worlds best restaurant serves foraged food

[robin wood]

So what do we think of Noma winning "worlds best restaurant" for the second time by serving locally foraged food? Anyone going to start up on this in the UK?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16440034

 

[udamiano]

Heston Bluemental with hair

 

[blacktimberwolf]

Hmmm............not exactly appetising.

 

[bojit]

Some of the contestants on last years masterchef went to cook there , you saw some of the chefs go out in the morning foraging in the local forest and sea shore . very interesting and cooking on a whole new level .

Craig............

 

[telbert]

Lots of restaurants in London have been using foraged foods for a while now. Part of the reason mushrooming is now banned in Epping Forest was the practice of London chefs raiding it for goodies,selling them for a huge profit and then bragging about it on youtube.

 

[xylaria]

There is something really special about food that is foraged from the local environment. But there is something morally unpalletable about comercial foraging. Copenhagan is right on the coast in an area of not much population density, it can probably handle a small scale operation like a resturant as well catering for the locals that forage. London is differant. English common law only applies to harvesting for the your own pot. Common law isnt there as written law, our right to harvest from nature is very flimsy. When I used to forage for fungi in Epping and hampsted heath there was no specific rules stopping me, i could forage on land I had the right to be. Now those rights are getting erroded. It is not like i couldnt make a living from selling foraged goods to swaky resturants, i have dilberatly chose not to do so as i think it endangers what rights have been taken for granted as custom for centurys.

There are resturants that sell local farmed and foraged food, but they are in areas like the south west and wales where the balance is better. The trade as a whole i dont think is good thing though.

 

[Hugo]

Anthony Worrall Thompson likes a bit of forraging.

 

[bojit]

Craig...........

 

[xylaria]

Anthony Worrall Thompson likes a bit of forraging.

food for free, he sort of took it the wrong way.

 

[Essexman]

Lots of restaurants in London have been using foraged foods for a while now. Part of the reason mushrooming is now banned in Epping Forest was the practice of London chefs raiding it for goodies,selling them for a huge profit and then bragging about it on youtube.

The problem in Epping forest was that we had teams of people being sent out into the forest to collect, not just one chef. The other problem is it's very hard to police and stop.

 

[Bushwhacker]

What are the rules on gaining profit from foraged foods?

 

[DaveBromley]

This brings a whole new meaning to "local produce" good point about making profit from foraged food though not sure on that one. It is nice though to see people thinking outside the box and responding to the seasons by changing with them etc

Dave

 

[mousey]

I suspect my local chinese take-a-way has 'foraged' some produce, alot of cats have gone missing in the area and some of the meat in a 'special' chow mein looks a little dubious

 

[FGYT]

What are the rules on gaining profit from foraged foods?

Fine as long as you have the land owners permission or the relevant licence ie scallops



For that money i would expect it to be flown in from the other side of the world in a private jet

 

[dwardo]

I rekon no matter what the basic ingeredients its the chef that makes the food. I can collect lumbs of clay, doesnt mean i can sculpt a Rodin.
Same as my foraging and cooking in general come to think of it....useless..

 

[xylaria]

What are the rules on gaining profit from foraged foods?

Common law states the people of britain can collect follage fungi, fruit and flowers for personal consumption from land you have the right to be on. So I can pick mushrooms from the local country park, but selling them on isn't. However no body will proscute the lady that collects bilberries from mowcop and sells the jam on the farm that borders the moor, but the mushroom pickers of epping do get stopped and occasionalt prosecuted. The differance is how damaging their habits are, the mowcop lady it is in her best interest not over harvest, she even throws the uncooked seeds back.

It gets down at which point the micheal is really been taken. The thing is it a liberty that when taken is taken off everyone. My nearest beach has no cockles, the population collapsed 10 years ago, in fact it doesn't have much sign of razor clams either so i am not sure over harvesting is the whole story.

a grey zone is that if I take money to show costumers wild foods, is it comercial foraging.

 

[Mang]

Woodland Ways have just forged a partnership with this lot in St. Albans, Hertfordshire http://the-foragers.com/ which looks an interesting collaboration. There's also http://www.thecountrybumpkin.co.uk/ who are also in Hertfordshire and the guy featured in Bushcraft and Survival Skills magazine a while ago. I'm in Herfordshire too, so why haven't I got off my butt and visited both these places?!

 

[telbert]

Common law states the people of britain can collect follage fungi, fruit and flowers for personal consumption from land you have the right to be on. So I can pick mushrooms from the local country park, but selling them on isn't. However no body will proscute the lady that collects bilberries from mowcop and sells the jam on the farm that borders the moor, but the mushroom pickers of epping do get stopped and occasionalt prosecuted. The differance is how damaging their habits are, the mowcop lady it is in her best interest not over harvest, she even throws the uncooked seeds back.

It gets down at which point the micheal is really been taken. The thing is it a liberty that when taken is taken off everyone. My nearest beach has no cockles, the population collapsed 10 years ago, in fact it doesn't have much sign of razor clams either so i am not sure over harvesting is the whole story.

a grey zone is that if I take money to show costumers wild foods, is it comercial foraging.

At one time you could pick what you wanted in Epping Forest, then a permit system was introduced with a limit(3kilos iirc).Now you can be prosecuted for picking a single specimen. Ive often spoken to the rangers about this and most of them blame a certain italian chef for making such a big thing of it on youtube

 

[robin wood]

Individual fads come and go. I remember 20 years ago Antonio Carluccio letting slip that Bedgebury Pinetum was a favourite fungi spot. I happened to be there for a meeting the following weekend and the car park was awash with discarded fungi which folk had picked, got back to the car then decided they weren't sure so dumped. And Bedgebury was made a sssi on the basis of it's fungi.

I agree with Dwardo about the chef making the food and find what this chap is doing interesting. In his position I would find it very frustrating that I was going to such lengths to serve local in season food yet my clientele were flying in from all over just for lunch.

 

[xylaria]

At one time you could pick what you wanted in Epping Forest, then a permit system was introduced with a limit(3kilos iirc).Now you can be prosecuted for picking a single specimen. Ive often spoken to the rangers about this and most of them blame a certain italian chef for making such a big thing of it on youtube

and that is over kill on the other end. The corporation of london wouldn't think twice about hiring the same chef for one of their unbelievably plush gravy train buffets, it is are ran by those that wouldn't think twice about eating at the same resturants that feed the trade in over harvesting. The crown or the queen is the land owner, they are custodians, it is not their jurastiction, the square mile is. We just presume because someone says it is against a law that is it, there is nothing that could done, the law should be unchallenged. There is probably a just conservation reason for a temporay ban but I dont have much trust in a management that has a history of removing ancient rights. Our common law rights need protecting, with forgaging, hunting fishing they are skills that would be lost if the rights to pratice are taken away.

The forager's pub sounds like the right type of establishment where it is balanced collecting. The prices arent bad for herts either.