- [Presenter] This program made possible by Forest River.

We have always been dedicated to helping people experience the joy of the outdoors, by building a full range of recreational vehicles.

At Forest River, your needs, interest, and lifestyle are at the forefront of everything we do.

Forest River, follow the river.

To learn more, visit forestriver.tv.

- Hey there, you're about to watch another wonderful episode of Wild Harvest.

Now, of course, I will show you some tricks and some tips for local forging, and the gathering of wild edibles.

But the reality is, and the truth is, you must do your own homework.

There is no replacement for learning, and gaining the experience and knowledge that will give you 100% accuracy on touching, and picking, and eating the wild edibles.

And the only way to do that is to turn to the books, turn to the material online, and most importantly, find a good, experienced, and knowledgeable local forger and take a course with them.

Then you'll be confident in your own wild harvest.

All right, let's go enjoy some gathering.

(soft somber music) You know, it's no secret that there have been an awful lot of strange occurrences since the year 2020.

And one of the more interesting ones, for me, has been this unprecedented migration out into nature.

And why not?

What a wonderful place to find solace.

To be honest with you, I'm not a purist about it.

I never have been.

It's just that I'm as equally comfortable in a dugout canoe in the middle of the Amazon jungle, as I am car-camping in a park, a national park, a state park, and often on the edges of these park areas are incredible lands where you can forage safely and responsibly.

So, I think in the end, whether you paddle a canoe down the Nile, or pull up in an RV to Yosemite Park, either way you have a wonderful opportunity within your comfort zone to experience the wild harvest.

(bright upbeat music) Do you remember what the cattail looked like when we were here last time?

- [Paul] Yeah, it was tall.

You couldn't even see through here.

- [Les] Super tall, it was beautiful wasn't it?

- [Paul] Yeah.

- [Les] Here's what we want right here.

- Hard to believe it's the same plant.

- I know, I know, now the trick to picking these, okay.

So, we don't want to haul up the whole rhizome.

We don't want that.

All we want is this year's growth.

Let's try this guy here.

I'm gonna go right down.

So, I'm sliding my fingers all the way down, pretty low.

- Okay.

- Right, 'til I think I get to the bottom of it roughly.

And then, I just sort of tug, tug, tug, tug, tug.

Here we go.

(water sloshes) Beautiful, have a bite of that, don't mind the grit.

- Okay.

- Yeah?

Isn't that beautiful?

- [Paul] It's sweet, it's tender - [Les] Creamy.

- [Paul] Delicious, it's almost like this tough outer layer, that I've peeled back in the past, hasn't really had a chance to develop yet.

(cattail crunches) - Mm, isn't that great?

So, that's what we want.

But I don't want you to bring up the whole rhizome, I just want this section.

That rhizome will keep growing, it'll shoot up new plants as it continues to live.

But that's what we're looking for.

Gather what you can and I will do the same.

Oh, ah.

- [Paul] I see some over here.

- [Les] All right.

- That's a good one.

(indistinct) it's kinda fun.

(Les laughs) Wooh!

- It's coming out wonderfully.

Oh, darn it.

See now, that's what I don't want to do.

I don't want the rhizome.

I just want this top part, but I, I didn't get the right grip on it, pulled the whole rhizome up.

Now, that's not a big tragedy because what I'll do is I will take my stem and I'll plant the rhizome back in.

It will survive.

Right back down in there, mud over it and muck.

It's good to go.

Found wherever it's wet, cattail is distributed all across the Northern hemisphere of the planet.

And when you find it, you usually find a lot of it.

Making it a choice edible to gather, and one of my favorites.

Oh, check it out, check it out, Paul.

Look at this.

- [Paul] Is that what I think it is?

- Yeah, so one of the beautiful things of wild harvesting is coming upon, well let's call them the woodland creatures.

That is a very safe, very beautiful, very simple garter snake.

- [Paul] He's big.

- [Les] He is a big fella.

This is actually one of the best parts of wild harvesting, just coming upon any creature really.

But when they sit still for you, and you can just sit here for a while and examine them.

You see when the tongue comes out, he's smelling the air, he's checking out our scent.

It's really pretty wonderful.

How often do you get this close to a living forest creature where you can just study them?

Look at the patterns, isn't that beautiful?

- [Paul] Fascinating.

- You wanna know your snakes, I mean, talk a lot about the risks and potential dangers of gathering from the wild, whether it's poisonous plants through either ingesting them or if you touch them.

But then there's also dealing with mosquitoes and black flies, and then there are black bears and also snakes.

Reptiles and amphibians.

All right little guy, we gotta go gather some balsam fir needles.

I'll leave you to your day.

This North American fir tree is spread from Newfoundland to Alberta, Minnesota to Maine, the Appalachian Mountains to West Virginia.

A little bit of plant identification when it comes to the balsam fir tree.

It's one thing to know about the needles in terms of their overall formation.

Like in the balsam fir case, you've got this flattish sort of growing pattern, as opposed to all the way around like spruce.

But also, you wanna pay attention to the top side of the needle versus the bottom side of the needle.

What's it look like?

And take a look at the balsam needles underneath, and you see two white lines, not really strong white, sort of just a faint white, but there are two white lines.

And so, you wanna take all of this into consideration when you're positively identifying a species of plant, or a tree, shrub, or vine.

- The flavor of the balsam fir, I find really unique.

Cooking with needles before, the needles always seem to have their own characteristics.

Some a little bit citrus-y, some a little bit forest-y.

These definitely taste like Christmas.

I have an idea to capitalize on that freshness and that wonderful flavor.

And I'm not thinking Christmas, I'm not making a Christmas dessert.

But I am thinking something that brings together the cattail, the balsam fir, and just this whole feeling that I have being in this forest, and this bog.

(soft acoustic music) One thing I've learned about needles and working with needles, is I can add them at the last second and get a big blast of flavor, really easy to do.

This is part of my pre-preparation, I'm stripping the needles off the branch and I'm gonna chop 'em up very fine.

I think it will be perfect to compliment the flavor of a cattail chowder.

I've taken balsam needle, cold water, and I've added some to a pot.

I've added some agar powder, which is a seaweed-based powder.

And now, I'm gonna bring it to a boil and allow it to thicken.

The end result of this is something quite playful.

I'm making balsam pearls, that will be the garnish for my chowder.

(whisk rasping) Frozen oil.

(soft acoustic music) There we go, perfect.

Look at that, little spheres are forming.

Those will set.

Little balsam needle pearls.

Kevin.

- Wow, undeniable.

- [Paul] Well, there they are.

Little bubbles, with lots of flavor.

(soft acoustic music) - Paul wanted me to come back and get just a couple more of the tender young cattail shoots for him.

Something that is important here to note is the location of where I'm gathering these young shoots.

You see with some plants, I have to worry about poisons such as spray, herbicides, pesticides, that kind of thing.

But with cattail, I have to worry about what they are taking from the ground.

Industry actually uses cattail to suck up metals and poisons out of the ground as part of a filtering system.

Which by the way, means that gathering cattail by the roadside is suspect.

So I wanna look around, make sure that the water coming in is clean, to take note of the ecosystem, where I am, and make sure this is a nice pristine area.

It's a very abundant, full stand of cattail.

It's a good place to gather.

(soft acoustic music) - This chowder is all about the cattail.

(gas hob hisses) Cattail, (pot clinks) garlic and shallot, light bit of seasoning.

When it comes to seasoning, the one thing you never wanna do is to use too much salt.

Especially at this stage, you could wreck the entire dish.

Salt is wonderful, it's necessary, but you never want to taste it.

And now some of the balsam needle water.

Bit of poultry stock.

Some heavy cream.

What the heck, just a couple of aromatics, balsam branch.

(soft upbeat music) Oh, that's perfect.

(soft upbeat music) (soft upbeat music) Time to eat.

- Wow, oh that's pretty, Paul.

That doesn't look like a can of beans in a pot, thrown into a bowl, to me.

You don't have to eat, I don't know, your uncle's version of camp food, when you go camping.

And this does not look like your uncle's version of camp food.

So, what am I looking at?

- [Paul] It's a cattail chowder, little bit of salmon.

And there's a really interesting thing once you get into it, that I did with the balsam needles.

- All right, I'm seeing, I'm seeing the cattail in here.

Let me get a couple of bites.

This one's gonna require a few tastes, I think.

Creamy.

Wow, that cattail is just right in the pocket, in terms of the tenderness, and the crunch, and everything there.

- It works so well.

- I think the cattails a win.

Um, it's, it's wonderful in there, especially when I include the salmon, it's a full on win.

It's absolutely delicious.

The salmon seems to be the ingredient to me that's actually bringing out the flavor and the texture of the cattail.

With just a little touch of salmon on the spoon, the whole thing just comes together.

Mm, it's wonderful, it's nice.

But for some reason, I'm not really getting the balsam needles.

- On that note, check these out.

- [Les] Oh, is that caviar?

- It is faux caviar that I made out of the balsam needles.

- [Les] You gotta be kidding me.

- [Paul] Not kidding at all.

- You can do that?

Oh yeah.

(Les laughs) So, I see all the little balsam needles.

What's the gelatin?

What makes up the consistency or the structure of the mock caviar?

- A powder made from seaweed called agar agar.

And it thickens and turns things into almost like a gelatin, but it's not, there's a different texture to it.

It pops- - [Les] Okay.

- More than it squishes.

- Wow, it would even serve the same purpose as caviar on a cracker, or what have you.

- [Paul] Definitely, and you can flavor it any way that you would like.

- Okay, you know what?

Yeah, there it is.

Now I have the balsam.

Yeah, until I saw the balsam on top, was losing it in the sauce, was losing it to all the other flavors, but you're right.

That is a great idea.

Oh wow, I hope you showed how to do that, because I wanna learn how to do that.

The magic ingredient.

I'm so glad you, you did that.

I've never even heard of that before.

That was cool.

That's a total win, love this.

Here we go, a little tree identification this time, with the balsam fir.

If you put your identifying factors into different sections it makes it a lot easier.

So, first I wanna look at the trunk.

This one's almost, I wanna say, easy because of these beautiful, there we go, popping blisters.

You get that with this balsam fir, these lovely, ooze filled blisters that pop.

And you know, they say (lips smacking) they use 'em for different things, and gum, and stuff like that.

It's horrible, they taste terrible.

So, if it's any kind of food at all, it's a survival food, not one that you really wanna enjoy or call choice.

And then the second part, is looking at the formation of the branches.

These are what I would call whorled branches, which means they basically go all the way around, opposite each other around the trunk.

You gotta remember that because that happens a lot in plant identification, whorled branches, or whorled leaf stems.

And that's exactly the balsam fir is, they all are on the same plane, as opposed to, two that are opposite, two that are opposite or alternating.

In this case, the whorled branches that come out all on the same plane.

(soft acoustic music) - Cattail's such a great ingredient to work with.

It offers so much.

The time of year has presented this cattail that has more of a creamy texture.

I wanna do a dessert and I'm a little perplexed.

On one hand, I've got the beautiful, soft, cucumbery flavor of the cattail.

And it's just perfect right now, I've never seen it offer up so much of a softer texture than right now.

The danger with using the needles, that I've learned in the past, is cooking them can kill the flavor.

And, I don't really want to get into that territory.

So, how do I take something that doesn't want heat, how do I take something that's just so gentle and cucumbery fresh on its own, combine them in a dessert that would be fun?

And you know, I really want to cook on that campfire too.

I think I have an idea.

Kind of a play on a classic dessert, a flambe with a crepe.

Yeah, a cattail and balsam flambe.

Now, that's something I've never done before.

(bright upbeat music) Okay, for my dessert, I need to make a batter.

And a crepe batter's one of the easiest batters that you could ever imagine.

It starts with eggs.

(whisk rasping) Add flour, a little bit at a time.

Whisk it so the flour's nice and evenly distributed, there we go.

A little bit more.

And the idea is, to kind of make it quite heavy and thick, and then thin it out with a liquid.

Most of the time it's milk, but today I'm using the balsam needle water.

One key thing about making a crepe batter, is you have to make it a little while in advance.

One or two hours is great, overnight, if you can let that batter rest overnight, even better.

(soft country music) My pan's nice and hot, which is gonna help make a really nice thin crepe.

Pour into the center of the pan, and tilt your pan.

So your crepe covers the bottom evenly.

In this case, I'm adding some balsam needle powder.

Flip it and just let that little bit of raw batter on the other side cook for a second.

And repeat.

(batter sizzling) (soft acoustic music) Some butter, (butter sizzling) the cattail, (cattail sizzling) a little pinch of the needles.

Now here's the fun part, a nice shot of hard alcohol.

Balsam needle water.

And I just have to let that cook for a minute.

Some honey.

(soft acoustic music) Let's just see how these guys are doing.

Ah, they're tender.

(spoon clangs) (soft acoustic music) - [Les] Hey Paul, been smelling your cooking.

- [Paul] Okay, smell this before I plate it for you.

Just get an aromatic bomb.

- Oh wow, that's unique and nice.

- [Paul] This- - Well, I'll just sit right here and do what I do best.

Oh, camping is hard.

Wow, oh that's beautiful.

- This is a cattail flambe with a balsam needle syrup, and a balsam needle crepe.

Oh okay, out of the starting gate, yeah, I've got flavor that I've never had before.

So, what you combined here is definitely unique, definitely different.

Oh wow, it's so different than what we had for lunch.

A completely different experience in terms of the balsam.

This one is balsam forward, there's no question about it.

And it's like the balsam flavor shot right down the center of my tongue.

Just like, (imitates whoosh) like that.

- Isn't that fun?

- It's great, actually.

It's like the cattail has imparted a touch of a flavor in there that I can't even really wrap my words around, but the balsam is just lifting it all up.

It's a delicious and wonderful experience.

Let me try this again.

Mm, there's that balsam again.

Wow, okay, what are you getting?

- My first bite, I was surprised at how supercharged the cattail became with that flavor that you were saying that you couldn't really describe.

- [Les] Yeah.

- So, I wonder if the balsam kind of penetrated and soaked in a little bit.

- I don't know how you did it, but you somehow managed to take an ingredient that is typically bitter in a weird way, that turpentine-y kind of bitter.

And this, is absolutely delicious.

What was your inspiration for this?

- [Paul] I really wanted to make a dessert, and I've used cattail in so many different ways.

I've used it as a salad ingredient, I've used it as flower.

They were so creamy when we pulled them out of the ground in the field, and so sweet.

I thought, "Oh, there's the elements there that I could actually make a dessert."

- This is what I think is Paul's specialty.

This is his comfort zone, taking something that, well you might not have even heard of, let alone have worked with in the kitchen, and he then turns it into something absolutely delicious.

It's all about your comfort zone really, in the end.

So, if your comfort zone is in a dug out canoe in the middle of the Amazon jungle, or car-camping or RV-ing, either way, at that moment- (loon calling) you get to experience the call of a loon, while hovering on the edge of the wild harvest.

(bright upbeat music) If you'd like to continue the wild harvest with me and chef Paul Rogalski, then please check out our website at wildharvestfilms.com, where we have recipes, and foraging tips, along with deleted scenes, and outtakes from the making of "Les Stroud's Wild Harvest".

- [Announcer] Directly inspired by the series, Chef Paul and expert forger Les Stroud bring you the "Wild Harvest Season Two Recipe Book".

Highlighting all of Paul's dishes, and complete with behind the scenes stories, it is available for 29.99.

In addition, a DVD of this season is also available for 19.99.

To order, please go to wildharvestfilms.com, Wild Harvest TV Show on Facebook, or "Les Stroud's Wild Harvest" on YouTube.

(frogs croaking) (birds chirping) - [Presenter] This program made possible by Forest River.

We have always been dedicated to helping people experience the joy of the outdoors, by building a full range of recreational vehicles.

At Forest River, your needs, interest, and lifestyle are at the forefront of everything we do.

Forest River, follow the river.

To learn more, visit forestriver.tv.