An Underground Market for Home Chefs and Growers


More time is going into The Wild Kitchen dinners, says Rabins, who also leads Wild Food Walks in and around San Francisco several times a month for $30 per person.


But perhaps Rabins's biggest success so far is the SF Underground Market, a venue for area locals to buy food grown and cooked by ordinary citizens. "There are a lot of people who have been making things like jams for years and years, but can't get into a regular farmers market," he says.


The first market day held earlier this year drew just eight vendors and 200 customers, he says. But word spread quickly. By the time the last one was held in April, the event attracted some 70 vendors and 2,000 customers. Labeled a "food rave" because of its warehouse setting, the shoppers could purchase Hawaiian baked goods, salumi, Jewish deli fare and jams from locally foraged fruits, to name a few items. "It was pretty epic," Rabins says.


Chef Dontaye Ball, who peddles his specialty pulled pork at the market, credits Rabins for turning a city already obsessed with chasing the latest culinary trends onto wild edibles. "He's definitely educating people about the fact that 'Oh, there's wild fennel or dandelion greens in my backyard and they're edible," says Ball, who has worked in some of San Francisco's hottest restaurants and runs Good Foods Catering.


The Debate Over Foraging: Safety Versus Taste


Not everyone is gaga over foraged foods. Officials with the San Francisco Department of Public Health warn that eating foods found in the wild can be risky. Some mushrooms are toxic, says Richard Lee, director of the department's Environmental Health Regulatory Program. And then there is the issue of pesticides. "No one knows how much pesticide has been applied to certain spots," he says.


Rabins insists he goes to great lengths to assure his wild foods are safe. "We're really careful about the places where we harvest and about thinking what has gone on in the areas before and what industry may be located nearby," he says. What's more, he says he steers clear of species of mushrooms for which poisonous ones can resemble the edible ones.


Safety concerns like the ones Lee mentions don't easily deter urban foragers. Even while working full-time as a professor of nonfiction and journalism at the College of Staten Island- CUNY, Chin manages to spend two to three hours a week foraging, no matter the season. Last winter, she tapped her first maple tree -- one growing in a neighbor's yard. She boiled


Page 23 of 155


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134  |  Page 135  |  Page 136  |  Page 137  |  Page 138  |  Page 139  |  Page 140  |  Page 141  |  Page 142  |  Page 143  |  Page 144  |  Page 145  |  Page 146  |  Page 147  |  Page 148  |  Page 149  |  Page 150  |  Page 151  |  Page 152  |  Page 153