This Is a Gardening Show

You almost can't garden alone because there's too many questions.

And if you get excited about gardening,

you're gonna want to find gardeners around you to ask, you know,

about fungus that's on your leaves or your foot.

When I lived in another place, a rural place,

my neighbors, probably politically, we would not get along.

However, we bonded over manure.

Because he had this huge pile of manure that I coveted.

His cows' manure was really, really, really something that I cherished.

I have a new show called The Manure Logs.

Puppetry for the Penis will be opening for us.

But please come see Manure Logs at the Public Theater in New York,

November 17 through 18.

It's just people talking about manure stories.

Um, do you know there used to be a guy in France, in Paris?

He was a professional farter.

Jesus.

That looks real, doesn't it?

Can this devastate my bowels?

I'm not sure. That's what we're gonna find out today.

We're going foraging.

-Hi, Juniper. - Hi.

Can we do a high five? You're gonna love this. Watch this.

-Ow! -

Ow!

Ow! Okay, have a seat.

I feel like you and I have the same hairstylist.

-Yeah. -How are you? Have a seat.

Nice to meet you. I'm Zach.

-I like your hat, by the way. -Good.

Hey, what's your name?

Lucas.

Hey, Lucas. Come on over.

So it's part of your school

that one day of a week, you just go out into the woods, correct?

Mm-hmm.

What is foraging?

I don't know.

Hmm. Are you sure you're on the right show?

Yeah.

-Do you like to forage? -Yeah.

This is my foraging outfit.

What kind of things do you forage for?

-Blackberries. - Mm-hmm.

We make tea.

What do you make tea out of?

Hawthorn berries and, um, fern tips.

Oh, yes, the fern tips.

And, um…

- -Jeez. Oh my God, Lucas. That scared me.

But I forget all the other stuff.

Yeah.

You ever find a hot dog in the forest?

No.

I hear that you guys sometimes make tea.

What do you make the tea with?

Mmm. Bark.

-Bark? Okay. Woof! -You need the bark--

Oh, you mean bark from a tree?

-Yes. -Right, okay.

What do you wanna talk about if you don't wanna talk about foraging?

-What's your favorite movie? -Um…

-Forage Gump? -I--

- -Whoa!

Um, okay. I forget what… Oh, now I remember.

One day I saw a tree actually wearing a sweater.

-You saw that in the forest school? -What is that?

-That way. -That's a lake.

Do you ever find mushrooms when you forage?

Yes.

My kids love mushrooms. Do you have children?

-Mm-hmm. -You do?

You have children?

Yes.

How many kids do you have?

I don't know. Eleven.

Well, I guess, good for you.

I mean, you look good for your age. How old are you?

Five and a half.

-How's that… -I'm almost turning six.

You're almost turning six. Okay. Then that makes sense.

-Do you know what a fungus is? -No.

Well, it's what a mushroom is.

Have you ever heard of turkey tail mushrooms?

-No. -Portobello mushroom?

-No. -Chanterelle?

-No. -The next one, just say yes, okay?

Yes.

Have you ever heard of lion's mane mushroom?

No.

Thank you. You've been really helpful.

How do you take your mushrooms?

I take my mushrooms, usually, at Burning Man.

What are the names of your 11 children?

I forget all their names.

Yeah, just like my mom.

By the way, do you know this Lucas guy?

He told me he has 11 children.

You have kids?

You do too? How many do you have?

One.

What other things in the forest do you find?

I found a bear.

A live bear?

It was a black bear.

And were you by yourself?

Yes. My mom left me in the car.

A bear sneaked up on the roof of the car.

And your mom just left you in the car. Where was she?

She was heading in to get hawthorn berries.

So the bear just hung out on the car, and you were fine with that.

Then your mom's just in the woods getting berries?

Mm-hmm.

-Lucas, you're 5 and a half. -Mm-hmm.

-And you have 11 children. -Mm-hmm.

And you have a mother that's very comfortable

with you around bears.

What a life! What a life!

Yeah.

Today we are straying away from the garden,

and we're gonna go foraging.

And I found some real French people to help us.

- - So you know it's legit.

These guys are French.

And they got us into Vietnam.

They did.

They did.

-Nice to meet you. I'm Ben. Yeah. -Ben?

-Hi. -Celia.

Celia, nice to meet you.

Uh, so you guys are foraging experts, right?

Uh, kind of, yeah.

The foraging people that I know that know how to do really good foraging,

they're French.

A lot of it is like a cultural approach.

French cuisine has been developed for a long time.

We don't even call it "foraging."

For us, it's just like one activity you do on the weekend

with your parents or grandparents.

The main question we have at farmers' market is like,

"Is this mushroom is gonna kill me?" Here in Canada.

Where in France, it's like,

"How good is this mushroom compared to this one?"

Are you telling me that you'll fill all of these?

-Yeah. -Oh yeah.

Me and Celia, two of us will pick 250 pounds a day.

-Did you say 250? -250 pounds. So I will do three trips.

You will pick my weight in mushrooms.

Oh my God. I'm so excited.

-Your backpack. -Let's go foraging. This is mine? Jesus.

And then this one.

You might have to adjust that to fat.

So this is a gardening show,

but I find foraging and gardening very related.

This is how humans used to get their food.

Yeah. But people just slowly, with farming, forgot about it.

I go to the farmers' market, selling wild blueberries.

And people are like, "They almost look like blueberries."

I say, "They're the ancestor of the blueberry."

And then people farmed them, and they got like bigger berries.

We always want to get something better, bigger, faster.

Sometimes bigger doesn't mean better.

I tell that to my wife.

They should've put you guys in charge of finding Bin Laden.

One big difference between farming and foraging

is the nutritious value of some of the plants.

For example, a wild blueberry

would have probably three or four times more antioxidants than the farmed ones.

Here we are looking at some wild blueberries.

-There. -No, I know how to use these things.