Recipes and Insights from the Forager Chef Alan Bergo

Nothing connects us to nature and the changing seasons like savoring whatever Mother Nature’s currently serving. One of the easiest ways to embrace this seasonal approach to eating is by foraging.

Gathering wild plants for food offers so many benefits: eating local, shrinking our carbon footprint, getting outside and increasing our nutrient consumption and plant knowledge, just to name a few. As foraging gains popularity, we reached out to some of the top Midwest foragers for their best advice on what to look for when and how to prepare nature’s treats for noshing to share in our Fall 2024 issue of Northern Gardener® magazine.

Twin Cities-based Forager Chef Alan Bergo works full-time hunting for berries, greens and mushrooms, creating recipes, content, writing books and speaking to groups and cameras about what he finds. A longtime chef in several well-known Twin Cities restaurants, Alan discovered foraging when he stepped into the woods while disc golfing with friends.

Just a few feet off the course, he stumbled upon some chicken of the woods, the same mushrooms he’d just prepared in the kitchen of a local restaurant. “This was a tangible moment, real proof of concept,” Alan says. “It was when a lightbulb turned on. Since then, it has obviously snowballed.”

He kept returning to the woods, finding safety and calm when life was stressful. “It was free, and something no one could take away from me,” he recalls. “This relationship and growing knowledge of the ingredients available out my back door felt so worth my time.” As he spent more time in nature, he saw continued benefits in all aspects of his life. He was hooked.

Nature suddenly felt so abundant and, since he hadn’t been raised with gardening, he started to discover plants… where they grew best and how they changed with the seasons. He enjoyed taking time to experiment and play with food, discovering new flavors and eating healthier and closer to home.

Each season Up North offers its own delicacies—with experience, Alan and other foragers learn the land and peak harvest timing. Look for and try elevating simple ingredients and flavors by harvesting and cooking with the best nature has to offer while at peak freshness.

Seasonal foraging favorites

Spring

• Greens, such as dandelions, fiddleheads, nettles and watercress
• Highly sought-after wild ramps
• Spring shoots, such as cattails and hostas
• Peeled goldenrod tips
• Later flowers like black locust

Summer

• All the mushrooms, especially chicken of the woods, lobsters, chanterelles, black trumpets and porcinis
• Edible flowers, including invasives like Dame’s rocket and creeping bellflower
• Wild raspberries, blackcap raspberries, currants, gooseberries and mulberries

Late summer to early fall

• Blueberries, elderberries and chokecherries
• Apples

Fall

• Maturing nuts, such as acorns, butternuts, black walnuts and hickory nuts
• Hen of the woods mushrooms
• Wild greens return later in the fall
• Nannyberries, chokeberries (Aronia) and rose hips

Recommended foraging recipes

Spring

• Classic stinging nettle soup
• Ramp leaf pesto

Summer

• Black raspberry ice cream
• Wild blueberry pie

Late summer to early fall

• Chicken of the woods risotto with basil and peas
• Ground cherry tart

Fall

• Italian Mushroom Soup
• Maple Crabapple Butter

Sustainable foraging practices

• Ask permission before foraging
• Know your plants
• Harvest only what you need
• Leave more than you take
• Know how you’ll use it

Know before you go

• State park foraging laws allow for harvesting fruits and mushrooms
• Harvesting rules in Minnesota state forests

Best foraging guides

• Sam Thayer’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants
• Alan Bergo’s The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora

For more foraging tips and recipes, grab a copy of the Fall 2024 issue of Northern Gardener® magazine.

Michelle Bruhn is a gardener, writer, speaker, local food advocate and coauthor of Small-Scale Homesteading (Skyhorse Press, 2023). forksinthedirt.com | @forksinthedirt

Photo credit: Michelle Bruhn. Featured image: Forager Chef Alan Bergo munches on some (invasive) Dame’s Rocket.