Sights and sounds from the 2010 Wild Food Summit. Over 100 people attended and survived the thunderstorms and the high winds to learn about, gather and share wild foods.

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Sumac in all its beauty!

We have some exciting presenters and cooks lined up. Steve Dahlberg will again be joining us with his unique skills and insight into a variety of wild edibles. He will also be sharing some procedures as well as product from his food fermenting techniques as well as open fire baking. Fermenting and eating wild edibles should be a memorable experience for all. Tom Peterson will again make the trip all the way from Southern Minnesota to share with us his many years of knowledge about mushroom foraying. Tom joined the Wild Food Summit for the first time last year and introduced us to the Fungi world. He will be back with more information on this fabulous source of wild foods. Because of Tom’s contributions, we consumed 73 pounds of mushrooms at last years Summit. Randy Smuk also joined us also in the 2009 summit and proved he is a true master of wild food menu planning as well as absolutely delightful wild foods cuisine. Randy will be back this year to tickle your taste buds with his culinary skills and wild food cuisine. Mike Krebill has just completed 20 years of research with his 7th grade students on the best way to make consistently good sumac lemonade. They have came up with two different ways and Mike would be happy to demonstrate them. He will bring the sumac and other items needed to produce the lemonade. As an added bonus, Mike will also demonstrate a couple of techniques for rendering acorns edible.

Laura Reeves is a botanist from Gardenton, Manitoba.  She runs Laura’s “You can eat that?!” Wild Edible Adventures“, which offer a hands-on introduction to incorporating wild edibles into everyday meals.  She is also a co-instructor of Wilderness Skills courses in southwestern Manitoba.  Over the years, Laura has weaned herself off of grocery store produce and now relies solely on the fruits and vegetables that she has gathered or grown, herself. This year, she will focus her talents on showing people how to “break through the wall of green” when identifying wild edibles. It is a unique instructional style that is varies from traditional individual plant identification. She will also provide a cordage workshop with materials gathered from the local environment

The 2010 Wild Food Summit is set for June 16-19, 2010.

Structured as a 4-day camping event, the Summit offers something for all wild food enthusiasts. Beginners to advanced practitioners alike will enjoy learning about wild foods, meeting new people, and having fun. Participants will gain hands on experience gathering, preparing and cooking wild food.

Robert Shimek

Robert Shimek is this year’s Summit Coordinator. Bob continues Stephanie Williams’ work in bringing people together for this annual event. He is a native of the White Earth Indian Reservation and has spent most of his life in the northern Minnesota area. Bob can be reached at 218-407-0698 or email at: rjshimek@hotmail.com.

The month of June in Northern Minnesota can present a number of outdoor living challenges including hot, cold, and wet weather, mosquitoes and ticks. Please come prepared. Past Wild Food Summits have been extremely successful because camp participants assisted with all aspects of camp cooking and maintenance. Please bring all camping gear and note that no showers are available so bring your bathing suits!

Due to construction at the White Earth Rediscovery Center, the Summit has been moved to a new, temporary location south of the White Earth Reservation. The address is 17777 County Hwy 31, Frazee, MN. We will be camping near, and bathing in, Little Toad Lake in Becker County east of Detroit Lakes.

Beginners may wish to do some reading and research prior to the summit. Some of these recommended books may be quite expensive but check your local library and other sources for this information.

• Peterson Field guide to edible wild plants; Eastern and Central North America By Lee Allen Peterson

• Mushrooms Demystified By David Arora
Read the first 50 pages and then read it again.

• Botany in a Day, By Thomas J. Elpel,

• Nature’s Garden By Samuel Thayer

• The Foragers Harvest By Samuel Thayer

• Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, By Lawrence Newcomb

Download the 2010 Wild Food Summit registration form here:

Article from Community of a Plate

Wild Food Summit 2009

by Meredith Hart and Emily Larson

It is hard to get more local than finding your own food in the forest next to your campsite. Of course, it helps to have experts explain which plants are edible and nutritious, and which ones should be avoided like the plague. From cattails to wild mushrooms, and from plantains to wild sumac, there is a plethora of food in the natural world that we see daily but never view as food. The idea of bringing the wild into our lives was the theme of the fourth annual Wild Food Summit at the White Earth Rediscovery Center on White Earth Lake, White Earth, MN that occurred from June 17th to 20th. The White Earth Tribal and Community College Extension Service founded and hosted this event, and it grows and changes with each passing year.

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(via www.wildfoodplants.com)

Another great year at the Wild Food Summit on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. This was our 4th Annual gathering and this year we had a spontaneous music recording with all the awesome musical talent attending. Listen to the Wild Food Summit song as you watch the video!