Taste of Coastal Foraging

As young as 5 years old, Alexander “Ty” Kun was transfixed by the temperate rainforests of the Sonoma Coast when he could visit his family’s property near Salt Point State Park. As a young man, he would frequent this coastline with dreams of one day making it his home.

Twelve years ago, this dream came true. After the first rains during his first fall season, he knew what he had to do: Learn everything he could about the superabundance of wild fungi endemic to this bioregion. He read books and began asking questions. It wasn’t long before he was gathering, identifying, and sampling dozens upon dozens of wild mushrooms. To say he’d become a fungophile was (and still is) an understatement.

But it wasn’t just the fungus among us that took his breath away. The truth is, Ty has always been infatuated with the splendors of nature. Much of his initial impetus to settle in Sonoma County was linked to the bounty of the Pacific Ocean. With one of the most robust fisheries in the world at his doorstep, all edible things living in and near the mighty Pacific were soon on his radar (and then on his menu). Ty became a subsistence fisherman and intertidal forager. Some say that if he is not foraging, he’s fishing, but the line between the two grows finer and finer each passing year.

Then came terrestrial plants. Ty took to this inexhaustible bounty as readily as he did the previous and for the past eight years, he’s been slowly and steadily honing his eye in the identification of all the exquisite edible (and otherwise) fauna and flora of the area.

As the years and the seasons passed, Ty has grown increasingly aware of what being a forager means in the context of subsistence living: Stewardship. The forager is one of nature’s stewards. The forager should become one with the cycles, interrelationships, and co-dependencies between all lifeforms. Foraging done properly implies a profound understanding and respect for life. As much as he knows, there is still so much to learn and any opportunity he has to share with others, he sees as an equal opportunity to learn more about his craft.

The Northern California coastline is one of the most dynamic bioregions in the world. From forest to prairie, riparian zone to intertidal zone, grassland to ocean depths, life in every manifestation abounds all around us. Ty is keen to share with others the forager ethos and cultivate stewardship of the beautiful place he calls home.