In an oak woodland between canyons of the Angeles National Forest, Pascal Baudar paused in a tangle of vibrant green shoots of perennial pepperweed and purple blossoming wild radishes that many would consider unremarkable weeds. He saw lunch.
Baudar, a culinary alchemist and wild food researcher, has a complicated relationship with Southern California’s myriad varieties of weeds. On the one hand he savors non-native plants, pickling, brining and brewing them into haute cuisine. On the other hand, he is trying to make the invasive plants vanish because of the havoc they wreck on the indigenous flora. So he harvests non-native mustard, olives, watercress and even the honeydew excrement on leaves left by aphid-like flies. As he goes, he often replaces the invaders he harvests for food with new plantings of native species, part of his small but steady crusade to subtly strengthen the region’s traditional ecosystem.
Everything Baudar spotted while strolling down a dirt path in the Hahamongna Watershed Park in La Canada Flintridge he could identify, and keenly describe specific aromas, from the poisonous peanut butter-scented Devil’s Trumpet (not edible) to the gasoline-smelling epazote that is sometimes used to season beans. Baudar, who teaches outdoor foraging classes, estimated up to 20 percent of his meals comes from foraged food.
“If you think like a chef, you can turn this into something completely different,” said Baudar holding a piece of invasive broadleaf plantain that he cooks into a seaweed-like salad.
“I can forage over 700 ingredients,” he said.
Baudar is part of a budding movement that works to eradicate invasive species across the region and has seen an uptick in interest amid the the trend of featuring locally grown foods in personal diets and on restaurant menus. Invasive eaters focus at least part of their food consumption on imported plants, insects, fish and even mammals like the wild boars that plague Central California that have no natural predators and propagate largely unchecked.
Some invasive pests hitchhiked here in horse saddles with Spanish settlers. Others came mixed in bags of seed or on bottom of a shoe or for ornamental gardens — a process that has accelerated with an increasingly connected global world. As they’ve taken hold and spread, the foreign species often squeeze out native plants and animals that can play important roles in the local ecosystem.
California is home to some 4,200 native plants and 1,800 invasive plants. Experts expect that number to continue to rise as people intentionally introduce flowers, plants and food sources they enjoyed in other countries and from lax regulations of neighborhood nurseries, which can spread hitchhiking critters and seeds.
“There are some examples where some invasive species get started because they’re attractive and (people) like to plant them in their gardens and they escape from their gardens,” said Kailen Mooney, a UC Irvine professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “The love of nature, the appreciation of a species, wanting to grow it and have it is how some invasive species got their start.”
Tilting the balance of Southern California flora and fauna back toward self-sustaining native organisms involves a delicate balance for proponents of invasive eating. They want to highlight the flavors and benefits of consuming non-native plants and animals, but not create a burgeoning new market that prompts greater production of the interlopers they are trying to eradicate.
“The goal here is to reduce the species, not to enhance them or turn them into an agricultural plant,” said Joe Roman, a conservation biologist and researcher at the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont.
Roman runs Eat the Invaders, a website filled with recipes on how to finely chop watercress, create a Filipino-style coconut sauce for tiny Asia shore crabs and a how-to video about safely filleting the venomous lionfish.
“I’m not encouraging people to go out there and atone for their ecological sins and eat something they don’t like,” Roman said. “It’s intended to be something they enjoy.”
Invasive foragers caution people to educate themselves, only eat what they know and then start with small portions to see how the food settles with an individual’s constitution.
That’s increasingly important as the interest in the invasive eating grows. Roman has been writing in science journals, is the author of “Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act” and has advocated for the consumption of environmentally damaging plants and animals for 13 years. But only recently he’s noticed more and more chefs and foodies foraging for non-native foods.
“You should feel free to harvest quite a bit,” Roman said.
Baudar carefully picks where he harvests his natural foods. For sea salt, he drove to Oregon to collect pure ocean water untainted by pollution. He drives to the mountains to find fresh snow to make his beer.
Invasive species are typically closer to cities and more abundant. But they still can be a lot of work to forage and prepare. Bauder recently served a visitor gourmet course mustard with a mugwort beer vinegar, a bright yellow sauerkraut and kimchi-style pickled radishes and cheese served with a California allspice of ground peppercorns, white and black sage and sea salt. Nearly all of it was non-native in origin. And it took a week of gathering and preparation.
“I view wild food as gourmet food,” Baudar said. “It is a tremendous amount of work, but you cannot get these flavors anywhere else.”
The movement faces some questions and complications. For example, when, if ever, does an invasive organism that has burrowed into the local ecosystem become a de facto native species?
One such example is the eucalyptus tree, what is clearly an import.
“In Australia everything is eating them. They’re part of the community and they give back to the community,” said Daniel Gluesenkamp, the executive director of the Sacramento-based California Native Plant Society. “When you bring the eucalyptus in California, you get big beautiful trees that aren’t paying back to the community. They make more and more. they have an advantage over things like the California oak tree that supports so many mechanisms.”
But over time, California eucalyptuses have come to support other organisms, such as lerp psyllid insect that deposits a sugary, starchy waste on the trees’ leaves. (As Bauder demonstrated, they can be gathered and taste a bit like Rice Krispies cereal).
“Thousands of years from now (eucalyptuses) will be enmeshed in this web of organisms, this foraging thing is a step in that direction,” Gluesenkamp said. “We can act as the herbivores that keep these things in check.”
So far, the gains made against the spread of invasive species by foragers appear to be modest, at best. As a young college student Gluesenkamp made coarse-grain mustard from seeds gathered off the coast of Central California.
“It probably had some small incremental effect on the coast,” Gluesenkamp said, “but it probably just gave me some good mustard for friends at Christmas.”
Baudar said he and students who took his outdoor gastronomy class helped clear a field in Sylmar, in the northern San Fernando Valley, of invasive black mustard, paving the way for native plants to reemerge.
“I realize I won’t make a difference alone,” Baudar said. “But if you have one thousand people with the same viewpoint, you can make a difference. Why not?”
