My name is Pascal Baudar.
I do research on the culinary use
of what you can find in nature,
like insects for example.
Speaking of insects:
So today we are going to
do some interesting experiments in wild flavor.
So let’s go get some stuff and see what we can find.
This is the eucalyptus, and when they introduced eucalyptus in California,
with it came little flies.
And that little fly actually deposited eggs on leaves.
So I take them home and I dehydrate them in the sun.
And then you end up with something that is called lerp sugar.
Flavor profile: Rice Krispie.
Mmm.
So if you take a look at the tree,
you’ll notice that they are completely loaded with ants.
There’s actually a little white butt,
and that will tell me those are the ones that taste like lemon.
They’re actually biting me right now.
Right there we have sugar and we have lemon.
Amazing.
Nature is just amazing like that.
This location we actually can find crickets, they usually come out at night.
They’re not easy to forage, you know.
If I find like three or four in the wild
then I take them home and actually breed them.
So I actually feed them with wild food and also some regular food, like carrots and stuff.
On y va.
Let’s get some food.
OK, so these are the insects that we are going to be eating today.
The insects are actually fermented in kimchi.
Then I dry them in the sun and they end up
tasting like a crunchy, little piece of kimchi.
Think of it as a crunchy Cheeto.
This is sauerkraut.
It’s cabbage with wild radish pod, mustard seeds
and then Mediterranean mustard all mixed together.
Then you sprinkle your little friends right here.
There you go, that’s it.
So this is our little grasshopper taco.
Yerba Santa, California sagebrush, we’ve got mugwort,
we’ve got black sage, grass.
You can use lemon too.
And then you put all your grass and you put
those pears right there in the center.
So this is my solar oven.
That’s a neat way to actually cook in nature.
Let’s take a look inside and you can see, wow.
Those are my pears.
So beautiful, ow!
I have something called mountain syrup and then inside,
I put a lot of our lemony ants.
There you go, your little ants on top.
And then you put your lerp sugar and voilà.
OK, on y va!
So this is fermented cheese, but cheese actually made of cashew, acorn and pinon pine nuts.
Then you put your salad right there in the center.
Put a little bit of pinon pine nuts, and those are also walnuts.
Then I put some of my homemade vinegar.
All insects are basically just a balance.
It’s crispy, it’s crunchy, nutty.
So that’s it, that’s our salad right there.
We’re going to have a feast.
So we are going to do a dish based on the cheese,
and we’re going to create ashes like it was a forest on fire.
Take a look at this.
So it’s basically a lot of local plants, and then guess what?
We’re going to be putting a local caterpillar in it.
Just one or two.
And maybe one or two of the local crickets too.
And I collected a bunch of twigs, so we’re going to create the forest right here.
Then we take our powder and voilà, forest on fire.
All that’s left is ashes.
Yum!
Look at this color, it’s beautiful.
I love it.
My little friends.
Mmm mmm mmm.
Mmm, I love it.