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- [Bun] It makes perfect sense for us
to be eating invasive species
because invasive species are a endless resource for food.
- [Announcer] This Great Big Story was made possible by UBS.
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- My name is Bun Lai,
I'm the chef at Miya's Sushi in New Haven.
33 years ago my mother started Miya's,
reimagining sushi as something
that is restorative of the environment.
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This is part of the regimen that happens every day
in the morning.
Foraging.
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One of the things that we're really focused on
is invasive species.
What if we start focusing on ingredients
that nobody else wants to eat,
that are abundant and even destructive of the environment
and by pulling them out of the environment
we'll help rebalance that habitat.
This is wild lettuce.
And we're gonna serve them with bug holes in them.
It's like Swiss cheese.
That means that they're healthy to eat
and that they're pesticide, herbicide-free.
Here's a big one.
Really can't hesitate,
you have to be fully committed to catch them.
Let's see if I am.
Gotcha!
They're a lot stronger than you think,
he's really pushing off my hand.
Yeah, we're set to go.
Let's rock and roll.
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(boat slams) Great.
These snails,
from Europe, they're called European snails,
came over stuck on ships.
- [Interviewer] I feel like you're like a big kid,
just crawling around looking under rocks.
- When I'm collecting it's always incredibly exciting.
It's very thrilling for me.
Whoa, all right.
But when I'm trying to figure out new ways
of working with an ingredient
that I've never worked with before,
or an ingredient that actually grosses me out,
I like the fact that I'm forcing myself
to confront my own prejudices.
Today we went foraging for dandelion,
amaranth,
wild lettuce,
mugwort,
butterbur,
grasshopper,
invasive European snails,
a whole bunch of Asian shore crabs,
and wakame seaweed and gracilaria seaweed.
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- [Interviewer] Are you gonna be mad if
we show the whole world that you can make gourmet sushi
just using stuff in your backyard?
- [Bun] That's what we want the whole world to do,
or consider doing, or think about doing.
And not only that, this isn't an original idea.
People have been doing this for tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of years,
way before Miya's.
- [Interviewer] And it's delicious.
- And it's absolutely delicious. And nutritious.
And great for the environment.
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