TOTALLY WILD UK: EXPERT INTERVIEW

Sep 21, 2022
Expert Interviews , Foraging

Connor Howling

Foraging is the perfect way to unleash your survival instincts and to realise how much of the outdoor world you can really utilise to make scrumptious meals! Totally Wild UK provide unique culinary courses on how to forage wild ingredients to then cook with, and we've asked them a few questions to gain a further insight!

Where did the name Totally Wild UK originate from and were there any other names you were contemplating?

The name Totally Wild was first thought of as we wanted to be able to help people find their ‘totally wild’ side. At the time we were also thinking about using The Forager's Kitchen, however we saved that one for a time if we ever began to produce or release foraged and wild preserves.

From your perspective, what was the inspiration behind wanting to provide customers with the opportunity to cook authentic food from the wild and learn how to forage?

There's an utter delight when we discover that decent, edible and healthy food is actually growing all around us, and it doesn’t take any work or effort to grow; the only thing we have to learn is how to safely identify it and build up our confidence to pick it. Being able to see that delight on our customer's faces and to help them begin their journey into wild food is what makes our work so rewarding. On top of that to learn that these ingredients aren’t like medicine that you take to get better but don’t really taste great, these wild ingredients can also taste amazing, hold a range of health benefits and are typically jam packed with vitamins and minerals, using them is a real no brainer.

When comparing to your competitors, what makes your brand so unique?

We’re the only team of foragers to hold a L3 Wild Food & Foraging Accreditation, along with that we’re the only company to actively employ our foragers. Most other companies pay freelancers to run events on an ad hoc basis, whereas our foragers are the core element of our company, they even get pension contributions - for foraging, how amazing. As part of that we all sing from the same book, we all believe in the companies ethos and values and work hard together to bring that vision to life. From our events side the unique thing about what we do is tasters, tasters, more tasters and great food. I feel it’s really important for us to provide guests with as many different types of tasters and cooking ideas during our walks. If we stop by an elder tree we’ll give you a try of some elderflower cordial, elderflower Gin, elderberry port, elderberry balsamic and elderberry salt. If it sounds like a lot of different things, it is and this is just one tree we would find. The idea behind this is that we want to give our customers as many different ideas for utilising and cooking with these wild ingredients, we’re here to inspire the use of these ingredients and make it much more realistic within their homes.

Hosting your courses must be so fun, what’s the best part?

The best part of our courses is getting to meet so many like-minded people on a daily basis. It’s an absolute pleasure to spend the day foraging when you're surrounded by genuinely nice people. Being able to explore so many different wild spaces is a brilliant way for us to find a vast range of different edible wild species too, from flowers that taste like pineapple to seaweeds that taste like beef jerky.

What is your vision for the future of Totally Wild UK?

We’re looking to bring more tasters and ways to have customers engage with and learn about the wild foods we find during our walk. We’re also looking to develop a slightly broader range of events so customers can have a hands on experience of making a bigger variety of ways they can work with, preserve and enjoy their wild bounty.

What can a customer expect from a typical experience?

At the base of it, a customer can expect to discover a whole larder of wild ingredients that are sat all around us, and then quickly and easily come to grips with learning in theory and practically how to utilise that food within their everyday lives.

In more detail, we introduce the group to the law of foraging and best practices. This includes heading off for our foraging walk to discover edible plants, fungi, seaweeds, flowers and roots growing all around us. Next, we look into the edible and medicinal uses of each and search for recipe ideas. We research practical bush craft uses, pick some ingredients for our lunch and to take home, taste a vast range of pre-made tasters, and sort through our wild ingredients.

As a group, we then cook up a delightful 4 course wild food dinner to celebrate our harvest. After the event we send out a list of everything we found together on the day, along with all the recipes we cooked, to help our guests continue learning.