Agrocentrism: A Case for Wild Foods with Sam Thayer — WildFed Podcast #090

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In this episode:

Sam Thayer | Renowned author and forager

Podcast discussion:

  • Sam describes the Kentucky landscape

  • Landscape signatures

  • Our current understanding of landscape management

  • Our lack of understanding of the original wild foodists, the hunting and gathering peoples of the world

  • Agrocentrism

  • Fire management of plant communities

  • When foraging became more than just a hobby for Sam

  • Sam's tip for people who want to forage more but don’t have time

  • What Sam hopes for his legacy

  • Where to find Sam's work


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SEASON 1 OF WILDFED IS NOW AVAILABLE ON OUTDOOR CHANNEL!

Check out the series trailer below!



Meet Sam Thayer

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Sam Thayer was born in Wausau, Wisconsin, where he first learned to gather wild food in vacant lots, backyards, city parks, and at the edge of town. Later, his family moved to rural southern Wisconsin, and then to Madison. Sam's first presentation on edible wild plants was to his seventh grade science class, demonstrating the foods that he collected regularly on his three-mile walk to school. He began "survival camping" at fourteen and led his first wild food walks when he was 19. After graduating from high school, he moved near the south shore of Lake Superior and built a rustic log cabin on an abandoned farmstead, chasing his childhood dream of "living off the land" while working part-time at a variety of jobs.

Since 2000, when he won the Hazel Wood National Wild Foods Cooking Contest, Sam has been teaching regularly on edible wild plants, giving workshops across the United States. In 2002 he was inducted into the National Wild Foods Hall of Fame at North Bend State Park in West Virginia. His first book, The Forager's Harvest, has won a Midwest Book Award, IPPY Book Award, and was a finalist for the USA Book News Best Books 2007 award. It has been a steady Amazon category best-seller and has sold more than 100,000 copies. His second book, Nature's Garden, has received similar acclaim and sold over 75,000 copies. Incredible Wild Edibles was released November 1, 2017.

He currently lives in the woods of northwestern Wisconsin with his wife, Melissa, their daughters, Myrica and Rebekah and son, Joshua. Along with speaking and writing, he is also a maple syrup producer, wild rice harvester, owns a small organic orchard, and has been revitalizing a lost tradition of making hickory nut oil.

Besides wild food foraging, Sam is an all-around naturalist with particular interest in reptiles, amphibians, bird watching, botany, and mammals. His passion for wild food extends to studying the origin of cultivated plants and the socio-economic history of the human diet.

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