Hunting in Nature’s Garden of Edibles

“We brought out a field guide, Chasing Soppu, in September 2022, which people could use to see which greens are foraged in Bengaluru,” says Mundoli. She became interested in urban foraging in 2013 when she began working in urban ecology: “I was studying lakes in Bengaluru. I saw women who had brought cattle to graze, collecting greens around the lakebed areas.”

In Mumbai, Sanjiv Valsan, who runs Waghoba Habitat Foundation, conducts foraging walks in the Aarey Forest. The platform aims to create an urban-tribal connect and get city-dwellers to understand sustainability, traditional ecological knowledge and conscious living. “Foraging doesn’t require fertiliser, pesticide, or deforestation to cultivate food, unlike conventional agriculture. It’s about living with the seasons, feeling their rhythm and thriving on what nature gives you,” he says.

Chef Zacharias, who has been introducing urbanites to wild edibles was mind blown when he first tasted moras bhaji, which grows in the marshes of Navi Mumbai. “Every now and then vegetables that are not cultivated make their way into the markets of Mumbai.

And that’s how I came across the moras bhaji, which is so salty that some communities, like the Gujaratis, use it to replace salt. They add it to rotis, parathas or make pakodas with it,” says the Mumbai-based Zacharias. In 2012, he launched The Locavore, a platform focussed on promoting local food and sustainability in India.He, however, believes that introducing people to urban foraging is also a double-edged sword. “Overexploitation is dangerous. If everyone starts doing it, nothing will be left. For instance, wild mushrooms in Goa were so overexploited that the tribals who used to consume it can’t have it any more,” he says.

Foraging comes with its own set of dos and don’ts. First, get to know the area and the native species so that you don’t destroy the local ecosystem. Don’t forage indiscriminately, and don’t forage in low-income areas where people could be doing it already. However, proponents of urban foraging see it not as a way to supplement diets but as a means to reconnect with nature and indigenous communities.

“Foraging is meditative. Your consciousness is not led by random thoughts as you focus your mind to look for a particular leaf or vegetable. The more you develop knowledge of foraging and spend time in the forest, the more likely you are to understand indigenous people and get motivated to conserve the forest,” smiles Valsan.

Look and ye shall find is the forager’s motto.