Via email:
The Wild Kitchen is having its first dinner! It’s going to be on Feb 14, in a secret location in the mission. If you’re looking for a different kind of Valentines Day, this is the place. Wild boar, nettles, acorn ice cream (it’s actually really good) . We mean to reintroduce wild food to the masses, or at least the people we know. The dinner will feature 4 courses, each highlighting a different locally foraged ingredient. There is one communal table, and several “private” tables for groups of 2 and 4. Tickets are $40 cash at the door and include:
+Aperitif
+Wild Nettle and potato soup with crème fraiche
+ Slow Roasted Wild boar with chanterelles and fingerling potatoes
+ Salad of foraged citrus with wild greens
+ Your choice of Acorn or Vanilla ice cream, with a balsamic strawberry reduction
RSVP to wildkitchen@gmail.com and you will be given the address. Space is very limited, so please write only if you’re sure you can come. If you want a “private” table, tell us in the email. Drinks will be available for suggested donation of $4.
This food is all wild foraged, and sometimes we can’t find just what we want. Because of this, the menu could change. If it does, we’ll let you know.
 . We mean to reintroduce wild food […]</p>
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“Foraged citrus”? Do we have uncultivated citrus trees around here, or are they going around to people’s backyards stealing meyer lemons?
Someone recently told me that “wild boar” are actually free-range pigs, meaning they’re the same pigs but they get to go outdoors in a little pen in similar fashion as free-range chickens.
True?
- Chuck
You can’t “forage” for a pig. You have to fucking KILL IT, which is no different than killing the cows and fish and rabbits and chickens and pigs that you eat at MSF, but calling your “wild boar” “wild-foraged” is false advertising, and stupid.
OK maybe the difference is these people actually killed their very own pig, just like Michael Pollan OMG awesome! That’s like, totally honoring the animal’s spirit and stuff, so cool!
Ugh. Like where the animal died makes any difference as to its being fucking dead.
fun.
aside from the fact that the notion of “wild foraged” is likely a little bit spun up….because as meave says, you can’t forage a pig (hopefully it was a pig with a happy, non-commercial life….honored in the slaughter), and foraged citrus DOES probably mean “stolen from the neighbor’s yard”….and foraged shrooms are just plain dangerous…
there’ve been a few of these outlaw kitchens in SF in the past. and i’ve been to many in NYC, one that has been running for over 25 years.
good luck to the purveyors. watch your sani, and beware the health department!
Hmm. “Wild boar.” “Wild,” as in hunted. Not farmed. And “boar,” as in little dude from Lion King with tusks. So “wild boar” seems like an apt name for it. But I suppose the only way to truly “forage” for wild boar would be to find one that’s already dead and eat it. Which seems unlikely. But I think the point here is that we’re talking about wild food, and hunted boar and foraged plants fit under that classification. The point here is that meave is making false assumptions about this shindig’s goals. It’s not some hippy save-the-world bullshit. It’s about new and exciting foods. Foods that are cultivated by the elements, not by people.
Oh. So everyone’s all bacon this and bacon that. Bacon, bacon, bacon. Welcome world to the way we get that bacon. We kill it. Then we cure it. And if you shoot it yourself, well that much better for the boar or wild pig and you. Better than those disembodied parts pressed up against plastic wrap.
Here’s the thing…I wouldn’t dream of passing judgement on what anyone else in the world eats. Whale blubber? Blood soup? No thank you, but do be my guest. So if your a vegan or vegetarian, maybe just don’t go. And maybe just keep it to yourself.
I’ve lived in San Francisco for quite some time and have gone to my fair share of free vegan meals. We’ve broken gluten free organic together. More power to you. Maybe try add a little more salt to stuff. But I’d never dream of disparaging your meal.
@LindyLula – Clearly someone has had too much bacon recently.
Too much bacon? That is unpossible!
Or maybe not.
http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/blogs/editor/2008/10/how-much-bacon.html
That price tag seems a bit steep for foraged goods.
[...] Mission passes on an invitation for a special Valentine’s Day Dinner from Wild Kitchen at “a secret location in the Mission.” [...]
Yeesh, can there be any food-related event in this town with some vegan climbing on a soapbox about “animal murder?” Yeah, we get it. You don’t eat meat. Duly noted. Tell you what, why don’t you go enjoy a nice plate of $12 cashew paste “tacos” at Cafe Gratitude and let the adults enjoy their meal in peace.
When there is a food-related event in this town that does not involve bacon, there will be a food-related event without a soapboxing vegan.
Next year in Jerusalem!
Hey Will,
Will the Private Tables be in the boat or the trailer?
If I can land a date by Saturday, can I call the boat?
the entire time i was reading this post, i thought someone was whispering it to me. it was hilarious.
Is there anything more annoying in this whole annoying world than a sanctimonious vegan? Christ, get over yourselves.
Who is this wild chef, anyway. Anyone know? I’d sure like to know who’s sticking his grungy hands in my arugula before I sign on.
Hey so did anyone even go to this thing? Was it as superawesomefantastic as it sounded?
Man, vegan-haters are such drags. Me and Allan are still BFFs even though he posted photos of a whole roasted pig AND a skinless rabbit. That is putting differences aside.
I heard one of the tables was a boat.
wow…what an absolutely amazing event this sounds like. Am sooo proud of the people getting creative with their cuisine and bringing some of the wild inside.
yeehaw folks! awesome.
aloha*sunny
Vanilla ice cream? Where the heck would you forage for vanilla around the Bay Area? I don’t think it grows at all here, much less wild, does it?
Looking through the entire menu we find in the “foraged” column:
Nettle, chanterelles, stolen lemons, some dandelion, and acorns.
In the “we got it from somewhere else” column: liquor, potatoes,
cream, more potatoes, more cream, vanilla, probably all the herbs
and spices, sugar, salt, and whatever cooking oils and butters
the foraged boar is prepared with. Strawberries and vinegar. As
well as the cryovac the boar came airlifted in with.
You could do considerably better. Eggs and chickens aren’t “foragable”
but there are enough of them living in backyards around here. Ditto honey.
February is a bad time to be doing this because it’s not plum, blackberry,
or loquat season. You could probably feed an army with the fennel from a
single vacant lot. The strawberry trees are imported but interesting. Squab
would be daring. Or a goose from the golfcourse. You completely missed the
fact the SF is situated next to an ocean. Hope it went well.
I like this idea immensely. I do hope for the sake of the organizers that people other than those who felt like sharing their deep wisdom here are attracted the gatherings. Sitting through a dinner with these dolts would inspire me to have some wild foraged idiot tartare for dessert let alone trying to host them! Sounds like a nightmare. People like this should just continue eating their commodity meal choices at their usual haunts and leave the gastronomic world to those who have cultivated an appreciation for things other than chicken caesar salad lunch specials. I mean this is such a wonderful idea and most of the commenters are muddled down in verb-age? Please. And who is this schizo who wants to blow Michael Pollan? Hobbies anyone?