It could be the last year for an annual event that celebrates the harvesting and consumption of wild foods.
The sixth annual Wild Foods Festival and Earth Day Celebration takes place Saturday (April 23) at Bowen Park. The free one-day event, which is organized by the Nanaimo and Area Land Trust, features wild food sampling, a walk and identification class, five local food vendors and a craft market.
But after six “wildly successful” festivals, the event may be in jeopardy next year due to a lack of available chefs specializing in wild foods, according to Gail Adrienne, land trust executive director and festival organizer.
“This may well be the last year, unless we turn a corner and develop this in another way because we aren’t getting the chefs and vendors that we need,” Adrienne said. “They’re busy and they have taken this idea and are busy with it.”
The first Wild Foods Festival was held in 2009 as a way to educate the public about the harvesting potential of wild foods, such as dandelions and violets.
“Our plant nursery will be there selling wild foods,” she said. “People can take them home and plant them in their own garden and start harvesting them in their own yard.”
Adrienne said the vast majority of people didn’t know much or anything about the value of wild foods when the festival was first held. In recent years, the use of wild foods, such as miner’s lettuce, which can be used for pizza garnishes and in salads, has become more popular with chefs.
“People have been tasting these [wild foods] at our event for five years and they are going home and buying them from vendors or growing them themselves,” Adrienne said.
She said the festival was once a unique event, but as wild foods have become popular, so have the number of events and festivals.
“We are a victim of our own success,” Adrienne said. “What we always hoped would happen, appears to be happening ... there is more demand and more markets opening, so they don’t need to come to ours,” Adrienne said.
The Wild Foods Festivals takes place from 11 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. For more information, please visit www.nalt.bc.ca.