This sage bundle was ethically sourced. The ones for sale in fancy stores? Maybe not so much. | Photo: Department of Defense
Beneath a canopy of drought-stressed oaks, Christopher Nyerges squats over a tender, lime-green plant called chickweed. I'm not uprooting it, he says as he cuts the weed with a utility knife, so it will continue to grow.
It's a hot, windy Thursday in October. Nyerges is leading his Lunchtime Wild Food Cooking class in Pasadena's Hahamongna Watershed Park. The class is one of several Nyerges teaches on gathering and using wild plants, often called foraging.
The class hikes around in search of ingredients. Nyerges gathers seed from a native buckwheat bush, scattering some to encourage new growth.
As interest in native plants and local food blossoms in California, foraging has become trendy. Many nonprofits offer classes and YouTube is awash in how-to videos. So now a debate is brewing: Does foraging connect people with nature or encourage them to pillage it?
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For Nyerges, foraging's not a fad. His extensive knowledge of botany is based on decades of research, stemming from his fascination with this ancient knowledge all around us, hidden in plain view, that fewer and fewer know.
Nyerges says Pasadena park employees haven't discouraged him - rather, they've urged him to yank out the weeds. The overwhelming majority of the foraged stuff in North America are European natives, he points out. He also thinks careful foraging propagates native plants.
The hike ends at a picnic area. A Nuttall's woodpecker scoots up an oak; a ground squirrel forages in the leaf litter.
Christopher Nyerges with nopal pad | Photo: Ilsa Setziol
Nyerges dices and saut s two pads of prickly-pear cactus. Scrambled with eggs, it tastes a bit like green pepper. The class also whips up a soup of stinging nettle, lamb's quarters and miso. The students are avid hikers, mostly interested in snacking on the trail.
The trend isn't just weeds and campfire fare. Foragers also harvest the berries, seeds and leaves of native plants, and professional chefs, perfume-makers and others are profiting from wild plants.
So far, land managers aren't reporting serious damage. We haven't seen a lot of evidence that things have been denuded or cleaned out, says John Tiszler, a plant ecologist with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
Professional chefs, perfume-makers and others are profiting from wild plants.
Still, Southern California's large population can easily magnify an ecological problem. If even a small fraction decide to jump on this new foraging bandwagon, we will start to have some real impacts, says Katy VinZant, a botanist with the Angeles National Forest.
Nyerges advises students to harvest in areas where plants are abundant and obey laws. I think they're making up a problem that doesn't exist, he says of people who are concerned. I find foragers to be very responsible.
Whether everyone is responsible is an open question. Permits are required for gathering in national forests. VinZant says nobody has applied for one for the Angeles National Forest in at least two years, despite reports of people removing hundreds of pounds of acorns and forest products turning up in L.A. restaurants. (Fines for unpermitted harvesting run $250-$5,000.)
In national parks foraging is illegal, aside from eating a handful of berries or mushrooms on-site. With a couple exceptions, California state parks also prohibit gathering.
Matthew Biancaniello is an innovative cocktail chef and rising star in the culinary world. It didn't occur to him that he was doing any harm - or anything wrong - by gathering small amounts of walnuts, toyon berries, elderberries and wild currants on parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains. Where the birds are going to eat them or they're going to fall on the ground, he says, The only things I cut a little bit would be wild bay leaf and some of the sage.
Hikers encounter white sage and prickly pear, two commonly foraged plants, in the San Gabriels | Photo: Bri Weldon, some rights reserved
I don't think people are just openly defying the rules, says Tiszler, It just hasn't occurred to them that these stringent rules apply. The prohibition on collecting is posted at some, but not all, of the many trails in the Santa Monica Mountains.
What gives these people the right to take our culture and destroy our plants so they can make a few bucks? - Nick Hummingbird
Biancaniello thinks his creations help people appreciate local landscapes. For one of his signature drinks, he soaks cherry-flavored, dried toyon berries (Heteromeles arbutifolia) in pisco, a Peruvian brandy. He also infuses tequila with white sage. The things in the wild - the aromatics of those things - [make] the Farmer's Market look like Ralph's, he says.
White sage is a particular concern, in part because so much is sold on eBay. The plant is sacred to Native peoples who use it in ceremonies. New-Agers and others buy bundles and burn it. That angers Nicholas Hummingbird, a 27-year-old of Cahuilla descent: What gives these people the right to take our culture and destroy our plants so they can make a few bucks?
Drought, invasive weeds, and air pollution are more serious problems than your typical forager. So are succulent collectors and people who cut truckloads of manzanita branches for craft projects and floral arrangements. But VinZant says it's a death by a thousands cuts situation. And even fallen fruit is important ecologically: Seeds are not only very important food for wildlife, she says, but they are the next generation of plants. If seeds are over-collected it can event
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This sage bundle was ethically sourced. The ones for sale in fancy stores? Maybe not so much. | Photo: Department of Defense 
