Urban Foraging 101

Living in a city is tough—everything is so expensive! Luckily, there’s free food hiding in plain sight. Let our six-week urban-foraging class open your eyes to the cornucopia that surrounds you!

Week 1: Workplace Pantry

You’re in a big, intimidating city, so you should find yourself a job where management tells you that your co-workers are your family. Remember, it’s a tactic to make you do more work, but use it to your advantage when it comes to the office pantry. This week, we’ll practice removing plastic cereal bags from their boxes, so that it looks like the shelf is still stocked; changing up your handwriting, so that you can request more than one person’s worth of food on the fridge whiteboard; and maximizing backpack space, so that you can bring food home.

Week 2: Workplace Fridge

Now that you’ve mastered the pantry, it’s time to level up to the fridge. We’ll practice identifying food that’s just about to go bad, so that when you take it, people will think you just cleaned out the fridge; judging which co-workers will forget that they put their lunch leftovers in the fridge; and creating meals from workplace food staples, like yogurt, string cheese, and someone’s old, forgotten Gatorade.

Week 3: Dinner with Friends

Here’s where we dip into some really advanced coursework. We’re foraging in front of non-foragers (always a gamble), and we have to be nimble and discreet. Lessons include arriving late and saying that you’ve already eaten; hyping up the appetizers, so that someone gets an order of duck-fat waffle fries for the table; complimenting friends’ orders, so that they offer a bite; and confidently saying “I actually only ordered water, but I have some change for a tip?” when the check comes.

Week 4: Trader Joe’s

Our field-work week! While free samples may seem like a walk in the park, there are more obstacles to obtaining a Dixie cup of pumpkin bisque than students realize. We’ll learn how to navigate the Trader Joe’s parking lot in under thirty minutes; maneuver carts during peak hours; identify the chillest employees who won’t protest when you take multiple samples; and memorize the schedules for when they switch from morning samples to afternoon samples.

Week 5: Non-Edibles

This week, students will learn to seek out staples that aren’t food! We’ll talk about Starbucks napkins, coffee shops with unsecured toilet paper, the thrift store that hands out free condoms, and more. Each year, I’m delighted by the innovative foraging techniques that students bring to this session. Recently, we had a student identify a local health-food store that had a first-aid kit with Band-Aids to spare in a publicly accessible bathroom. Groundbreaking!

Week 6: Class Final

Students will be invited to put their new foraging skills to the test and concoct a dish from their bounty. Past students have brought in treats including smoothies made from office yogurt, bananas from places where they were dog-sitting, and an orange that was growing on a tree that hung over the public sidewalk. Expect a feast for both the stomach and the mind.

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