Clockwise from top left: Chef Todd Knoll harvests buds and needles from a Jordan Estate pine tree; a meadow of red clover near Jordan’s lower lake provides provisions for a dinner party tea course; miner’s lettuce grows wild on the hill behind the winery’s solar panels.
Knowing the harvest
Foraging know-how extends beyond the identification of those particular plants. Foragers must develop a deep knowledge of their hunting grounds. With so much land to explore across Jordan Estate, Knoll reached out to East Bay foraging expert, naturalist and writer, Kevin Feinstein. He was able to help Knoll identify not only around 20 new edibles on the property, but also medicinal flora, and suggested the ways to best harvest these delicacies. Since then, Knoll has continued with his studies on his own, relying heavily on the work by master forager and chef Hank Shaw, author of Hunt, Gather, Cook.
“One of the interesting things about foraging is that unless you know precisely what to do with something, you have to experiment to a certain extent,” Knoll says. “You learn how to taste things just in the front of your mouth and spit them out. With many foraged items, something might be edible, but it can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive task to make them attractive for the modern plate.”
Besides knowing which wild plants are good to eat, chefs need to know what to avoid at all costs.
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Take camas, for example. In a meadow near Jordan’s petit verdot vineyard where dozens of beehives are kept during winter (see story on page 30), blue camas can be found. These tubers from the lily family served as a staple for many Native American tribes, from the Pacific Coast to the Rockies. Prized for their sweet flavor once cooked, these beautiful natives closely resemble the white death cama, which is highly toxic. To avoid these types of problems, he only harvests plants he knows are safe.
“You have to arm yourself with knowledge. I never forage without my field guides, many of which I can now keep on my phone. I have found the edible blue cama growing right beside a deadly white cama, so you have to be careful and diligent.” Expert foragers will nibble for telltale signs of toxins, bitterness for example, but Knoll only collects the easiest to identify. “There is simply no reason to gamble and a misidentification can be the difference between life and death.”
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