Events We Love: Foraging With One of The Top Chefs in the World

René Redzepi is known around the world for his Copenhagen restaurant noma and its distinct foraged cuisine, which have earned him the accolades of top critics and other culinary icons alike.

Outside of his award-winning cuisine, the Danish chef founded VILD MAD (translated from Danish as “wild food”), an initiative aimed at teaching the public more about sustainable, wild food and encouraging the exploration of foraging.

Earlier this summer, VILD MAD released its long-awaited app, which is described as a “tool for decoding the landscape and all its culinary potential.” Redzepi is particularly interested in childhood exposure to foraging; he created his own foraging curriculum that is set to be implemented by park rangers in Denmark. Other resources for curious minds can be found online, where Redzepi has gathered talks and articles from the culinary world’s top minds, each of whom reflects with their own perspective on the importance of food. (For example, Thomas Keller examines the question “What is cooking?” or Zimbabwean activist Chido Govera considers how sustainable mushroom farming has changed the lives of women and orphans.)

In a further attempt to bring foraging to wider audiences, this August VILD MAD is hosting the VILD MAD Festival in a nature reserve outside Copenhagen. Strategically scheduled, the festival takes place at the height of the season for berries, mushrooms, and late summer herbs, making for an abundant, end-of-season harvest. Rangers and chefs will be on hand to answer questions and offer instruction, and guests are encouraged to forage around the lake and cook with what they collect.

The event is completely free and open to anyone who turns up.

To learn more, visit the event page at VILD MAD’s website.