About Take Two®

Airs Weekdays 9 to 10 a.m.

Join Take Two each weekday at 9 AM where we’ll translate the day’s headlines for Southern California, making sense of the news and cultural events that people are talking about. Find us on 89.3 KPCC, hosted by A Martinez.

Pascal Baudard inspects a wild fig tree. Even when not bearing ripe figs, you can use the fig leaves to wrap food and cook it. Mia Wasilevich prepared a nectarine cooked in wild fig leaves.
Meghan McCarty
Professional forager Pascal Baudard gathers with a class at the Hahamonga Watershed Park in La Cañada.
Meghan McCarty
Chef Mia Wasilevich prepared a watercress gazpacho using wild foraged ingredients highlighted in Pascal Baudard's class.
Meghan McCarty
Elder flowers like these can be used to flavor a cordial simple syrup which can be used in ice creams and other desserts. The rest of the plant, however, is poisonous.
Meghan McCarty
Pascal Baudard shows off a wild currant. These ones are not yet ripe because they are in the shade.
Meghan McCarty
Mugwort is related to wormwood, which is used to make Absinthe. Pascal Baudard likes to make a fermented beer with it.
Meghan McCarty
The aromatic white sage is plentiful in Southern California. Pascal Baudard says to dehydrate it and use sparingly because it is much more potent than store-bought sage.
Meghan McCatry

Instead of rushing off to the market, have you ever thought about the food growing all around you? Producer Meghan McCarty set out on a foraging expedition to find out which edible plants (and creatures) may be found right in our backyards.

Mugwort, hemlock and deadly nightshade sound like the ingredients for one of Harry Potter’s spells, but they’re actually all plants that grow wild right here in Southern California.

“Southern California is loaded with edible plants at every time of the year. So it’s like a real playground for flavors,” said Pascal Baudard, an expert at seeking out those flavors.

He’s a professional forager — he actually makes a living at it — collecting wild ingredients for L.A. chefs like Ludo Lefebvre and Michael Voltaggio. He also guides occasional classes on foraging in the L.A. area.

Baudard is no survivalist chomping on dried out twigs and berries. He’s actually quite the gourmet. He‘s teamed up with his partner, chef Mia Wasilevich, to put together a sophisticated menu of dishes to showcase the edibles we find while out collecting.

But before we eat, we’ve got to work up an appetite. So we head down the trail to look for food. We barely travel 100 feet before Baudard is off in the bushes, plucking off leaves and bending the boughs of trees to inspect their bounty.

“Those are wild cherries, and how do I find out if it is wild cherries? I’m gonna take the leaves and smell it. If it smells like almond, I know there is cyanide in the leaves.”

It seems every plant we pass has some culinary application, from white sage to elderflowers, to the storied deadly nightshade, which incidentally is not all that deadly

“It tastes like wild tomato … once it turns black,” says Baudard. “Like this, completely green it is poisonous … what do I do with it? I make spaghetti sauce”

It’s not just plants you can forage a meal from. Baudard clues us in on a special ingredient that is usually unwelcome at the dinner table: Ants.

“Did you know that we have 240 different species of ants? Some of them have floral quality to them some of them taste like lemon,” said Baudard.

But before you head for the hills and start stuffing your face with every insect and shrub you see, you should beware that nature can also be cruel.

“This is poison hemlock the most deadly plant in California,” said Baudard. “How much will kill you? A mouthful will kill you, maybe half a mouthful.”

After that sobering lesson it’s time to wind our way back to the picnic table for lunch, where Wasilevich has prepared quite a spread.

“So what we have today we have some little empanadas, or hand pies, that I made with some wild spinach, and a little bit of onion and garlic,” said Wasilevich. “Then we have some little roasted potatoes that we use our foothills spice blend. Over there is a watercress gazpacho and it has habanero salt. It’s survival food, fancy survival food.”