Man: "Modern Pioneering" is funded in part by wild blueberry farmers of Maine.

Wild blueberries are full of flavor and nutrients, a pop full of blueberry taste for your favorite smoothie, breakfast, or dessert.

Learn more at wildblueberries.com.

Woman: At Muir Glen, we believe that organic farming benefits consumers, farmers, and ecosystems.

Man: And made possible by... ...and many other generous donors.

A complete list is available at GeorgiaPellegrini.com.

Pellegrini: Sustainability in any system relies on diversity.

Nothing monolithic stands for long.

It's true in an economy, in our society, and in the natural world.

We are the result of a thriving ecosystem, one that's dynamic, interdependent, and alive.

But we have to become caretakers, missionaries of the living systems that sustain us, to know them more deeply and consume them more wisely.

It's about wild food.

It's about sustainable food and that fragile space between them, the space where our future lives.

♪♪ ♪♪ The story of wild blueberries is a story of survival 10,000 years in the making.

It began in the wake of the Ice Age, where glaciers once carved the earth and left behind acidic, stony barrens across Maine.

Harsh ground, perfect somehow for something wild to endure.

One of only three fruits native to North America, they are low to the earth, perennial and stubborn, with a whole life underground and above the soil, a living mosaic.

Hundreds, thousands of distinct genotypes in a single field.

A quilt of difference that resists sameness.

Here, families have chosen to be stewards of what nature began, keeping pace with a crop that was here long before us.

And if we care for it, long after.

Today these wild fields produce roughly 100 million pounds a year, a testament to what endures, what regenerates, and what continues to feed us from the balance between wildness and care.

I'm with Brogan Tooley, an agronomist, someone who studies how to grow food in balance with the land itself.

In the peak of the wild blueberry harvest, Brogan's work is part science, part stewardship, making sure these wild plants have what they need to keep thriving year after year.

♪♪ I've heard you talk about how wild blueberries are rooted in what you call whole system thinking.

What do you mean by that?

Tooley: When we're managing wild blueberry or interacting with wild blueberry in any way, we're really interacting with an entire ecosystem.

It goes beyond just the blueberry.

We have our rivers and streams.

We have our forest land, and we have our pollinator habitat.

And those all help make up the system.

So when we think about growing blueberries here in the state, we really need to consider all the other ecosystems that interact with the crop.

Pellegrini: These wild blueberries seem more genetically varied.

I see really dark blue, almost black ones.

I see bright blue.

I've even seen some white ones.

Is that beneficial to their survival?

Tooley: I think it does help with the resilience of the cropping system.

One plant might be blooming one week and another plant might be blooming two weeks later.

It does seem to bolster their resilience environmentally, because if we have a frost event during bloom, the chance of that frost event hitting an entire field at its most susceptible time is pretty low.

Pellegrini: We're used to eating monocrops and, you know, everything sort of tastes the same and looks the same, but I imagine it also means the flavor is varied.

You have some that are more sweet, some that are more sour.

At least for me as a chef, I think it's more of a culinary adventure.

Tooley: A handful of fruit could contain many different genotypes in it, and each genotype tastes a little differently.

Pellegrini: The people that cultivate wild blueberries here in Maine, they don't seem like traditional farmers in the sense that they're really shepherding and supporting Mother Nature's natural process, it seems to me, versus injecting themselves into an environment.

Tooley: Growers across the state are very tied to the land in that way, and they have been for generations.

Their grandparents did it, and they're carrying on a legacy, and they're very committed to that.

Pellegrini: It's interesting, I think, that this crop attracts a certain type of person.

It's a resilient crop that thrives in circumstances that maybe aren't always easy.

And it seems like the farmers are similar, where they're willing to sort of roll up their sleeves and in trying conditions, make it work.

Tooley: Maine growers are some of the toughest people.

They work hard jobs.

And it's not always just blueberry.

A lot of them also lobster or fish, so they definitely have their challenges ahead of them.

Pellegrini: This is so interesting.

Look how dark, almost black, these ones are compared to the bright blue behind.

-Tooley: So this is a vaccinium nigrum.

-Pellegrini: Uh-huh.

Tooley: In nature, it is a darker fruit.

It also tends to taste a little sweeter than some of the lighter baby-blue fruits.

And I find that the berries for vaccinium myrtilloides tend to be a little more acidic, almost a little more sour.

Pellegrini: Interesting.

Tooley: Which makes for a nice piece to a handful of blueberries.

Pellegrini: Oh, yeah.

That's fun.

So you have the darker ones, which are sweeter.

These are more sour.

There's a real diverse range of flavors.

Tooley: Below our feet right now is a very thick network of rhizome root structures.

Those create almost what we call a blueberry mat for about 3 to 4 inches down.

It's just this very thick and tangling of roots.

Pellegrini: What percentage of the plant is underground?

Tooley: Uh, more than 50%.

It's almost like having the entire trunk of a tree and its roots below the soil.

And what we're seeing here is just the tertiary branches of a tree that are coming up above the ground.

Pellegrini: That's beautiful.

There's a whole life underneath the ground.

Well, will you show me how to rake wild blueberries?

Tooley: Of course.

I'd love to.

Man: ♪ Daisies blooming ♪ ♪ I can't stop staring ♪ Pellegrini: I've been seeing them work out there.

It looks like serious work.

Tooley: It is a lot of hard work.

Man: ♪ You've put a spell on me ♪ Tooley: We have a blueberry rake here.

You can see it has these teeth.

This is an age-old tool in the industry.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Tooley: Basically, you just kind of comb into the plants with it and then pull back towards yourselves.

Man: ♪ The way you're moving ♪ ♪ Has got me moving my own feet ♪ -Tooley: There you go.

-Pellegrini: A two-handed job for me.

-Tooley: Yeah.

Beautiful.

-Man: ♪ The greatest feeling ♪ ♪ Let's not waste time or take this slow ♪ ♪ We've got miles behind us, but miles to go ♪ ♪ So let's just break this down to the simplest truth ♪ ♪ You and I as one will always be better than two ♪ Pellegrini: It's a nice sound that it makes.

Very satisfying.

Tooley: Very characteristic of this time of year.

Man: ♪ You and I as one will always be better than two ♪ ♪♪ Pellegrini: Tell me, how are wild blueberries different from cultivated blueberries?

What are the main differences?

Tooley: So wild blueberries are known for the fact that they have two times the antioxidants as cultivated or highbush blueberries.

So the more we breed plants, especially if we're breeding for specific characteristics, we're losing the wildness of the plant and its natural state.

And with that, we have these nutritional benefits.

We have this flavor component and other functional traits that both support the plant in terms of its resiliency and human health.

I think one of my favorite parts about this time of year is knowing that while we're raking here, the entire rest of the state is also raking at the same time.

-Pellegrini: Yeah.

-Tooley: So everyone is doing this kind of in synchrony.

-Pellegrini: A connector... -Tooley: Yeah.

-Pellegrini: ...among Mainers.

In Maine, you start to notice a rhythm.

Land to sea, forest to tide.

People who learn their place inside an ecosystem and care for it.

The wild blueberry teaches a kind of humility.

That even something born of the wild can be nurtured without being owned, not tamed, but understood.

Guided just enough to ensure it endures.

The same hands that coax wild blueberries from the soil share a spirit with those who farm the sea, both keeping the wild alive by caring for it.

Barton Seaver is one of them -- a chef turned steward, a kind of seafood missionary.

He believes sustainability is an ecosystem story, written as much in cold tidal water as it is in glacial barrens.

He's introducing me to Emily Selinger and her oyster farm, where we're moving seed oysters into new homes, giving them the space and time to grow over the next few years.

A simple shell, a living filter, a taste of what regenerative aquaculture can be.

Food that feeds us and mends the place it comes from.

Seaver: Aquaculture is the farming of marine and freshwater plants, algae, finfish, shellfish.

It's what we do on land, right?

Farming.

Just done underwater.

Sustainable aquaculture is simply farming with an eye towards the ecosystem's wellbeing, right?

We can be no healthier than the place in which we live, right?

And when we have the humility, but also the confidence and competence to act in that way in our place, whoo.

Everybody wins.

There is such a huge legacy.

I think seafood is really our first heirloom food in this country, right, in the settler nation.

We have years, hundreds of years of lobstering history.

All of this needs to be sustained, right?

And aquaculture is a way to strengthen those maritime economies.

Emily, as an example, she found opportunity through aquaculture to do her thing with her skill sets, in her place, in her ways, in ways that matter to her and to her family and to her grandparents who have been here this whole time.

Pellegrini: Emily came to oystering almost by accident.

She'd spent years as a mariner working schooners up and down the East Coast.

When she finally came back to Maine, she found herself drawn again to the water, but in a new way.

A chance friendship opened the door, and what began as a small experiment became a livelihood, one rooted in this bay, in patience and in care.

Selinger: I started quite small, which was helpful because I took the time to, like, figure out what worked for me.

Challenges initially were just figuring out what type of gear worked for me and how I could set things up so that they stayed put in a beautiful, calm day like this.

But our shoulder seasons are quite windy and wild.

There were years where I -- The way I was rigging my bags was not sufficient, and I was losing oysters and having to go snorkel for them the next season and all of that.

I feel lucky that I chose to start on a small scale, because I was able to kind of troubleshoot those things without it being, like, a major catastrophe.

-Pellegrini: You're a one-woman show.

-Selinger: I am, yes.

Pellegrini: That's great.

Is there something about aquaculture that appealed to you over becoming someone who harvested lobsters?

Selinger: Yeah, definitely.

Just the fact that these little guys are so beneficial for this environment, and they don't require me to put anything else in the water other than the gear that contains them and the oysters themselves.

They get all their food out of the water.

They filter a lot of other stuff out of the water that humans are responsible for introducing into the environment.

So they help clarify the ecosystem, which benefits other important organisms.

And so I was really drawn to the fact that, like, you could grow food that is super healthy for humans, highly sought after -- big market for oysters -- that's also kind of just giving back to the environment inherently by being here.

Pellegrini: Are there a lot of other women in aquaculture like this?

Selinger: There are more than you might expect to find, given that most waterfront industries are largely very male dominated.

I'm constantly, like, tweaking how I do things to try and, like, grow the nicest product I can.

I have a lot of flexibility now that I'm at the point where I am producing this many oysters and comfortably making a living where I can really, like, kind of experiment and improve and focus more on, like, growing the nicest oyster that I can instead of growing the most oysters that I can.

Kind of a poorly grown oyster is a really disappointing product, especially when it takes two or three years to deliver.

Pellegrini: What do you have to do differently to make a really well-grown oyster?

-Selinger: They just need lots of space.

-Pellegrini: Okay.

Selinger: They're stocked, the bigger oysters, in much smaller densities, so they have all the room in the world to grow into a nice round shape, like a teardrop-shaped oyster instead of if they're overcrowded, they grow into these, like -- I call them bananas.

Pellegrini: Yeah.

-Selinger: Long, skinny oysters.

-Pellegrini: Jostling in the space, yeah.

-Seaver: Aren't they gorgeous?

-Pellegrini: They're so beautiful.

They are.

I love them.

All day long, I could just marvel at them.

Selinger: I'm currently working on a small work barge that I would like to have out here on a mooring.

That would help speed up some of this process, but I don't intend to become a large-scale operation.

I'm just pretty happy being out here by myself.

-Pellegrini: Pretty great life.

-Selinger: Yeah, yeah.

Seaver: There's a good living to be made.

Good living.

Right?

This -- This is living right.

Pellegrini: Doesn't get better than this.

Seaver: She is, you know, among our greatest citizens.

These businesses, these examples, I say, is our greatest example of citizenry.

Right?

And I think it's our patriotic duty to eat literally as many of these oysters as we can.

Pellegrini: That's the life.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

Let's go pull up some adult oysters.

Selinger: Yeah.

Seaver: We need to advance and evolve the way that we, as consumers, think about seafood.

If Americans were to add more seafood in and remove more land-animal proteins, we would have positive public-health outcomes, positive economic outcomes and positive environmental outcomes.

So the first thing I want people to think about is just, "Hey, I'm gonna eat seafood for dinner tonight."

That would be a radical shift in America.

What we eat from our oceans is really very undiverse.

It looks like shrimp.

It looks like salmon.

It looks like tuna.

About 60 plus percent of what America eats is just of those three species or the categories.

The other 30%, another 35% or so, is just seven other species.

And so if we ask simply for the catch of the day, what we do is we inherently rationalize our relationship with the oceans.

We create a supply-based system rather than demand, creating great, delicious food that improves the quality of water and delivers this incredible public-health win, full of iodine and all these wonderful nutrients and micronutrients and minerals and just wow.

I mean, what a win-win.

♪♪ Pellegrini: Aquaculture still suffers from a lack of social license.

We don't yet fully understand the values and virtues it brings to our communities.

But one of the most compelling developments is that we're discovering what to farm -- oysters, mussels, scallops, sea kelp -- species that can actually improve the health of the waters they grow in.

They are the stewards of their own environment.

At the Darling Marine Center, scientists and students are working to understand these relationships, advancing research that makes aquaculture more sustainable, more resilient and more accessible to the next generation of farmers and consumers in a growing population.

Brady: Welcome to the Darling Marine Center.

This is the flowing seawater lab.

This is kind of the birthplace, at least for shellfish aquaculture, in the state of Maine.

We have seawater that is coming in from the estuary, pumped through here so that we can do all sorts of in situ experiments or experiments with animals like American lobster, sea scallops, oysters, mussels, razor clams, anything that is either cultured or harvested here in the state.

Can we figure out how the environment is changing and how it might be changing those organisms?

Woman: ♪ Leaves a-rustling in the wind ♪ ♪ Soon we'll sail to your arms once again ♪ Brady: One of the famous statistics is the Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world's oceans, or at least certainly did over a 10-year period.

Pellegrini: Wow.

Brady: Now we're sort of in a new normal, so we're starting to see species that we've never seen before do quite well here.

Woman: ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ ♪ Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ♪ Brady: So these are actually babies that we spawned and set here in the lab.

And so if you've ever walked a beach in the northeast of the United States, and you look and you see these razor-clam shells... So this is a razor clam that was spawn-set here at the Darling Center last year, and then we can hold them in these sort of -- in these patches.

Woman: ♪ And I wonder if I ever cross your mind ♪ St.

Gelais: There's a saying in aquaculture that nursery equals destiny.

-Pellegrini: Hmm.

St.

Gelais: So without a really robust hatchery or a nursery component of your industry, nothing downstream of that can be successful.

Kelps are really interesting in that they have somewhat complicated life cycles.

So the big lasagna noodle that you think of in the ocean, that's what we're trying to grow on the farm.

That's our crop.

Woman: ♪ Even only in my dreams you come at night ♪ Pellegrini: Inside the Darling Marine Center, the focus is on the future -- how to grow food from the warming ocean without depleting it, and how innovation can help sustain Maine's working waterfronts.

Out on the water, scientists put their research to work, testing what sustainable seafood farming really looks like in motion.

St.

Gelais: This is kind of the fertile crescent for shellfish aquaculture in the state of Maine.

Oyster aquaculture, especially, really started here.

And in fact, some of the first breeding programs in strain development for oysters was started here at the Darling Center.

-Pellegrini: Really?

-St.

Gelais: We've talked about all of the nursery- and hatchery- related stuff that we're doing.

We can do full-spectrum aquaculture research.

We can produce the babies in the hatchery, and then they can move right out here to the farm, and we can see how they grow.

♪♪ Brady: Here's the kelp that we described earlier.

So there's your... -Pellegrini: Is this wild?

Or is this something... -Brady: This is wild.

Yeah.

So it's growing on the nets right here.

Pellegrini: Oh, mussels.

Brady: Yeah.

You've got it all out here.

So there's your blue mussel.

St.

Gelais: So here's a... Pellegrini: Does this just voluntarily attach?

-Brady: Yep.

-St.

Gelais: Yep.

You can see this -- Pellegrini: Oh, wow.

St.

Gelais: Smaller ones growing on the scallop.

Brady: So that's a harvest-sized scallop.

St.

Gelais: All of these little dots are the eyes.

-Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

-St.

Gelais: So they can sense light.

-Pellegrini: What is that?

-St.

Gelais: That's the female.

Brady: So you see the red and orange inside.

Pellegrini: Do they all have that?

St.

Gelais: And then this one is a male.

They're getting ready to spawn.

Brady: When they get reproductive, yeah.

♪♪ St.

Gelais: The part on the outside with all the eyes is called the mantle.

This is the digestive gland there.

And this is what most people think of as a scallop when they see a scallop.

♪♪ -Pellegrini: Female, male.

-Brady: Yep.

Pellegrini: Look at that.

It's still sort of moving there.

St.

Gelais: These are all bright-orange eggs.

This is all sperm.

Pellegrini: I've never seen the inside in this way.

I didn't realize they had so many eyes.

St.

Gelais: I don't know how you feel about raw seafood.

This might be the best thing that you ever eat.

Pellegrini: It probably will be.

-St.

Gelais: Cheers.

-Pellegrini: Cheers.

♪♪ -Pellegrini: Wow.

-St.

Gelais: Really good.

Right?

Pellegrini: Really good.

Brady: It's really something no one can do.

Because every scallop you've ever eaten at a restaurant is flash frozen, and then you get it later.

So we're very, very lucky to -- to actually have a product, right, that most people have never eaten ever before.

Pellegrini: That's unlike any scallop I've had.

It's, like, creamy.

-St.

Gelais: Creamy and sweet.

-Pellegrini: It's sweet.

Brady: Yeah.

-Pellegrini: Really fresh.

-St.

Gelais: Yeah.

So you can see there's a lot of opportunities there to provide a product to people that they've never experienced before.

Pellegrini: Gosh, imagine if people could taste that.

It would just blow their minds.

-St.

Gelais: Yeah.

Pellegrini: The research, the farming, the wild harvest -- they all lead here to the kitchen, where ideas about sustainability turn into something you can taste and share... in the oysters from Emily's farm, the shellfish from these waters, and the wild blueberries gathered from the barrens.

Because what begins in nature doesn't end here.

It becomes the ingredients and the story we bring to the table.

We've got Emily's beautiful oysters here.

-Seaver: Aren't they beautiful?

-Pellegrini: Look at them.

Seaver: And it's a perfect oyster.

It's got a nice hinge.

And that's where you go in to open it, is right there at the hinge.

Now, how do you open an oyster?

You use the tool, the tip of it.

You wedge right into that little hinge.

And it's really about sideways motions, right?

You don't want to push.

You don't want to stab too much.

It's just about getting it in.

As soon as you pop it in, it lets you in, scrape along the top, release the adductor muscle that holds the shell closed on the top and the bottom.

And what you've got is then an oyster.

Beautiful.

We got some of these beautiful blueberries.

I've got some mint and some lime juice.

These are some of my very favorite combinations.

-Pellegrini: Okay.

-Seaver: And especially with oysters.

A little bit of lime juice actually brings out some of the beauty in oysters a little bit better than lemon.

So a few drops of that, a few blueberries just because, well, we're talking about those two, right?

And there you go.

Pellegrini: Look at that.

That is a thing of beauty.

Seaver:Sweet, aromatic, sour from the lime.

Pellegrini: Here we go.

Wow.

-Seaver: Yeah.

Cool.

-Pellegrini: That made it.

-Seaver: Awesome.

-Pellegrini: Oh, my gosh.

What else can we make with these wild blueberries?

Seaver: Watermelon salads are perfection.

And I wanted to keep it savory, though.

So we've got watermelons, blueberries.

-Pellegrini: Mm-hmm.

-Seaver: I've got some chopped peanuts that we're gonna make a furikake out of.

Furikake is a Japanese condiment, spiced powder, often made with sesame seeds that you put on top of rice.

But instead of sesame seeds, I'm gonna be using some just chopped peanuts... Pellegrini: Okay.

Seaver: ...and some of this kelp.

I'm gonna make some very thin slices of jalapeño.

Red onion is another way to keep this very savory.

Pellegrini: And I love all the texture, the crunch and the -- the bite and the sweet and the tang.

It's a true red wine vinegar.

Seaver: Unscientifically.

Just some finishing quality olive oil.

It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but that fat is really gonna carry some of those flavors and look at it.

It's also just kind of fun.

Pellegrini: Beautiful.

Little sparkle.

-Seaver: And there you go.

-Pellegrini: Beautiful.

Seaver: You know, so much in life as parents of young children, food is survival, right?

Meals are this.

And sometimes, like this poor bulb of fennel that got lost in the back of my fridge, right?

Well, I got to use it up.

And it's not great in a salad now.

So mussels it is.

Can I ask you to chop that... -Pellegrini: Yeah.

Seaver: ...while I get some other things ready?

So I'm a garlic farmer, but I just -- I love garlic.

And when it's this fresh and beautiful, use a lot of it.

Pellegrini: And a healthy amount of butter, I see.

Seaver: Yeah, I don't mind starting out with that.

And I'm also gonna use a little bit of olive oil.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Seaver: Just because I like the flavor mix here, so our liquid is gonna be some beer.

So we're gonna use this here.

And you know what else I found in my fridge was some anchovy vinaigrette left over from a salad last week, so... -Pellegrini: I love it.

Seaver: That's gonna go in here, too.

Why not?

Pellegrini: A good vinaigrette, I’m sure, would work.

Seaver: So we're just gonna put our fennel in along with the garlic.

Now, that garlic is so fresh, it doesn't really need to sauté down.

As soon as that butter is melted in the pan, we are going to add in our mussels.

So would you add in about half of those mussels please?

Pellegrini: Uh-huh.

Seaver: There we go.

Cool.

So one of the things you want to do is generally have them in about a single layer.

So here we go.

A little beer and this is a nice hoppy beer.

My favorite beer made in the whole world.

Pellegrini: Oh, that's delicious.

Really good.

Seaver: And now you and I just hang out and have some beer, right?

-Pellegrini: Hang out.

-Seaver: I've got that anchovy butter.

I'm gonna add a little bit more.

And then the anchovy vinaigrette, which is just anchovy, garlic, olive oil, a little bit of vinegar.

What else am I gonna do with this?

So here we go.

Put that top on.

That butter's gonna melt in.

Pellegrini: Okay.

Seaver: Turn the heat off.

We're done.

And then we'll finish it off with some beautiful bread.

We'll head outside and serve up to a couple of friends.

Pellegrini: Can't wait.

Man: ♪ Today break away ♪ ♪ Forget our fear of what comes after ♪ Pellegrini: Maine is what summer feels like in our imagination.

That clear northern light, the sound of wind across the barrens, salt on the air and work in every gesture.

Man: ♪ Days like these ♪ ♪ We can see the way to live out a new chapter ♪ Pellegrini: It's a place that still moves at the rhythm of the tide, where the seasons decide the pace and the people listen.

Man: ♪ Tide's coming our way ♪ ♪ As we move closer to madness ♪ Pellegrini: Here you'll find farmers and fishers, scientists and stewards, people tending to what's always sustained them and doing the work that will sustain us going forward in a way that moves in sync with nature, not against it.

Because the story of Maine isn't just about harvest or abundance, it's about balance, resilience, and the quiet hope that if we care for this place, it will keep caring for us.

Man: ♪ Times like these ♪ ♪ Come and go ♪ ♪ So let this feeling grow ♪ Man: To learn more about the topics featured on this episode, log on to GeorgiaPellegrini.com or follow along on Georgia's Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channel for weekly pioneering adventures, tips, and recipes.

"Modern Pioneering" is funded in part by wild blueberry farmers of Maine.

Wild blueberries are full of flavor and nutrients, a pop full of blueberry taste for your favorite smoothie, breakfast, or dessert.

Learn more at wildblueberries.com.

Woman: At Muir Glen, we believe that organic farming benefits consumers, farmers, and ecosystems.

Man:And made possible by... ...and many other generous donors.

A complete list is available at GeorgiaPellegrini.com.