rivers & roots
spring foraging & Feasting
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6 Biweekly Classes:
Sunday, April 21, May 5, 19, June 2, 16 & 30, 2024
Time: 1-4PM
Location: 507 Ch Shouldice, Wakefield, QC
Cost: $360, ($60 for individual classes)
(Course fee includes all course materials, and foods and drinks we taste in class, as well as Wild Feast last class!)
Details:
Join us on a wild foraging adventure on the land this spring, where we will explore the many gifts our local forests and fields offer. Learn to identify, ethically harvest, and process the spring plants and mushrooms into food and drinks, which we will taste daily in class!
Each class will feature a welcome circle and gratitude to the land, a short “class”, a walkabout and harvest on the land, and finish with a cooking, eating, drinking session. We will taste our wild harvests both in very simple preparations, such as boiled vegetables with salt ands pepper, and in fancy ways such as Wood Nettle Sag Paneer, Burdock homefries, and sprucetip icecream!
Topics covered will include all manner of green spring plants, roots and tubers, tree barks, easily identifiable mushrooms, herbal teas,, and special projects such as syrups, sodas, mocktails and cocktails, herbal vinegars, flavoured kombucha, pickles, herbal sourcrouts, and simple country wines and beers. We'll also look at a few wild herbal medicines, and there's an option to make a wild willow gathering basket as homework! In addition to the hands-on learning, you will receive tons of learning resources and a regionally specific foraging calendar.
If you can't make all 6 classes, please register for the 1 class for $60 option, and send a message as to how many classes you wish to come to, and on which dates. Please note that we try and leave a couple of spots open for each class but priority will be given to those who have registered for the full course. This course has filled quickly in the past, so we require a $100 deposit or full payment to secure your spot!
Tentative Class Descriptions. Please note that the topics are subject to change due to nature's schedule, as well a spontaneous inspiration.
April 21
Class: - foraging 101 – books – where to forage -identification - hazards
Plant walk: birch, wintergreen, pine, cedar, balsam poplar buds, coltsfoot flowers, Dame’s rocket, early mustard greens, Wild leeks, marsh marigold, spring beauty, dandelion root and crown,
Projects and Tasters: birch syrup and sap, cooked wild greens, making balsam and coltsfoot medicines,
May 5
Class: Where to forage and tools,
Plant walk: Jerusalem Artichoke tubers, leek bulbs, watercress, stinging nettles, fiddleheads, violets, dandelions, cattail rhizome, thistle root?, chickweed, Japanese knotweed, violet greens, garlic mustard shoots, dock greens, daisy greens,
Projects and Tasters: fermenting vegetables, sourkraut, kimchi, Nettles Saag Paneer, leek soup,
May 19
Class: making a blickey, violet jelly, storing spring greens,
Plant walk: spruce tips, garlic mustard, cattail leaf base, dandelion flower, violet flowers, bladder campion, goatsbeard, basswood greens, wood sorrel, wood nettle, spruce tips, goatsbeard petioles, Sow thistle, dames rocket flowerbuds, daisy flower buds, lilac flowers, milkweed shoots,
Projects and Tasters: spruce tip icecream and syrup, dandelion wine, wood nettle spanakopita,
June 2
Class: flavoured syrups, fermented drinks, wild yeasts,
Plant walk: black locust flowers, thistle, burdock stalk, cattail pollen, lambsquarters, quickweed, rose petals, strawberry,
Projects and Tasters: Various drinks, stir-fry with black locust flowers, rose water in middle eastern cooking,
June 16
,
Class: mini mushroom class, vinegars,
Plant walk: amaranth, gooseberry, strawberries,
Projects and Tasters: make your own foraging basket introduction,
June 30
Class: TBA
Plant walk: wild strawberries, juneberries, blueberries, milkweed pods, cattail lateral, raspberry,
Projects and Tasters:, milkweed pod cheese,, wild strawberry desert