By Robyn Johnson
While still basking in the afterglow from their radically successful Underground Farmers Market last month, new cool kid on the block forageSF is running full steam ahead—offering a Valentine’s Day version of their Wild Dinners event that will coincide with their one year anniversary. The theme? Best dishes of the year (contingent on what can be rummaged, of course). For $99, diners can look forward to an eight-course meal with uncultivated delicacies such as escargot (I have come to consider myself a instinctual gourmand after listening to my parents’ horrified accounts of my predilection for plucking snails off the backyard walk and gnashing them up into foamy bits as a toddler), nettle soup with Cowgirl Creamery crème fraiche, slow roasted wild boar porchetta, acorn bread with candy cap mushroom ice cream, and more bounties from the Bay Area wilderness.
If you’re confused about the concept of foraged meat, Jacky Hayward from Chef’s Blade gives two basic definitions: meat scavenged from a dead animal found in the wild or meat processed from an undomesticated animal killed by the forager. Or is that hunter? Anthropological argument aside, I suspect that the not-scavenged variety will be the meat du jour.
It’s a communal dinner, so be aware that private romantic chats and politely ignoring the lectures on the ingredients of your meal will not be the norm of the night. The group is also open to bartering if the basically-a-hundred-bucks bill seems too steep for your freegan wallet.