What does foraging in urban India look like?

Those unfamiliar with urban foraging may view it as the work of a few unconventional individuals, but people have been doing so since the beginning of civilisation. We look at how the practice is enjoying a resurgence today

Shruti Tharayil’s outlook on foraging changed during a walk in the forest while working with the inhabitants of a village near Narsapur in Telangana for a grassroots NGO engaged in food farming systems. “A colleague picked up purslane and cooked it later that day. I loved it. I didn’t know it was edible,” says the founder of the Instagram page Forgotten Greens (@forgottengreens). Even though her parents are from Kerala, where foraging in one’s backyard and rediscovering greens and tubers has become common across households, in Pune, where she lived earlier, Tharayil was cut off from partaking in these rituals. Now that she has moved back to Kerala with her family, they are rediscovering greens that her grandmothers and grandaunts might have foraged.

“When I cooked purslane, I was reminded by my family that the generations before me would cook it too,” she says. She soon realised that the knowledge about these greens was largely limited to academic papers, some communities, and grandmothers, who were the powerhouse of traditional wisdom. Since there was little to no source offering reliable knowledge in simple terms to familiarise the current generation with these beneficial wild plants, Tharayil started Forgotten Greens, her platform where each green is recognised for its properties and not dismissed as a weed.

How green was our diet

Foraging has the potential to improve social-ecological resilience in urban systems, especially in the face of climate change, economic disruptions and disease outbreaks. The crucial question, however, is: Are our cities suited to carry on this tradition, given that most of us are alienated from it? Sangeeta Khanna, a New Delhi-based botanist and microbiologist specialising in nutrition and finding sustainable solutions for food systems, has always advocated foraging. Over the years, however, she has found that “a variety of mind-blocks” prevent people from partaking in it. “My domestic help would take pride in saying that they do not forage in their town but buy our produce from the market. Others have an unreasonable phobia of ingesting toxins from vegetables grown in a garden but have no problem consuming instant noodles and processed foods,” she says.

Khanna believes urbanised spaces can have edible wild greens flowering that can be added to one’s daily diet. “Since one of the ways of foraging responsibly is not to uproot the entire plant but to use only the tender young leaves, one needs to consume in lesser quantities. I have often found two or three varieties of purslane, Bengal day flower, or Commelina benghalensis and oxalis in New Delhi. They aren’t meant to be consumed in large quantities like spinach,” she says.

While foraging is prevalent across the country, it is often interrupted by “supply chain management issues and economies of scale when it comes to foraging and, to some extent, on manicuring our gardens,” feels food historian and researcher Tanushree Bhowmick. She shares examples of yam greens and shapla or white water lilies. “Once commonly consumed and entirely foraged, now one has to drive to far-off markets to get them. Ole or yam greens are unavailable as they perish and affect the longevity of the vegetable being sold. Shapla, which can be foraged from any water body, now needs to be bought from the market. The same goes for colocasia leaves, which used to be exclusively foraged for earlier,” says Bhowmick.

Green cover

For Vanika Choudhary of the restaurants Sequel and Noon in Mumbai, her husband's hometown in Odisha has “a beautiful classification of greens based on where they come from, including baari saag and bila saag. While the former is cultivated in the garden, the latter grows in the fields. It is also called hida saag, where ‘hida’ refers to the divider between paddy fields," she says. Chef Rachit Keertiman from Cuttack, who documents Odia food, hyperlocal produce, and culinary heritage, also has memories of his grandmother going to the backyard or kitchen garden to get some greens, including jhumpuri saag, Indian watercress and moringa leaves. "Moringa leaves are something we often forage for, and are used in the preparation of dal. But how many people remember this so-called superfood is nothing but the leaves of the sajne dnata or drumstick?" he says. Furthermore, several kinds of amaranth grow wild, but only a few can recognise the varieties other than the red and green ones available in the markets.

"Edible greens can be found in the most unremarkable and unexpected spaces," says installation artist and sculptor Suresh Kumar G, part of the Benagluru-based artist collective Samuha. His community art project, Sarjapura Curries, which aims to revive forgotten plants and edible weeds native to Bengaluru, documents edible greens that grow wild but have never been cultivated or farmed. Like Khanna and Tharayail, he, too, leads walks on foraging, sharing that often, water bodies or parks in urban spaces like Cubbon Park in Bengaluru can be too manicured, leading to a loss of variety. However, they can still be found.

"I've found bhringaraja (an Ayurvedic herb) growing in the wild in Chandigarh, kuppaku or Indian nettle near a florist's shop in Bengaluru, and nightshade growing in Shantiniketan,” he says. Nightshade? But is it not poisonous, one would ask? "It has several medicinal properties. That it is considered poisonous is a Western concept,” says Suresh, whose favourite plants to forage for in urban spaces include joyweed and purslane. 

Beyond greens

Foraging is not just about greens, of course. Mushrooms, orchids, insects, fish or crustaceans that are not farmed or are readily available in the wild can be foraged for, too. The famed ant chutney from Mayurbhanj in Odisha, or rare orchids growing in high altitudes or morels or gucchi mushrooms are all examples of produce that is often foraged.  

At her restaurants, Choudhary presents a menu largely derived from foraged ingredients from Kashmir and Ladakh. “I remember going foraging for morels and fiddlehead ferns with my grandmother while growing up in Kashmir. We would use the ferns to make the most delicious pickle with wild mustard,” she says. Fiddlehead fern is popular across the hilly states of our country, stretching from Kashmir and Ladakh to the north-east, and nearly every state has a different way of cooking with it. Meanwhile, Kerala-based Forest Post, a brand bringing together sustainably harvested forest produce, supports six forest-dependent communities in the state. It does so by making a fern pickle with "young fern fronds gathered by the Karikkadav women, sautéed and pickled in a traditional recipe with ginger, garlic, chilli powder, rock salt and sesame oil”. 

A weed by another name

Along with the mountains, India’s vast 7,500 km of coastline boasts another source of nutrition that can be foraged but hardly ever has been. Goa-based The Good Ocean, run by marine conservationist Gabriella D’Cruz, is changing that. D’Cruz found a community of women who dived for seaweed off the coast of Tamil Nadu. But the seaweed they dived for was used solely to make gels and other low-value products and only used in two dishes, if cooked. Now, D’Cruz harvests and processes seaweed responsibly and supplies it to many restaurants across Goa and Mumbai, including Masque. “I haven’t found seaweed to be used in cuisines anywhere in India, but as a nutrient-dense, flavourful, vegan ingredient, I wish it were popularised more,” she says.

Also Read: This 40-seater café in Ladakh is a favourite among food lovers and celebrities alike

Also Read: For Chef Himanshu Saini of Michelin-starred Trèsind Studio, the definition of ‘modern Indian’ food has changed

Also Read: Is the organic food you are eating, actually organic?