Les Stroud's Wild Harvest

- Hi, I'm Les Stroud, and welcome to another wonderful episode of "Wild Harvest".

Now I know harvesting from the wild can seem intimidating, so you turn to your books to learn, you go online, you watch a show like this.

But most importantly, learn from a local expert find some plant nerd out there that wants nothing more than to teach you about wild edible plants.

That way, you can be assured that you're harvesting safely and also responsibly.

So get out and enjoy your own wild harvest.

(soft piano music) (birds calling) All of this here, all of this digging, that's bear digging.

Big ol' bears.

Alaskan bears.

Looking for chocolate lily.

And this here?

Water hemlock, one of the most toxic plants in North America.

Intimidating?

Absolutely.

And this right here?

Well this is bear scat.

Also intimidating.

They're all around here.

The truth is, you don't have to be intimidated when it comes to local foraging.

Learn from an expert within the area who can take you out and help you dissolve any fears that you might have of the wild harvest.

(soft inspiring music) (bright upbeat music) - [Mario] Because I follow the bears around, and the bears really, I think they can smell them at this time.

Did you find one?

Nice.

That's what we're looking for.

All right, good job.

- There we go.

There we go.

- [Mario] So that's precisely what we're looking for.

Let's see.

Oh yeah, there we go.

Okay.

Now, we can go from the backside.

- There we go, look at that.

- There's one.

- That is a thing of beauty.

- Yes.

- Oh, that's gorgeous, Mario.

- I see a little ball of rice, is what we're looking for, right there.

- And the proper name for these are again?

- Chocolate lily.

- Chocolate lily.

- Is the name.

- The common name, the nickname?

- The common name.

- [Les] All right.

- [Mario] Yeah, and they're actually native rice, is what the people here call it.

Let's see, oh here's another.

- [Les] Okay.

- So there should be one attached to each, oh look, there's more than one.

- Oh, there's two.

- Well, the other- - Because something's broken off, and we didn't even see it.

- Yeah, we didn't see it.

So, yeah that's perfect.

- That's amazing.

(Mario laughs) - Yeah, and boy, let me tell you, carbs, this is full of carbohydrate.

This is akin to potatoes, or rice, or any other carbohydrate that we eat, you know?

- Yeah.

- In the world today.

And so this is kind of the staple of the native people here.

And really, you can harvest it until the snow is too deep to get to it.

(soft music) - [Les] There we go.

There we go.

(Les laughs) Look at that thing of beauty.

- Nice.

- Well there it is with the plant, right?

- Right.

- Oops.

Yeah, you wanna watch it, yeah, you don't wanna drop the rice.

- And that, of course, is seeding.

- Yeah.

- So, and the bears do it, and it's like, to me, I thought wow, the bears have dug this entire field.

They're not gonna be here anymore.

No.

Quite the opposite.

- It's a symbiotic relationship.

- That's right.

- Right?

And of course, our Indigenous cultures already knew that.

Like some plants, such as spring beauty, the more you harvest, you think you're getting everything, but you're dropping seeds everywhere, and in this case, you saw me drop a bunch of little seeds down there by accident.

I'm not gonna go get those, and that's gonna grow next year.

- And I think that's why they're made up.

It's a ball made up of these teeny-tiny ones.

The minute you bite into this as a bear, it pops, and all these little seeds fall on the ground.

- And they're not getting them all.

And what that speaks to, Mario, you and I being, as I like to say, you know, we're plant geeks.

- [Mario] Yeah.

- Is that by harvesting, by getting to know a plant, and then harvesting that plant, we're helping it thrive.

- Yeah.

It's just like, and this is what I teach in my class, I say look, why is a berry so brightly colored, and all that sugar packed around all those seeds?

Because the berry plant wants you to eat 'em!

(laughing) - Right, right.

Well let's get Paul to give us a hand, and simply do some gathering for a little bit.

- Great.

- Sound good?

- Sounds good.

- All right.

(casual upbeat music) We Are in this together We Have got to be free We will run and we will climb Sail the oceans, feel the skies Oh my lover, come with me Living full and living free (river flowing) - How do I tell the story of Alaska on a plate with what I harvested today?

This place is pure magic.

There's no other way to describe it.

I'm in a field that has been dug up by brown bears.

They're after the same thing that we were today.

They're after the chocolate lily seeds.

To know I was harvesting the same food that they were is something that is pretty special, and they're really gonna bring me a lot of opportunities in the kitchen.

(soft guitar music) - I see one up here.

- Nice.

Oh wow.

- Now that is beautiful.

- Yeah.

- This is gonna be a king bolete, right?

- I think it is.

- Yeah.

- Oh, is it?

- Yeah.

- Oh no?

- I'm not sure yet.

- Yeah, me either.

No, I don't think so.

Is it just a darker birch, maybe?

Let's see.

Oh yeah.

That's an older birch, oh my gosh.

Lookit, it's full of maggots.

- Uh, so we're not taking this one, then?

- Uh.

- [Les] Oh yeah, there's the maggots crawling out right now.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, there's just so many different organisms.

- [Les] Yeah.

- I mean, you're looking at an entire ecosystem in that mushroom.

- Yeah, no kidding.

- Yeah.

- So we'll leave this one.

(soft music) - Okay.

Ah, there's one.

- There we go.

- That's the one.

Right there.

Boy, it's very tough to mistake this one.

- Birch bolete?

- Yeah.

It's an absolutely delectable mushroom right here, I mean, just really nice.

- Okay.

- So yeah.

- Find some more?

- Yeah.

All right.

Oh, here's one.

That's a beauty.

Another birch bolete.

- Mm-hmm.

This is gorgeous.

(Mario chuckles) - These mushrooms, I fill jars and jars.

I never pass them up.

- This has just become a very fun mushroom hunt.

I see russulas everywhere.

Oh!

What do we have right there?

- Yeah.

There's another.

- There we go, there we go.

Now it's happening.

- Okay.

- This is another beauty.

- Man, these things are so good.

- Oh that's funny, he's growing, looking for the stem.

I didn't get the stem, much of it.

- [Mario] Oh yeah.

- Little older?

- Yeah, little older.

And this is actually a king bolete.

- [Les] I was gonna say, this looks like a king bolete.

- [Mario] Yeah.

- Probably the most intimidating part of being a local forager, of being a wild edible plant enthusiast, is the mushroom side of the game.

- Absolutely.

- So we are dealing with the bolete family here.

- Yeah.

- And we know a lot about them.

- So a bolete is a polypore mushroom, no gills.

So most mushrooms, you turn them over and you got these lines, you got these prominent gills.

They look like fish gills.

That's why they call them that.

And they come out in irradiating fashion from the stem going around.

Well, with polypores, it's all these teeny poly, meaning mini, pores, holes.

So mini holes.

And so there's all these little holes.

And really, when you start looking at these mushrooms, the bolete family, all of them with these polypores, most of them are edible.

There's only a few that you can't eat.

Some of them taste much better than others, but these, oh, you don't have to try at all.

You fry these with a little butter, and you will swear you are tasting steak.

- Oh, yeah.

- These mushrooms are among the most delectable on earth.

(soft music) - These are absolutely incredible.

It's not often, where I'm from at least, that I've had the chance to see such perfect specimens.

These are really cool.

Love those.

I think those look pretty good.

Oh, listen to that.

- Nice.

- [Paul] That's that sear sound I was talking about.

- Oh yeah.

Wow.

- [Les] There you go, Paul.

- [Paul] What do you got there?

- Oh nice.

- Garnish.

- Garnish?

- You can eat it.

- Beach greens.

- Beach greens?

- Yeah.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah, that's fun.

All right, here we go.

Oh, you have to see the color coming out of that pan already.

- [Mario] Yeah.

- Just wanna taste it one more time.

Try that.

- Okay, yeah.

- Try that.

- Yeah.

Now that it's had a sec.

Oh my god.

- [Paul] I think it works.

- Really good, really good.

- Next up, I wanna grill the mushrooms.

Put some salt.

Do you know what?

I'm gonna add a little bit of that broth to it.

Yeah, let's give that a taste.

See where we're at.

- Let's see, what do we got going on here?

Okay.

Now what does that taste like to you?

- It tastes like porcini that's been done over an open fire.

- To me, that tastes, that's as close a thing as you can find in nature to beef.

- [Paul] Yeah.

- [Mario] Like to a beef steak, right?

It tastes like meat.

- It's nuts.

- (laughing) It's nuts.

- I love it.

- I know.

(soft music) - Now what's this stuff called again?

- Beach greens.

- Beach greens.

- [Mario] Yeah.

- I think I've lucked out having these beach greens come when they did.

- [Mario] Looks so amazing.

(Les laughs) - There you go.

- Ooh!

You used the chocolate lily, too?

- [Paul] I did.

- I wasn't sure if you were going to or not, if you were just going to stick with the mushrooms, so.

Wow, that is pretty.

This is a beautiful looking, look at that.

- I know.

- Isn't that gorgeous?

- [Mario] It it.

- Well this is all on Paul, so Paul, tell me what I'm looking at here.

- Well, when we were out harvesting the chocolate lily bulbs.

- Chocolate lily bulbs.

- [Paul] Mario and I were talking about his favorite way to enjoy them.

He said he likes them with soy sauce.

- [Les] Interesting.

- [Paul] So I thought okay, I'll add some soy to it.

But soy also works really well with mushrooms, so this broth is just a flavor bomb of the bolete mushroom.

- Mm, mm.

Mm, mm, mm.

(Mario chuckles) Mm.

This is, of course it's all about flavor.

But this is absolutely also all about texture.

The texture of the chocolate lily is chewy in the best of ways.

And then conversely, the mushrooms are melt in your mouth soft, like but not in a bad way.

- You eat it with the bulbs.

- Mm-hmm.

- It really, it works really well together.

It's almost like these bulbs replace noodles, if this were, because the broth is, to me, it's very reminiscent of ramen, like a ramen broth.

- Yeah.

- Like either the mushrooms, the onion.

It's just so good.

- Yeah.

- So the chocolate lily is now acting as the noodle.

- Mm-hmm.

And the beach greens are popping a bit too, here.

- Mm-hmm.

- For me.

I know they're not quite in season right now, but they're working.

Well Mario, we cannot thank you enough for your involvement with this.

- Oh well, thank you guys.

I mean, this has been so much fun.

- It's a gift, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- I mean, mother earth is giving us her gifts, and it becomes a day that is a gift for the three of us here to be able to do this.

I mean, look where we are.

Come on, are you kidding me?

- I know, I have to pinch myself.

I have to pinch, I live here?

(laughing) (Paul laughs) - For a little diversion from cooking in the galley, Chef Paul and Chef Marius set up in the courtyard between Queens and Princess Grill restaurants.

I've been waiting for this one, because this is a very special ingredient.

There's only so many times and chances you get to be able to gather chocolate lily.

You've gotta be in the right place at the right time, but it can be abundant.

One thing to know, Marius, is that this is not a competition.

This is about us celebrating the ingredient, you guys figuring out what you want to do, whether you make one dish together, or two separate dishes, I don't care.

That's up to you guys.

You're the chefs.

- Wow.

- All right.

So this- - Wow.

- Is called chocolate lily, or rice root.

Now I'm gonna leave you guys onto this now, and Paul, take it from here, and enjoy.

I'll be back.

- All right.

- Thank you.

- So I was really surprised when I tried this for the first time.

I used it in a soup, as a soup garnish.

But my thought was, knowing where we harvested this, was to do kind of a theme around bear food, because the other thing is bears eat these, and they come to eat these, right where we pick them.

- Okay, what is good for them is good for us also?

- That's it.

And what do bears eat?

Salmon.

(bright music) - I'm thinking just to keep the flavor, yeah, it's starchy.

Maybe to incorporate it in the salsa, so basically, I'm gonna pick up some of the vegetable, and I'm going to combine.

- Okay.

- With this one, just to maintain that flavor.

- This is a new ingredient for both of us.

- Yeah.

- So I'm ready to get going if you are.

(bright music) Chef, come over here and have a look at that.

Look at the color in there, how the onions and the lily bulb are doing the same thing.

They almost look like they're cooking like an onion.

- [Marius] I think it will go golden brown very soon.

- All right, here's the big experiment.

Here it goes.

Let's see how this stuff boils.

I'm gonna add a little bit of salt, just to keep it very simple, flavor-wise.

- I'm going to add the secret ingredient inside in my salsa.

I'm going to use only the bulb.

- Oh wow.

I'm shocked.

Okay.

Try that.

Almost like potato texture.

- Changing the flavor also.

Yeah.

The consistency also.

- So better than I thought it was gonna be.

The bitterness is still there.

- It's still there.

- I'm gonna add a little bit of lemon juice to that, but I'm on the right track.

I like the texture.

I think that's gonna work great as a thickener.

- I'm gonna add my secret ingredient inside my salsa.

(blender whirring) It's very, very starchy.

- Oh look at it.

Isn't that strange, hey?

- It's very starchy.

It's very strange.

- How's it taste?

- Well, the taste is, it's quite nice flavor, if you taste it.

- It's more a texture thing, right?

- If you're not expecting, yeah.

Not expecting to be a lot of corn starch.

- Hmm.

I wonder what would happen if you cooked that.

If you tried, put a little part of a spoon in the pan, and see what happens.

I mean, that's what it's all about.

Experimentation.

- Yeah.

- This is just a pure experiment.

- [Marius] Yeah.

- Maybe we just discovered the next big thing.

Or maybe we didn't, but we're gonna find out.

It's not doing what I thought it was going to.

Oh well.

We tried.

Now what if we were to add a cream to that and heat it up, make it a sauce?

- Depended on the sauce.

- Or, I got an idea.

Let's take some of my sauce.

And let's just see how your sauce sits on top of it.

Yeah.

That's really interesting.

Do you know what?

It actually reminds me of the area that we picked these from, almost like the land, and you've got the flowers growing.

- It's not bad, actually.

- So how about we do that?

It keeps the flavors fresh.

It's perfect.

Because it is the story about this starch, about this bulb.

- Yeah, that is something new, which I didn't expect.

This is what happens when you're dealing with a new ingredient, and you don't have any knowledge about it.

- Mm-hmm.

Oh, that's beautiful.

Nice work on the salmon.

I just had an idea.

- Salsa.

- I wonder if this would, if we put it on the salmon, if it would glaze it, and it kind of melts over top?

- Yup.

Yeah, we can put in one of them right now.

- Yeah.

Well, we'll see.

I mean, it's not gonna hurt.

And it is an experiment.

- [Les] Watching two chefs collaborate to solve a problem is a rare look behind the curtain and into their mastery.

- [Paul] Yeah, that's cool.

- I'm gonna put the salmon in the middle.

And we're going with the salsa, I'll put it on the top.

- [Paul] And just see if it melts over it.

(bright music) - Gentlemen.

- Hello.

- Marius.

Wow.

This looks outstanding.

So this is your salsa?

- Yeah.

- All right.

- That is a salsa.

- And what is this green sauce on the side?

- Well.

- That's you, Paul?

- That is me.

- Okay.

- So I- - Do tell, my friend.

- I was looking at the starch as an opportunity to either thicken the sauce, or thicken the soup.

What I didn't anticipate is that I could almost get the same texture as a classic pomme puree, or potato puree.

- The interesting thing about ingredient, is that once you mix it up with like in my case, I wanna do a salsa, once you put it on the salmon, it's acting like a glaze.

- [Les] Okay, okay.

- [Paul] So eat the bottom of the bulb with the puree, or have one, and then the other.

And think potato.

- All right, here we go.

Mm.

Oh, hang on.

Wow.

Okay, this one, this is one of the most complicated reactions I've ever had to try to express.

Here's what's going on.

So Marius, with yours, absolutely, I see the glaze.

The glaze is pretty.

What I'm finding is the salsa is very nice and mild.

That flavor that you have with the salsa is going, (inhales) especially when I breathe.

It's going right sort of into the back of my cheeks.

Paul, when you put the power of suggestion into my mind for this being potato, it made it, I don't want to say acceptable.

Accessible.

Instantly, yeah, it's a potato.

But because I know I'm tasting a wild ingredient, my reaction to that is I do sense the bitter.

It's not overly bitter, but it is making me want to reach, funnily enough, potato, it's making me want to reach for a little bit of butter.

Not a lot, but a tiny little small dollop of butter right on there, and I think it would just be boom, you know?

But I love the texture of it.

What does a chef face when confronting a brand new ingredient they've not worked with before?

What happens in the mind of a chef?

- Initially, there's a preconceived idea of how the ingredient will react.

When we were talking about a salsa, and just conceptualizing it, both of us were thinking that it was gonna have a texture of the chocolate lily bulb, but instead it became a thickening agent, and the salsa then became a glaze.

- I see that.

- All raw, uncooked.

I would say something like this could easily be in my pantry at the restaurant.

- So interesting.

One last question.

Marius, why salmon?

Why was that the choice?

- We are in Alaska.

- To celebrate Alaska?

- Celebrating Alaska.

- Absolutely.

- You know, the other thing I have to add into this, and I had a lot of fun thinking about what protein to use, and I was thinking about our location, and I can't help but say we're eating bear food.

- Right, right.

Doubly here.

With the salmon, and with the rice root.

The chocolate lily.

Well I think what we saw when we were harvesting was just how prolific it can be.

And knowing that if you harvest correctly, you could provide a dinner for half a dozen people quite easily.

This is the thing that's so exciting to me is that I've already seen so much of Alaska.

I've traveled it, I've filmed it.

But I wanted to see a bit more.

I wanted to come back to the land that I love.

So Paul and I booked a couple rooms on the Queen Elizabeth, and that gave us a chance to go out, and honestly, just scratch the surface of the prolific and abundant Alaska wild harvest.

This is delicious, guys.

This is really good.

(soft music) (casual upbeat music) We will run and we will climb Sail the oceans, feel the skies Oh my lover, come with me Living full and living free - Bitter leaf, beautifully red, or Belgium endive.

(ship horn blowing) Captain likes it apparently.

(both chuckling) - [Captain Over Intercom] A very good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

This is the captain speaking to you from the bridge, and I do hope that you've all had the most relaxing and enjoyable morning- (all laughing) - Especially now.

- [Les] If you'd like to continue the wild harvest with me and Chef Paul Rogalski then please check out our website at WildHarvestFilms.com where we have recipes and foraging tips along with deleted scenes and outtakes from the making of "Les Stroud's Wild Harvest".

- [Announcer] Directly inspired by the series, Chef Paul and expert forager Les Stroud bring you "The Wild Harvest Recipe Book", highlighting all of Paul's dishes and compete with behind the scenes stories, it is available for 29.99.

In addition, a DVD of this season is also available for 19.99.

To order, please go to WildHarvestFilms.com, Wild Harvest TV Show on Facebook, or Les Stroud's Wild Harvest on YouTube.

(gentle music) (birds chirping) (logo whooshes) (bright music)