Guiding Us Closer to Nature – and Gastronomy

A multifunctional guide broadens our understanding of both nature and gastronomy by making foraging accessible and meaningful to children and adults alike.

Unknown to most of us, edible nature is on our doorstep. And there is so much more to it than food alone. The mission of the national foraging project VILD MAD (Danish for wild food) is to teach both children and adults about the edible plants that grow in the wild – including urban areas – bringing us all closer to nature and the ingredients fundamental to Danish gastronomy.

VILD MAD works threefold: it is an app that guides users through nature’s pantry; a website with an online room for schoolteachers and; a series of outdoor events with nature guides. In this way, it provides a springboard to learning and innovation, and to being part of a community and local engagement.

VILD MAD invites us all to leave our homes and engage with edible nature by providing guidance to differing landscapes and their manifold edible floras

Demystifying edible nature

VILD MAD facilitates knowledge of biology and nature in the context of food. Seeking to demystify foraging as something only for professional gastronomes, it invites us all to leave our homes and engage with edible nature by providing guidance to differing landscapes and their manifold edible floras.

The VILD MAD project began in 2015 and has been developed in close cooperation with MAD – a global network of chefs and food professionals that began with Restaurant Noma – and a series of organisations that promote nature and raise awareness of wild raw materials.