Ripe for the Picking

A little while back, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a dense, fabulous article on foraging for food. In it, tree gleaning takes center stage, with olives, walnuts and oranges literally up for grabs. It’s nice to see some people making use of the edibles available around them. Talk about eating local!

The central character of the piece was Asiya Wadud, who writes about her (literal) East Bay findings on her blog, Forage Oakland. It’s no surprise that Wadud really values food–she works at Berkeley’s famed Chez Panisse (it’s a small foodie world, after all).

Just down the road, People United for a Better Life Oakland (PUEBLO) runs an Urban Youth Harvest. As part of the Mayor’s Summer Jobs Program, they pay teens to glean fruit from trees and bring it to low income seniors.

Meanwhile, NPR tells us that gleaning is still going strong in France. I first heard of this rich foraging history in the documentary The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse). It’s neat to see two French traditions–collecting forsaken food and quirky (OK, somewhat weird) filmmaking–thriving.