We have reached our capacity and registration is now closed for the 2013 Summit. If you have any questions call or email:
Tammy Bellanger
Extension Coordinator
218–935–0417 Extension 213
tbellanger@wetcc.edu

First, we will say it again but registrations are filling fast and remember you can always call Tammy (218-935 0417 Ext 213) or Becca (218-935-0417 ext 314). The Registration form is posted under the registration tab at top!

Here are a few of the presentations offered at this year’s WFS shindig 2013. Friday and Saturday are the main days of hands-on learning with Thursday being a camp set- up day and a dinner where everyone brings a dish to share for our evening potluck. Think wild food! Our finalized schedule is still in the works but usually is emailed as well as mailed out to registered participants in April.

Instuctor Mike Krebill is doing an intro to foraging called Beginners Luck and for those who have been foraging for years there is Try Something New. He will also lead a session in Filleting Fish (aka Unzip the Fish) and also by popular demand a session in Wild Trail Bites. Laura Reeves will share her experience making Kombucha in all its wild and a full look at Burdock uses, harvesting, preparing and cooking advice. This year, Sam
Thayer, foragersharvest.com, will be presenting on Making Hazelnut Milk and also on Wetland Edibles.

Check out presentation descriptions or go to the tab on presenters history to read the bios.

Beginner’s Luck with Mike Krebill
New to foraging? You’re in luck! The best way to learn what plants can be eaten is to see them up close and personal, to have them pointed out where they grow by a knowledgeable person. That’s the focus of this session. Besides discovering where to find specific plants, you’ll become aware of their distinguishing characteristics so that you can be absolutely sure you are collecting the right plant. Timing the harvest and knowing how to prepare the food for eating are must-knows, as well. We will look at references and resources for learning more about this fascinating hobby.

Try Something New with Mike Krebill
Have you been foraging for years? Let’s kick it up a notch! This is a sharing session where we learn from each other as well as from our instructor. One of the attractions in foraging is to boldly go where we have never gone before, to experience untasted plants, to experiment with new recipes, and come up with novel harvesting and preparation techniques. Do you have something out of the ordinary that you could bring to tantalize us? Would you like us to provide feedback on a recipe you’ve created? A benefit of the Wild Food Summit is that we have an opportunity to learn from others what works well for them, so this is a prime time to ask questions as well as provide insights. Demonstrations of equipment and processing methods are invited. In the past decade, many resources have sprung up for those of us who can connect to the Internet: websites, YouTube videos, blogs, Facebook groups, and apps for tablets and smartphones. Your instructor will provide an annotated list of what he judges to be worth looking at. Let’s pool our collective savvy and plan on sharing it with one another.

Wild Food Trail Bites with Mike Krebill
Back by popular demand! Last year, the children washed their hands and mixed up a batch of these delightful no-cook energy nuggets for us. To a base of peanut butter, dry milk powder, and wildflower honey, five to seven wild ingredients were added, including black walnuts that adults cracked and shelled out. The recipe took first place in the wild food contest at the National Wild Foods Association meeting in West Virginia in 2011. Participants will get a copy of the recipe plus wild food trail bites to share with family & friends. Contributions of dried wild fruit are invited.

Cleaning and Filleting Fish with Mike Krebill
Get guided practice in cleaning fish and in producing boneless fillets while we clean fish for dinner. Bring your own fillet knife, scaler, and cutting board if you have them. If you don’t, the instructor will provide a variety of ones to use. By trying several, you can learn which ones you like best. Already an accomplished fish cleaner and filleter? Please consider attending to help instruct and clean. If a sizable Walleye or Northern Pike is caught, Mike will demonstrate how to “unzip” the fish, leaving a boneless fillet.

The Wild Kombucha Experiment with Laura Reeves
For the past year, Laura has been conducting wild kombucha experiments. Find out what works and what doesn’t as she shares her results.

Burdock with Laura Reeves
Getting to know the hundreds of edible and otherwise useful plants around us can be a daunting task. So why not get to know a few plants really well? The common burdock is not only an abundant food source, it has a host of other uses, as well. Join Laura to find out why burdock is revered by both wild food aficionados and wilderness survival enthusiasts.

Making Hazlenut Milk with Sam Thayer
Hazelnuts are on of the most ubiquitous wild foods of the North Woods.
Learn tips on identifying, harvesting, husking, cracking, shelling,
storing, and how to make hazel milk–a most delicious and filling wild
drink.

Wetland edibles with Sam Thayer
Waterways have been crucial foraging grounds to Native peoples all
across the world. We’ll take a paddle around Little Elbow Lake and
learn about the identification, natural history, and food uses of
several species of wetland edible found there, including wild rice,
Wapato, Cattail, Sweet Flag, and Yellow Pond Lily.

8th Annual, 2013 Wild Food Summit (WFS) June 20-23rd (Thurs-Sun)
Sponsored by White Earth Tribal and Community College Extension Service

To register for the 2013 Summit download the pdf file. The form needs to be mailed, as we are only able to  accept a money order or check at this time. The registration fee is $70 for individuals and $140 for families.

Registration is on a first-come, first-serve basis and we do keep an active waiting list once we are full.  We will post to the site when we are full. Last year, we had quite a few cancellations weeks before the start of the Summit.

2013 WFS Registration Form

We will post the registration form Wednesday- Feb 13th, 2013. The registration is $70 for individuals and $140 for families. The form needs to be mailed, as we are only able to  accept a money order or check at this time.

Registration is first-come, first-serve and we do keep an active waiting list once we are full.  Last year, we had quite a few cancellations weeks before the start of the Summit.

We seem to fill faster since we have gotten more press and exposure. We will post to the site when we are full.

There are great wild food destinations!- Check out the Midwest Wild Harvest Festival Sept 13-15th, 2013, in Prairie du Chien, WI  http://www.wildharvestfestival.org

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.

Please share your thoughts by submitting a comment (click where is says “comment”). You can also post a link to your photos/videos or upload to the Wild Food Summit Flickr group at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/wildfoodsummit2010/

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