BRATTLEBORO-Local children's book author and TEDx speaker, Melany Kahn, will partner with the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) to host "Forage to Feast," a mushroom-foraging expedition and meal on Saturday, Oct. 5, at 3 p.m.
Participants will join Kahn for a gentle hike into the woods near her West Chesterfield, New Hampshire, home to search for chanterelles, black trumpets, and other wild mushrooms abundant in New England every autumn. After the foray, participants will enjoy an outdoor meal of handmade pizza topped with the freshly foraged mushrooms, accompanied by complimentary beer, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages.
A second-generation mushroom forager, Kahn has hunted for mushrooms her entire life, learning alongside her parents, the late artists Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason. "I don't remember ever not foraging," Kahn says.
Since 2002, she has traveled around the country to lead school groups, mushroom clubs, and nature center audiences on woodland walks to identify, gather, and taste edible mushrooms. She was a speaker at the inaugural MIT and TEDxBoston Planetary Stewardship event in 2022, discussing the importance of foraging as a way to reconnect to nature.
She penned Mason Goes Mushrooming (named after one of her children) out of scarcity, after searching in vain for a book about mushrooms to read to kids. Even though her own children were grown, she was meeting hundreds of kids every year through her mushroom education programs in schools.
Children are especially skilled at foraging, she says. "They're smaller and closer to the ground, and for them, it's like a treasure hunt, like they're looking for Easter eggs or shells on a beach."
The BMAC event will include about 45 minutes of nonstrenuous walking and foraging, followed by a discussion with Kahn around a mushroom identification table featuring specimens found by participants and others supplied by Slipstream Farm of Newfane. Kahn advises the mushroom-ambivalent to have an open mind.
"There's always someone in the group who doesn't like mushrooms," she says. "But then they try the pizza, or a crispy chanterelle with butter and salt, and they say, 'This tastes like bacon!'"
All ages are welcome to the event, which will take place rain or shine. No foraging experience is required.
Admission to the event is $60, $50 for BMAC members, and $30 for children 13 and under. In addition to the guided foray and the meal, the fee includes a personally inscribed copy of Mason Goes Mushrooming, Kahn's award-winning 2022 children's book.
Space is limited, and advance registration is required. Register via brattleboromuseum.org or 802-257-0124, ext. 101. Directions to the event will be provided upon registration.
This Arts item was submitted to The Commons.