your culinary work looks fantastic, could you tell us a bit more about it?

My culinary work is focused on exploring wild and obscure foods, mostly foraged but some wild. I started out teaching myself about all the mushrooms I could use, so that I could bring them into restaurants I worked at or ran as the chef to cook. I  started branching out to plants later. 

Tell us a little bit more about your exciting book, The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora. 

FLORA is the vegetable portion of my life. It’s the first in a three part series including Funghi and Fauna, which will be released later.

Flora covers wild leafy green plants, garden vegetables, nuts and starches, as well as a few different herbs, wild and cultivated that I cook with. It’s a bit of an experimental book, including short essays on things like how to pair flavours using botany and plant families, as well as other focused things like the 8 edible parts of milkweed.

Most of the recipes are very simple, a few are not. It’s a wide-reaching book, meant to satisfy professional chefs, gardeners, plant based eaters and omnivores who follow my work. It took about 3 years to put together.

What influences your cooking and style?

I was trained in classical French and European technique, but I rely on ethnobotanical research, wild food guides and historical cookbooks for a lot of my inspiration. The seasons and what is available are my biggest inspirations. 

Where do you see the future of sustainable cooking?

This is a difficult question. Diners say they want to support local foods and sustainable methods, but when push comes to shove they’ll complain about a dish being too expensive because the chef used something like locally sourced carrots and potatoes, which cost more.

We need to do more to educate the public on the quality of all ingredients on their plate, and the importance of supporting places that source local ingredients and support small local economies. Otherwise it will be a sea of fast food and mediocre chain concepts. 

What are some of the easiest plants we can all grow and use in our dishes?

Nettles, lambsquarters, purslane (all garden weeds).

I also love showing people they can eat different parts of plants they already know, like broccoli and cauliflower leaves, squash shoots and tomato leaves, etc. 

What are the small changes we can all make to reduce our impact on the planet?

Go to the farmers market, support local, small businesses. 

How do you take care of yourself? What are your self-care tips?

I know when I need to ask for help, and I try as hard as I can to delegate tasks to others when I know the task at hand isn’t in my strongest suit. 

What’s the most interesting thing you learnt this week?

Two new recipes for wild greens from Greece and the Ionian Islands. 

What is on your must see or must read list right now?

Dorothy Kalins The Kitchen Whisperers. 

What Good News have you had / heard this week?

RAIN. We’ve had a horrible drought and it’s been the worst year for mushrooms here I’ve ever seen. 

Learn more about Alan’s work at: foragerchef.com