This New App From Noma's René Redzepi Helps You Forage for Wild Food

Ever been on a bushwalk or beach stroll and and wondered if you can eat that shrub or flower? Maybe it was a pepperberry or some type of edible beach succulent — but who really knows. Well, now you can now go foraging for wild food more easily than ever, thanks to a new app developed by René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of Noma. He made the announcement yesterday at World's 50 Restaurants 15th anniversary talks event in Barcelona.

The app, which is called VILD MAD (meaning 'wild food' in Danish), shows you what edibles are nearby according to landscape. There are also instructions (in both Danish and English) on how to eat and cook them, including a few recipes. Plus, you can record your foraging adventures and keep notes on what you find. Redzepi is perhaps the most famous champion of native foods, and, as well as cooking with them at his Copenhagen restaurant, he made the most of Australia's native ingredients when Noma popped up in Sydney in 2016.

"Knowing your ABCs in nature, the flora and the fauna, the patterns in the landscape, and the rhythms in the seasons is as important, we believe, as learning math, learning to read, learning to write — especially today when people think cacao milk comes from brown cows," Redzepi said at the 50 Best Talk, as reported by Eater.

The app is just one part of a bigger initiative led by the Danish chef. Along with lots of useful resources on his MAD website, Redzepi is also leading some serious foraging education opportunities, including workshops to be delivered all over Denmark by park rangers and a curriculum for Danish school kids. His aim? To get people to pick food from nature like they do from supermarket shelves.

While a lot of the content is specific to Denmark, anyone can download VILD MAD for free at the App Store or Google Play and identify some ingredients. While we'd love an Australian and New Zealand app like this to be developed, in the meantime, you can get acquainted with Australian native foods and which restaurants use them over here.

Via Eater.