vegoftheweek

“Wildman” Steve Brill is known as one of America’s Best Known Foragers. He gives park tours primarily in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, instructing people how to find edible plants, wild mushrooms, and weeds. His best known book, “The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook”, contains dozens of recipes from Sassafras Peanut Sauce to Mashed Potatoes with Daylily Shoots. A longtime vegetarian, who jokes that he still eats “chicken mushrooms” and “sheep sorrel,” he agreed to chat with me while tending to some mulberries he had collected earlier that morning.

On His Decision To Go Veg:
3 Reasons-health, environment, and humane. My mother died of cancer at the age of 57. I’m now 59. My father, his brother and sister all died of heart disease in their early 60s. And my cardiovascular system is in apparently good health. I swim a mile in 36 minutes, run around to all these parks with kids…keep very active. So I think the genetics (of me and my family) are the same. It has to be the lifestyle.

I don’t like the way the animals are treated-the cruelty is quite upsetting. And all of the waste-from what goes into the waterways to all of the large carbon footprint of being involved with the meat industry-is also quite objectionable.

What he’s eaten for the week:
At this point, it’s mulberries and juneberries-those are in season. I’m going to make some jam. I’m going to put some of the jam into a vegan ice cream. I’m going to make a Juneberry cobbler. I’m also making salads with all of the early summer greens.

Tofu or Tempeh:
Tofu. I just don’t really care for the flavor of tempeh. (It’s) one thing I just don’t have an affinity for making taste delicious. And I can make a hell of a lot of things taste delicious.

Bok Choy or Cabbage:
I prefer Bok Choy.

Morel Mushroom or Chanterelle Mushroom:
That’s a hard one. I guess the morel…I’m not good at finding morels and when I do, all the people in my group get them all.

Dandelion Fried Rice or Cattail Fried Rice (from “The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook”):
I think I prefer the Cattail Fried Rice. I love cattails. I love dandelions too, but cattails are something special.

On Being Stuck In A Food Monotony:
I guess in the cafeteria in college the first year when you’re forced to live in the dormitory. That was probably the worst.

What he wouldn’t mind eating over and over again:
Oysters Newburgh-made with Oyster mushrooms.

On The Dave Letterman Show And The Media In General:
Letterman was a real exception. A lot of media people are really nice-Regis Philbin loves cracking jokes, Al Roker is incredibly intelligent and was very into all the science relating to what I was showing him. There are lots of people that are into cooking. And Letterman was just plain unfriendly, obnoxious, and self-involved. His entire staff was the same way. (But) I had a good experience…I watched the show and I knew ahead of time, this was not going to be supportive situation. And I thought for a while and I came up with a plan. Learn about the plan to take care of Letterman and Wildman’s advice on how to find love after the break… The plan was to suggest to the producers, “Why don’t we have David chop up vegetables for a salad?” So that kept him very occupied. For every plant that I showed, he was busy chopping them up. For someone who’s never cooked anything in their life, chopping up plants without cutting off your finger sort of distracts you…He would not try a single thing that I had brought on the show. The only other person who did that was Giuliani’s wife. She was on a show on the Food Channel…But they (Giuliani wife and show guests)  weren’t unfriendly… But that’s just 1 out of 100s of shows…I had my jokes that got some laughs. And then he had an attractive woman (from the audience) try the salad, hoping to God that she would spit it out and embarrass me. And she loved it!

On ensuring people learn to pick safe, non-poisonous plants:
I warm them and educate them. And then I watch them too. I had a tour 5 years ago in Prospect Park. There’s a plant called Field Garlic. It is very delicious. There are poison things that look a little like it, but Field Garlic smells like onion and has cylindrical leaves. The poisonous plant that was around on that tour has no odor and flat leaves. It’s called Star-Of-Bethlehem because it has beautiful flowers in the springtime. And I specifically warned people about it and 2 minutes later, someone was putting it in their bag. The plant didn’t kill her, but I think she died of embarrassment.

And there was one other time where there was a group of Korean people who couldn’t speak English. It’s very difficult to teach the differences between edible and poisonous when they don’t know the words. When we started the tour, there were lots of mushrooms. But these were mushrooms that were as tasteless as my jokes. And I tried for a long, long time to explain to them these mushrooms weren’t poisonous, but they were not worth picking…So I finally went on to the next plant. I mentioned in addition to the plant that was growing there that we were going to pick, there’s another plant right next to it that’s poisonous. Looks totally different. When you cut it up, it has white milky sap. And people started to collect. And suddenly I saw half of the poisonous plant with the sap oozing out and I knew right away where the other half was. The Korean people who couldn’t understand my explanations had it in their bags. I searched their bags and found it and threw it out.

Those were the only 2 experiences in 26 years.

On Meeting His Wife, Leslie-Anne, On A Park Tour And Advice For Searching Singles:
Yes, it was a singles tour…I was actively looking. I had a girlfriend who ran off with another guy on Valentine’s Day. Not the most pleasant experience in my life. I tried to make it into something positive by spending a lot of time dating and a lot of time working on my “Wild Vegetarian Cookbook”, which people consider the best of its type. So I left no opportunity, no stone unturned to try to find someone compatible.

I had dates where women would come over to my home for dinner, eat up all the wild food dishes, the gourmet dishes that I made for them, then ask for doggie bags to take some home. And when I called them for another date, they wouldn’t answer the phone or return my calls. They were too busy pigging out on the food!

So, for the people who are single and looking, my message is do not give up. There could be someone who is perfect for you who is looking just as hard as you are- which was the case with my wife. We were both very active in finding someone compatible that we’d be happy with. No matter how many-it was literally 100s-of miserable dating experiences you may have to tolerate, think of the one that’s going to be the really good one and just let the bad ones roll off your back as much as you possibly can.

VOTW: So I guess you can say that there are a lot of “weeds” out there and you have to push through them to find the flowers?

WSB: I wouldn’t elevate the women I went out with to the status of weeds. I love weeds! Weeds are delicious! There’s a Juneberry among all of the Water Hemlock (a better phrase to describe finding love. Note: The Water Hemlock is one of the most toxic plants in the U.S.  Analogy well stated.)

Any Aphrodisiacs We Can Find On The Park Tours?:
Not per se. You can make very sensual recipes and get the psychological effect. And a little bit of Wild Mulberry wine never hurt the cause either.

What He Recommends From The Wild Menu:
All the places I go to are great…I would say the place that’s closest to where you live. And learn some of the easiest to recognize edible plants that have no poisonous lookalikes.

So we’ve learned there are lots of wild edible goodies to incorporate into a vegetarian diet. We’ve also learned that if you’re entertaining a date and want to impress him/her with your wild cooking skills, play hard to get and don’t give them any extras or they won’t call back for a second date. For more information on “Wildman” Steve Brill and his park tours, visit his website here.