Chef Erin Miller combines her passion for foraging with her culinary expertise at Urban Hearth, crafting innovative dishes from locally sourced wild plants. Her James Beard-nominated approach showcases the connection between foraging and fine dining, where unassuming urban spaces provide a bounty of Nature’s edible treasures. During a recent foraging expedition, Miller demonstrated how she identifies and collects ingredients like knotweed and garlic mustard, emphasizing the creativity and versatility of hyper-local cuisine, which is reflected daily on her evolving seasonal menu.
"Once you've seen edible plants, once you understand what they are, you can't unsee them," Miller tells us as we set out on a short walk from her Cambridge home to one of her favorite foraging areas.
"It's a little bit sour, a good stand-in for rhubarb," Miller says about knotweed, highlighting its versatility in urban foraging.
Miller discusses Urban Hearth's 'foragers seasonal salad,' a menu mainstay that changes to highlight what ever she's gathering-garlic mustard flowers, wild lettuces, spinach-like lamb's quarters.
Foraging goods are closer than you think, even in residential areas, like the yard of an empty house, or public lands that have been farms for hundreds of years.
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