Foraged finds at local restaurants and farmers market.
Bacchanalia
The fine dining restaurant’s contemporary American menu is seasonal and often incorporates foraged fruits and more from Farm and Forage Atlanta when available. “As is the nature of foraging, the supply is never guaranteed,” says Chef Anne Quatrano. Menu items highlighting these local delights have included a gastrique with wild serviceberry syrup and a wild plum buttermilk panna cotta with popped sorghum dessert (above).
Redbird
Chef Zeb Stevenson gets excited when foragers bring him their goods, and then he gets creative. “Because seasons are so short on wild foods, I like to preserve as much as I can for later use,” Stevenson says. The most notable example features locally foraged bamboo shoots that the chefs pickle in beer, garlic, mustard and apple cider vinegar, and serve with grilled peaches, cucumber, mint and coriander dressing. “The bamboo is only available for about two weeks in late April, so my forager and I stay in very close contact around that time,” he says. Another dish you might find on the menu includes morel mushrooms on a split biscuit with shallots, brandy and tarragon.
Dunwoody Farmers Market
When available, Ecosystem Farm brings foraged items such as mulberries, plums, figs, apples and pomegranates to its booth at the market. “We mainly forage off trees around the city as various fruits come into season and occasionally include foraged chanterelles or morels,” says Kirsten Simmons, market manager at Dunwoody Farmers Market and owner of Ecosystem Farm, who forages in public parks and private properties where she has permission to pick. For those interested in doing the same, she recommends nonprofit Concrete Jungle’s food map, concrete-jungle.org/food-map, that notes fruit trees around the city available for picking.
