A note from the host —

Growing up on a small farm in Vermont, I experienced firsthand some of the challenges facing our food system. While my family worked harder and harder to make ends meet, we watched as crop prices continued to drop which forced so many of our fellow farmers out of business. 

I began foraging as a way to escape but soon found a myriad of benefits to my endeavors in the wild. Foraging made me more independent and self-reliant. But it also showed me the interconnectedness of all living things and how much nature has to teach us about ourselves and our food system. It also became abundantly clear that there was a demand for these wild ingredients as I would get a better price at local restaurants than our organic crops did at the best farmer’s markets. 

Wild Foods isn’t just about foraging. It is about developing a closer relationship with nature and allowing it to dictate to us a more sustainable future. Everything we need to be successful can be found in nature. We just need to know where to look.

Food is such a vital part of our story. It is the centerpiece of community, culture, economics and the environment. It is essential for our survival. So much of our lives are affected by food. But as more and more of our food has become industrialized, we have lost the ability to feed ourselves and, in a way, our ability to thrive. 

I have created this show as a way to share ideas and new approaches to our food system and our relationship with the natural world. Ours is the last generation that has the choice to decide our environmental future. This show will either stand as a rallying point to a brighter and more ethical tomorrow or as a memorial to what might have been. I have faith that when we work together, we can accomplish anything. All we need to know is where to look. 

– Kevin Chap