7th Annual Great Lakes Foragers Gathering

Thursday, June 23, 4:00pm – Sunday, June 26, 2:00pm at
Frog Holler Farm in the Irish Hills region of Southern Michigan

We haven’t updated the website with details for 2022 yet. Below is the info from out last Gathering.

The Great Lakes Foragers Gathering is the largest annual gathering of wild food enthusiasts in the Great Lakes region. You can look forward to a variety of classes and workshops covering foraging, cooking with wild foods, and other traditional skills. Plus you will have the opportunity to sample amazing wild food dishes at every meal. And, of course, we will continue our tradition of creating great memories, making new friends, and building a strong community.

Agenda:
There will be edible and medicinal plant and mushroom walks, and classes on a wide range of topics including cooking with with foods, herbal medicine, plant and mushrooms ID, wilderness skills, and much more. And this year we are adding kids classes to our agenda! But this event is much more than just walks and classes. This is a community. So we will also have group foraging, a barter, a potluck, a wild foods cooking contest, open mic, and group projects. We encourage everyone to participate in any or all of these. So bring your foraging basket, stuff to trade, a cooking contest entry, and your talent for open mic. We are still working on out line-up. Full schedule, class descriptions, and instructor bios will be available in the spring.

Food: To keep costs low, we do not hire anyone to cook for us. Instead, we provide the staple ingredients for breakfasts and dinners. We then forage and prep the meals in groups. All participants are invited (and expected) to take part in the foraging and cooking. We will do our best to provide a varied menu throughout the weekend, however if you are on a limited diet or are a picky eater, you may want to bring some of your own food. Just in case.

Camping: The field can accomodate just about anything, even the biggest, fanciest glampers. Or, if you prefer, you can sleep on the grass by the campfire. Or anything in between. (Note:This is not a campground, it’s a farm field. It will be fairly primitive. We will have a place for charging phones and port-a johns. There is no electricity or dump station for RVs. There is a single shower in case someone gets into poison ivy or something. And a pond we can swim in to rinse off.)

Costs: These are our the early bird prices. All prices will increase by 10% on May 1.

Weekend Pass: All event activities and group meals, plus a place to hang a hammock, pitch a tent, or park your camper, $150 individual (14 and over), $250 couple, $50 kids ages 4-14 (kids under 4 are free), $325 family (2 adults plus kids ages 4-14).

Day pass- includes group meals, $50 per day per person (over age 4).

Come spend the weekend enjoying great food, meeting new friends, and learning about foraging and traditional skills.  Register here.

What to Bring: You will need to provide your own sleeping arrangements, a place setting for meals, and your own seating. Also, if you have a folding table and/or large cast iron cookware, these things are always helpful. Other things you may want to bring include:

• Barter Items- Bring what you have too much of and trade it for something you need…foraged food items, stuff from your garden, homemade baked goods or canned goods, medicinals, soaps, crafts, extra canning jars you don’t need, hand tools you don’t use…
• Open Mic Stuff- We will have an open mic/show and tell for anyone who wants to participate. Bring that hide you tanned or that scarf you knitted that you are so proud of. Or bring your guitar. Or your fiddle. Or sing for us. Or dance for us. Or tell jokes, do ventriliquism, jugglee… It doesn’t matter what you show off, and it doesn’t matter if it’s particularly good. What matters is the community that forms when people share their talents.
• Food: Please bring one or more of the following
  • Wild Foods Cooking Contest and/or Wild Beverage Contest Entry- To enter, you just need to make something with at least 1 foraged ingredient. (That’s right. Weed the purslane out of your garden and cover it in ranch, put a bunch of wild berries in a bowl, or bring a gallon of sumac lemonade.) If you want to enter the contest, plan to have your dish ready for sampling at lunchtime on Friday. Refrigeration, cookfires, electricity, oven and stove are available this year. So bring on your best dishes! There will, of course, be prizes for the top entries.
  • A food Item for the cooking classes and group meals- One of the things we will be teaching all weekend is how to prepare foraged foods. The real key to foraged meals is that you take whatever you find in the woods and combine it with whatever you can scrounge up out of the pantry. We ask anyone who doesn’t bring a Cooking or Beverage Contest Entry to please contribute to our pantry. It shouldn’t be big. A couple of apples, a bottle of ketchup, 1/2 a gallon of milk…whatever. Also, if you have a garden or any produce in your kitchen than won’t last through the weekend, bring it with you. You will be surprised what we can do with your contributions, and the more we have to work with the more amazing our meals can be.