Wildman Steve Brill
Steve Brill organizes foraging tours in Central Park (amongst other places in and beyond NYC). I joined a tour: 6-6-2026 Foraging tour with Wildman Steve Brill.
His website: https://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
I'm intrigued by this guy. There's a lot to him and a lot of history. I'm kind of revering the fact that I can join more of his foraging tours very easily.
- He's been doing these foraging tours for 40+ years.
- He's vegan and nutrition-oriented
- He has a published vegan cookbook called "The Wild Vegan Cookbook"
- In the introduction, he discusses, in depth, the benefits of whole foods and avoiding processed foods, aligning with my own adherence to a (mostly) Whole-Food Plant-Based Diet
- As described in the cookbook introduction, his intro to foraging was chancing to see a woman foraging in a local park in Queens, NY. I love this idea that he found it by observation and then it turned into something big for him and then he has passed it on to so many other people.
- He is anti-microwave. I wonder if his opinion on this has changed since the cookbook was published in 2010 (the vegetarian version of the cookbook was published in 2002). He says that microwaving creates potentially hazardous chemicals and he does not want to take the risk of illness. (I am going to have to disagree with this on instinct, of course, because I microwave a lot. Could be something to learn more about, though.)
- Doesn't include whole wheat flour (or seitan which is based on wheat) in his recipes because he has an allergy to wheat.
- He has a published vegan cookbook called "The Wild Vegan Cookbook"
- Early on, he was arrested by a park ranger in Central Park while he was foraging (and because of the foraging) (full story here). This attracted media attention. Eventually there was a reversal and the park system actually hired him to be an official park guide.
- His youtube channel is pretty interesting: https://www.youtube.com/@wildmanstevebrill.
- So far I've watched his ice cream recipe (reminds me of justinthetrees as I discuss in Foraged Flavors)
- He has a playlist called "The Inquiring Naturalist" which is apparently a cable TV show that he hosted in the 90s.
- He seems to be an artist - he has illustrations in his books of plants. The forward to his cookbook also mentions that he made sculptures of mushrooms.