Wild Food Adventures

09/20/2024

Here is some coverage of me and Alanna Kieffer in the Sept 10, 2024 issue of Travel Oregon.

With 363 miles of coastline, a wealth of rich forests and plenty of fertile valleys, Oregon is a well-stocked natural-food store where visitors and locals alike can forage for all manner of belly-pleasing eats. You just need to know where to go and what to look for. Here’s what to expect on a guid...

09/09/2024

These are my students from my Farm to Table wild food workshop in July. We harvested the weeds from an organic farm to make that big luscious salad. Enough to feed 25 people. It is an annual event. You should join us next year.

08/26/2024

Come have some fun learning about nature and what you can eat for the rest of your life. For more info or to register, go here: https://wildfoodadventures.com/
For a poster of the whole years workshops, go here:https://wildfoodadventures.com/wp-content/wfa_docs/workshopposter.pdf

08/19/2024

Early Sunday morning preparation prior to my S'mores From Marsh Mallow Plants workshop. I take the taproot of marsh mallow plants (Althaea officinalis) and process it into a marshmallow confection. Similar in flavor to the marshmallow you buy from the store. You can find the process and recipe in volume 2 of my book series, Edible Wild Plants.

07/27/2024

Here is a video of a presentation I did for the Oregon Master Gardeners. It's 40 minutes of good solid wild food content. If you want a good introduction to wild food concepts and coverage of a few common plants, this will be of interest. It clearly shows what fascinates me about wild foods.

OSU Master Gardener 10-Minute University™ presentation on Edible Wild Plants with John Kallas, PhD. See more gardening videos at https://www.youtube.com/play...

07/06/2024

During the GingerRoot Wild Food Rendezvous, we collected about 10 pounds of native wild Oregon Bing cherries which we used for a variety of savory dishes and a sweet cherry pie. After that event, I picked about 8 pounds more to freeze and eat frozen. It's my favorite fruit. So delicious.
Commercial Bing cherries were developed from the wild, which are smaller by about 35%. Wild Bings are native to Oregon.

06/12/2024

Here is a video about a new trend of using big leaf maple from the Pacific Northwest to make a new kind of syrup.

Maple syrup traditionally comes from the northeast, but west coasters are changing that.

06/07/2024

Here's a free slide presentation and lecture I am giving on edible wild plants, Sunday at the Tigard Public Library, 3-5pm. I'll be rushing back from my coastal Seavegetable workshop, so I might smell like the beach. I'll be showing lots of beautiful slides of plants, their processing and finished dishes. There will also be a video showing what is possible for normal people. Great for adults and their kids. Come and enjoy the show.

05/21/2024

The Readiness Group Store in Camas Washington is sponsoring two workshops on wild foods and preparedness. Here is a poster of the events if you are interested. Register at https://thereadinessgroup.org Details and pricing are in the poster below.

Also, Wild Food Adventures has 2 Wild Food Rendezvous and 14 more workshops remaining for 2024, don’t forget to check them out at http://wildfoodadventures.com/

04/25/2024

Here is what Charla, Halina & I did years ago for the TV show Grant's Getaways. We gathered shellfish, seavegetables, and coastal wild foods for a feast we made for Grant's guests. You can watch both halves of the episode by visiting here. It is videos 2 and 3 on this page. https://wildfoodadventures.com/about/press-2/

04/15/2024

Change your whole understanding of wild foods. Come feast with us. Work hard, play hard, come out transformed. Learn how to use wild foods every day. These May and June events are coming up soon. See more information at our web site https://wildfoodadventures.com/
For a poster of the whole years workshops, go here:https://wildfoodadventures.com/.../wfa.../workshopposter.pdf

04/15/2024

Come have some fun learning about nature and what you can eat for the rest of your life. For more info or to register, go here: https://wildfoodadventures.com/
For a poster of the whole years workshops, go here:https://wildfoodadventures.com/.../wfa.../workshopposter.pdf

03/29/2024

Great books on wild foods cover plants in depth and give the users substance, facts, innovations, useful detail and purposeful (not just filler) photographs. Each great author shares hard earned knowledge gained through hard-fought experience, skill, and the wisdom that generates over time.
Crappy books are generated by novices who copy other people’s works, and by investment groups or individuals who use AI (Artificial intelligence) to write books for them. These crappy books are get-rich-quick schemes that cheat readers by getting them to pay for something of poor value when they could be paying the same price for something of great value. These books are like reading a 5th grade book report featuring generalities and mistakes that the AI has rephrased from previously written works.
Here is a quick guide I put together to being able to identify the current flood of AI generated crappy books on wild foods, so that you can avoid them.
Please share this guide far and wide so we can hinder the growth of these crappy books.

John Kallas, Wild Food Adventures
http://wildfoodadventures.com/
https://www.facebook.com/wildfoodadventures

03/23/2024

Spring plants are waking up. It's time to learn about them. Here are some of our first workshops of the year. Come into nature with us and have some fun leaning what you can eat for the rest of your life. For more info or to register, go here: https://wildfoodadventures.com/
For a poster of the whole years workshops, go here:https://wildfoodadventures.com/wp-content/wfa_docs/workshopposter.pdf

03/20/2024

More good stuff on the flavor of ants. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-flavors-edible-ants.html?fbclid=IwAR3u6lKK8JmeyR1FkObwF5rdB1f9ikaRrkNN2GmnV6QSQ6H5ZPnTVcX28fA

Insects are typically unwelcome visitors to a picnic, but they could be a flavorful, nutritious and sustainable addition to the menu. Eating insects is common in some parts of the world, and some species are even considered delicacies.

02/14/2024

Here is a letter from Sam Thayer about AI generated books to his legislature. I myself lost about $10,000 in book sales since they have flooded the Amazon marketplace. I'm sure Sam has faired worse since most of the fake books were titled "Foragers Harvest". But all legitimate wild food authors are now losing valuable income from these hucksters. Real authors invest blood sweat & tears, years of hard work to develop valuable resources for readers. Readers get gypped, authors lose sales, the hucksters get rich.

01/31/2024

Here is a Time magazine article that is mostly based on the author's interview with me.

Most seaweed is edible, if you know where to look.

12/14/2023

Pacific Northwest Wild Food Workshops for 2024. Go to https://wildfoodadventures.com for more information and/or to order gift certificates for the holidays. Make it a plan to attend with your loved ones. They all are fun and impactful learning experiences. Here is a gift certificate form:https://wildfoodadventures.com/wp-content/wfa_docs/giftcertificateform.pdf

12/14/2023

Pacific Northwest Wild Food Rendezvous for 2024. Go to https://wildfoodadventures.com for more information and/or to order gift certificates for the holidays. Make it a plan to attend with your loved ones. They are both great life adventures.

11/30/2023

The amazing PawPaw. Unlike any other native fruit. Almost like eating custard. Here is a news report on it.

The fruit of the pawpaw tree, part of the custard apple family, appears to be tropical, but it grows wild in more than 20 states and Canada, and was a favori...