Here are fifty frequently asked questions in three sections: how to forage, why to forage, and fun with foraging. For FAQ about No Taste Like Home tours, see here.

How (the basics)

Where are you located and what do you do?

What is foraging?

How did you first get into foraging?

Did you study foraging at Princeton?

Isn’t foraging dangerous?

Aren’t most mushrooms poisonous?

How do you know that what you’re picking is edible and not poisonous?

Can you describe what a typical foraging outing is like?

What are the top wild foods you look for?

Is there a best time of year to forage? What’s the highlight of each season?

Where is it legal/illegal to forage?

What if you live in the city?

What about dog pee?

How can someone get started?

What is your book about?

Anything else you’d like to share?

What’s your website?


Are there any other tour companies like yours? Why not?

Is foraging in Asheville a recent trend or a traditional part of Appalachian culture?

What are some reasons to forage?

Why don’t you just garden or buy your food in the store?

Isn’t there a reason we invented farming?

Is wild food really five to fifty times more nutritious than cultivated food?

Why do you say wild food is the only truly natural food, and that a wild food diet is the only truly Paleo diet?

Did mushrooms really cure your partner’s cancer?

Why do you say there’s no such thing as native plants or invasive species?

Could commercial foraging ever really be a significant green industry?

Can you really make $300 an hour foraging?

Could foraging really solve the hunger problem?

Is it true that outdoor recreation is a bigger industry than pharmaceuticals?

If we all start foraging, won’t it hurt the forest?

Tell us about your national youth initiative.

How do you get children excited about eating wild food and not think it’s “yucky?”

Why do you say there are no food deserts?

Why do you say wild food is the only truly local food?

How did people first figure out what’s edible and what isn’t?

Surely we can’t all forage; there isn’t enough out there.

Why do you say foraging can be a spiritual practice and that it’s better than therapy?

Do you really think civilization has been one big mistake?

What do you mean by saying our view of reality is completely backwards?

Do you think everyone should take psychedelic mushrooms?


Could you survive anywhere?

What are some strange things you’ve eaten? How did you prepare them? How were they? Did you serve them to anyone else? How were they received?

Have you ever poisoned anyone?

Is Asheville really in the center of the most biodiverse temperate region in the Western Hemisphere? And you had no idea when you settled there?

Is it true that you sold mushrooms for fifteen years illegally and then the state appointed you to their licensing committee?

What are some crazy things that have happened on a tour? Did you really have a marriage proposal?

What’s the biggest mushroom you’ve ever found?

The largest creature on earth is a fungus?!?

Are mushrooms really from outer space?