HTLA Episode 42: Foraging for Wild-Food Tacos in Los Angeles

Jess Starwood  00:00

[sound of leaves crunching underfoot] We're in the Santa Monica Mountains right now in uh, one of my secret spots.

Brian De Los Santos  00:05

[music in] This is Jess.

Jess Starwood  00:08

Jess Starwood. We're gonna see if our recent rains prompted anything to pop up.

Brian De Los Santos  00:15

Jess is a professional forger here in Los Angeles.

Jess Starwood  00:18

Mushroom hunters are extremely protective of their spots. You get to know how well you stand with your friends by how many spots they share with you.

Brian De Los Santos  00:26

She's taking us deep into the Santa Monica Mountains to some of her secret spots.

Brian De Los Santos  00:30

Oh, what is this?

Jess Starwood  00:32

Those are nightshade berries, and they're- they are edible.

Brian De Los Santos  00:36

[sound of water flowing] Wow, that tastes so good! [Jess: Good!]

Brian De Los Santos  00:38

You might be surprised by how much of our native environment is edible.

Jess Starwood  00:42

People don't think of Southern California as a place of abundant wild food. You know, it's dry. It's a desert. We haven't had rain in nine months.

Brian De Los Santos  00:51

But if you're like Jess, and you know where to look, there's something nutritious to eat around every corner.

Jess Starwood  00:56

Prickly pear, oak trees, all the different sages, elderberry... [duck under]

Brian De Los Santos  01:00

I'm Brian De Los Santos, and this is How To LA. Today we're going foraging.

Brian De Los Santos  01:00

Ow, ow, ow! Am I gonna bleed? [Jess: No.] Oh, it's just the stinging. That's it.

Brian De Los Santos  01:10

And... Jess is gonna cook us up something special with what we find.

Jess Starwood  01:14

Forest to table. Forest to fork. [Brian: ( ) taco?] Yeah, somethin' like that.

Brian De Los Santos  01:21

Alrighty, y'all. Quick disclaimer. Some of the things we're eating today [music out] have deadly lookalikes. Jess is an expert. Don't go eating wild food unless you know exactly what you're doing.

Brian De Los Santos  01:34

[sound of footsteps] We're on a trail. It's green, luscious... Mountains everywhere. Some dry grass around us. But we're about to hike for some food.

Jess Starwood  01:43

Right now we're walking past all this wild mustard that looks dead, looks like a bunch of sticks. But you know, the whole plant is edible, at some point during its life.

Brian De Los Santos  01:54

[ ] had a track record that he schedules outings that have inclines or hikes [Jess laughs] after my leg days. And I'm over here on this incline that's like really hitting us right here.

Brian De Los Santos  02:10

[music in] We're not gonna tell you exactly where we're hiking and gathering today. And it's not just so Jess can save it all for herself. In the foraging community, sustainability is the name of the game.

Jess Starwood  02:20

Yeah, you know, anytime we're taking something from the environment, we're having an impact. Little different than going to the store. Can't just take whatever you want. The animals and other creatures depend on all of, all of these foods as well. It's not just us.

Brian De Los Santos  02:35

The practice of gathering and eating wild foods has been a part of life in this area for thousands of years. Today, Jess is looking for ingredients to make us some very special wild-food tacos. [water ambi] Acorns to make the tortilla flour, [music out] mushrooms for the filling...

Jess Starwood  02:51

...a little path through here. Uh... Yeah, it's changed a bit since I was here last.

Brian De Los Santos  02:56

Jess is taking us to a few places along this creek. It's wet. The rocks are everywhere. You don't really know where you're gonna step. [Jess: Ahh!] But Jess says that there might be oyster mushrooms growing on these willow trees.

Jess Starwood  03:09

Oyster mushrooms are gonna be maybe 10 days or so after a good heavy rain. We should be just about in that window right now. Fingers crossed, but never any promises. [footsteps]

Brian De Los Santos  03:24

Can we talk about just foraging for a second? On the drive here, I was telling my friend about coming to record this. My friend was like Yeah, remember when I went to your house, and I got those lemons? And I'm like, Oh yeah, I never used that. [laughs] And she's like, Yeah, and I also have my maps where like, I have trees where, you know, um, avocados or oranges or whatever spill over and I'm able to grab those things. And I remember when I was a kid in the apartment building we had, there was a fig tree. And every so often my mom's like go run outside and go eat some figs. Like, leave me alone, you know? And I'm like, Okay, I didn't, I didn't know that that was a form of foraging.

Jess Starwood  03:58

Yeah, you know, foraging, at least for me, it's more of a mindset. There's a lot of bad connotations on foraging as, you know, you're just pillaging the land and whatever you can find, but it's actually more a mindset of putting to use what is available, especially with urban foraging. You know, I find it so silly that in Southern California, we buy lemons and citrus at the store when everybody seems to have some sort of citrus in their neighborhood already growing. It's just this different mindset of you know, food comes from the store instead of the actual land around us. [water ambi] This is mug wort. More medicinal than edible, extremely bitter. Was actually used for beer back in the day before they used hops.

Brian De Los Santos  04:52

Jess is filled with all kinds of facts and tidbits like this.

Jess Starwood  04:55

That's a whole bunch of watercress right there and nettle as well. Those are all edible plants.

Brian De Los Santos  05:01

I've actually been hiking in this area before, but I didn't really realize there were edible things growing for free. Like right here on the ground.

Jess Starwood  05:09

Yeah, but there's nothing ever free in life right? You know, we had to walk here. We had to- the effort it takes to find and process, and time and energy we're expending to collect it. Which is uh, more valuable? Your money or your time?

Brian De Los Santos  05:27

Okay! Y- you're giving me a morning ritual here to like think about my- and reflect on this. I love it.

Jess Starwood  05:33

[sounds of footsteps on trail] We're gettin' deep in the woods now. Down into oyster mushroom habitat. Now's the time to start looking. The ones we're looking for are gonna be white or gray colored.

Brian De Los Santos  05:46

[water ambi] There's so much growing in this riverbed, especially for LA. It's so green. But so far, no mushrooms.

Jess Starwood  05:55

Yeah, like this tree I know there used to always be one here. All right. So this is mushroom hunting in Southern California. [laughs]

Brian De Los Santos  06:06

I love it. It’s not always perfect.

Jess Starwood  06:07

No, it's not.

Brian De Los Santos  06:08

Sorry, y'all. We tried. But don't worry, Jess has a plan B.

Jess Starwood  06:13

Always good to have a backup plan 'cause [birds cawing in background] you know, it's not like going to the store expecting your favorite brand to be on the shelf. Uh, it's more like working with what you've got. So today there was no fresh mushrooms to collect. Backup plan is we're gonna have some nettle with our acorn tortillas.

Brian De Los Santos  06:35

Jess has taken us all the way to the other side of this big mountain down into a gully where there's some nettle growing in a stream. [Jess: I do think this trail links up...] That's stinging nettle, by the way.

Jess Starwood  06:46

There aren't too many spines on the edges of the leaves. So I'm gonna grab them like this... [duck under]

Brian De Los Santos  06:51

Jess is playing it cool. But let me tell you. That shit hurts!

Jess Starwood  06:55

Basically, they inject [Brian: Oh!] formic acid into your skin, the same chemical that ants use when they bite you. [Brian: Oh!] It will sting for a couple days.

Brian De Los Santos  07:05

Okay, last thing we need is some acorns. We're not gonna be eating the ones we gather here today. They need a lot of processing before they're ready to eat. But we want to help Jess gather her next batch since she's gonna hook us up with some grub later.

Jess Starwood  07:19

This time of year I can't pass up good acorns when I see them. Uh, these are nice big ones, so...

Brian De Los Santos  07:26

We're in this like squirrel mode, trying to get the biggest ones so we could get the best bang for our buck.

Jess Starwood  07:31

They're everywhere. Just watch out for poison oak. [Brian: Oh.] I tested probably 'bout 10 different species of acorns in Southern California. I would say the clear winner was the California Black Oak.

Brian De Los Santos  07:46

How bitter are they? I mean, I'm not gonna bite into it right now, but like, how bad are they?

Jess Starwood  07:49

They're good! You could try it right now if you want. You want to try one? [Brian: Okay.] There you go. [Brian: Okay.] Give that a taste. Just a little bit.

Brian De Los Santos  07:57

It's not that bad. It's not that bad. I've had like, you know, those almonds that have been in storage forever, and they have that tangy taste. [Jess: Mmm hmm.] This is almost similar but a little bit more [dogs barking in background] tangier.

Brian De Los Santos  08:08

Jess says that I could only have one small bite though, because there's some toxic chemicals in there that need to be leached out.

Brian De Los Santos  08:15

[water ambi] Can you give me a story and like, how'd you get into all this?

Jess Starwood  08:20

My first time I found an oyster mushroom and knew for certain what it was, I knew that if I ate it, I wasn't gonna die. I remember going to bed that night thinking that could be it. That could be the end. [laughs] But here I am many, many, many mushrooms later. It's- I feel like it's been a lifelong process. As a kid I loved nature, fascinated with plants and animals. I was outside as much as I possibly could be. Kinda got sidetracked for a while. Had to you know, go to school and get a real job. But after my first daughter was born, I was pulled back to nature through wanting to eat cleaner, wanting to keep diving deeper into where my food was coming from. Chefs started to find out about me and wanted to collaborate and work together. Foraging for chefs was hard work, every single week out and about trying as hard as I could to collect the amounts that they wanted, while also balancing the sustainability aspect, and like I don't want to, you know, have a bad impact on these places. It was cool. I got to work with some really high-end chefs that I absolutely respect, but it was- started eating my conscience quite a bit. Like, it's not sustainable to feed massive amounts of people who aren't doing the work themselves.

Brian De Los Santos  09:50

After the pandemic, Jess decided to stop selling forest goodies to restaurants. Instead, she started teaching.

Jess Starwood  09:57

That's where change happens. You know, helping people understand where food comes from, seeing value in what's around us. There's kind of this aha moment of like, Whoa, I just saw where that grows and I saw how to collect it and how, how to prepare it and we're eating it and it's all comes full circle. You know, forager's mindset. The abundance is everywhere. [sounds of utensils and cooking equipment] [outdoor ambi] This is the acorn tortilla. I'm going to cook up the nettle first.

Brian De Los Santos  10:31

Oh, fuck. [Jess laughs] Oh, I feel it now.

Jess Starwood  10:35

Now you're [Brian: Ohhh!] feeling it. [Brian: Yeah.] Now you're feeling it. [Brian: Now I'm feeling it.]

Brian De Los Santos  10:38

Ai! Damn! And this is what you do when you cook this, girl?

Jess Starwood  10:43

Uh, you can use gloves if you want but don't have gloves at the moment, so...

Brian De Los Santos  10:47

Am I gonna bleed? [Jess: No.] Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow.

Brian De Los Santos  10:48

Don't worry though. They don't sting once they're ready to eat.

Brian De Los Santos  10:57

Mmm! This pretty good! I was expecting it to be like, not soft. [Jess: Mmm.] But it's melty. The nettle, it- I mean it tastes like a green but not like a weird, like what it looks like on the, in the wild. You know?

Brian De Los Santos  11:10

[theme music in] This is my first time getting gathered food in the wild and then coming back and having a meal. I have not eaten from a Oak tree before and I definitely have not had a- Como si ama? A acorn tortilla. [laughs] That's delicious by the way. You know, it was, it was funny because I was telling my friend- I'm like, Oh, we're gonna go find food. It sounds kind of like, you know, out there, right? And then my friend's like No, I forage my food, Brian. You seen me do it. And I'm like, Oh, yeah! I just connect the pieces, right? Connect the dots. And it's, it's- I think it's a beautiful way to connect with nature, but it's also beautiful way to understand a little bit more of yourself like just understanding that the acid from this plant- it stings a little but in the end, you have a nutritious meal, right? So it's like, not being afraid to dare and live a little and do something different.

Brian De Los Santos  12:01

Alright, y'all. That's it for today. The park ranger's coming along, so we gotta pack up all this food and bounce. I'll catch you all later.

Brian De Los Santos  12:13

How To LA is produced by Evan Jacoby, Megan Botel and Victoria Alejandro. Aaricka Washington writes our newsletter. Chris Farias is our social media producer. Our intern is Olive Bieni. Our engineer is Hasmik Poghosyan. Megan Larson is our executive producer. And I'm your host, Brian De Los Santos. If you liked this episode, and want to hear more, leave us a review. And don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already. It's free, and it helps our new listeners discover the show. See y'all next week. Support for this podcast is made possible by Gordon and Dona Crawford, who believe that quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. [music out]