Every one of your senses – taste, touch, sight, smell, hearing – is awakened on one of Manuel Larbig’s wild herb foraging tours. The biologist, forager and survival expert is on a mission to get Berliners to skip the supermarket and rediscover long-neglected native plants, showing how you can make satisfying, diverse food from ingredients growing on your doorstep – or at least Stadtgut Blankenfelde, just north of Pankow. Walking down the rural paths with Manuel and 11 fellow participants, you realize how alive even Berlin is with edible plants: garlic mustard, chickweed – even wild rocket. As a beginner, gathering food can be daunting, so it’s reassuring to know Manuel can tell tasty cow parsley from the similar but deadly poison hemlock. What follows is a delightful and varied cooking course led by wild herb cook Sabine Naumann. You notice the difference with the ingredients: these are healthy plants, with vivid, strong leaves. The soup with freshly picked goosefoot, daisies, and tangy sorrel proves you needn’t go far for good cuisine. (Text: Benji Haughton / Photos: Manuel Larbig)
Wild herb tour and cooking courses last six hours and run from April–October.
Stadtgut Blankenfelde, Hauptstr.30 13159 Berlin–Blankenfelde; map
Shorter tours are available and English tours can be booked with 8+ people.
