Brendan Harris likely caught the foraging bug as a child watching his father dive off a sailboat into the Caribbean Sea and come up with fresh lobster, among other bounty.
“It’s become a life passion,” said Harris, who along with four friends will soon embark on a year-long sailing journey, foraging food with locals from Florida through the South Pacific to Australia.
The young men — all between the ages of 26 and 28 — formed a group called the Foragers Galley in Victoria a few years ago. The goal was to better understand the culture and origins of the food we eat before it’s in grocery-store plastic or on our plates.
They’ve spent a summer sailing around the B.C. coast, collecting and cooking prawns, octopus, oysters and clams, and sampling fresh fruit and vegetables, local meats and cheeses — and documenting it all on a blog. They also take groups collecting wild mushrooms in the forest and give presentations on foraging wild foods.
“Being on the West Coast, everyone has a fascination with the apocalypse and surviving in the wild,” Harris said. “Plus, most of us worked in restaurants and were curious when we saw people come in and sell tons of wild food to the chefs.”
The group boasts an interesting mix of skills. Harris works in logistics for a shipbuilding company — which will come in handy when the crew flies to Florida to bargain for a sailboat for the upcoming journey. Janusz Urban is a local chef, specializing in wild foods.
Greg Horne is a commercial fisherman and carpenter. “He does all the manly jobs,” Harris said.
The two Aussies on the crew, Jon Wright and Jackson Cairns, are web and electronics whizzes as well as outdoor adventurers.
They’ll leave from Florida in November on a route that takes them through Cuba, Mexico, Belize, the Panama Canal and island-hopping the Pacific Ocean to Australia.
“There’s a micro-garden culture in Cuba we want to explore, we’ll spear fish, check out the mahi-mahi, learn to catch conch shellfish in Belize,” said Harris, noting he’d like to explore Polynesian wild boar hunting, leaf-wrapped buried food, Caribbean wild almonds and seaside wild grapes, among other things.
“This is about the culture and story behind the food as well as protecting the local ecosystems to harvest them.”
The Foragers Galley will blog and video-document their adventures. A production company is interested in a documentary on the group. Harris said they also hope to create regional-style cookbooks along the way.
Before they leave, the Foragers Galley is holding an outdoor farewell fundraising feast Saturday evening at Mount Work, featuring spot prawns, scallops, sockeye salmon, fresh-smoked chinook (caught by the foragers), a raw kushi oyster bar, barbecued oysters, a pig roast and an array of local veggies, fruits, canapés and beverages. Tickets are $30, available at foragersgalley.com
