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Diego Bonetto -The Philosophy of Foraging
38 Plays3 years ago
Diego Bonetto, or otherwise known as theweedyone online is Australia's best known foraging expert having lead foraging workshops for more that 20 years. Diego and host Mykal chat about childhood farm life, fostering ecological empathy, the philosophy of foraging and his forthcoming book 'Eat Weeds: A field guide to foraging'
CLICK HERE FOR PATREON
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Episode Links:
www.diegobonetto.com
Eat Weeds - Diego's Book
Instagram @theweedyone
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Mykal's Links:
Instagram - @mykalhoare
Facebook - @mykalhoare
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Growing Media Links:
Instagram - @Growingmediaaus
Facebook - @Growingmediaaus
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Transcript
Introduction and Support
00:00:03
Speaker
Growing Media is a proudly independent podcast produced by me, Michael Hall, with zero corporate or network interference in our content. But this means we are running on the smell of an oily rag over here. So if you like the show and would like to make a small contribution, you could head over to our Patreon. You can find the link in our show notes.
00:00:28
Speaker
The producers of growing media recognise the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is recorded and pay respects to Aboriginal elders past, present and those emerging.
Running a New Shop
00:00:43
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Growing Media. I'm your host Michael Haw and thanks for joining me. I cannot believe that it is the middle of April. I just can't, it's been the craziest two months running my new shop, Bring The Jungle. Thank you so much to everyone who has messaged me about the shop and gave me a few congratulations and all of that stuff. Keep them coming, well not the congratulations, but just keep the communication open. I love hearing from you guys and I'm really enjoying the little community that we
00:01:12
Speaker
fostering here. The
Introducing Diego Bonetto
00:01:15
Speaker
reason I'm mentioning that it is late April is because we are in the heart of foraging season and I myself have even been out doing a little bit of mushroom hunting with some varied success but I thought what better a guest than a man whose entire life's work is about educating people about foraging and the benefits of the plants around us that most people are calling weeds.
00:01:39
Speaker
Diego Benetto, otherwise known as the weedy one online, is Australia's foremost forager. He has been featured on Gardening Australia in Marie Claire. The list really goes on and he's actually got a book of his own coming out on the 31st of May this year. It's called Eat Weeds, a field guide to foraging.
Diego's Early Life on a Dairy Farm
00:02:02
Speaker
Hey Diego, how you doing?
00:02:04
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Thank you for having me, Michael. Thank you so much for being here. Before we dive too much into your fantastic career and your passion for foraging, tell us about your childhood, where you grew up. I have an accent, as you can tell, straight away. I can tell. I grew up overseas. I grew up in Italy, in northern Italy, in a dairy farm at the foothill of the mountains in northern Italy.
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I grew up, grew up in a dairy farm with animals, we had all sorts of things. We had our main income was cows, dairy cows, so milking the cows and provide the milk to the local cop. But we also had pigs, we had rabbits, we had chickens, we had goats, we had
00:02:54
Speaker
cool seas dogs and cats you cannot count all of that. A classic farm with lots of dependencies so we had in terms of well we grew we grew all of the feed for the cows but also we had an extensive vegetable garden a small orchards and yeah and we also
00:03:25
Speaker
gathered a whole number of wild ingredients from the nearby fields and forests. As it always happened, since forever, I was just a continuum of engagement with resources that has always happened in my
00:03:41
Speaker
part of the world. I grew up in a language which is not Italian, Piedmontese. So I grew up in a very, you know, insular culture or the foothill of the mountains, northeast Italy, Piedmont. And yeah, so that my family arch back to before records in those area.
00:04:06
Speaker
Wow. So I actually have a small connection to that area as well. My nephews have the name Benetti.
00:04:14
Speaker
Um, so they're actually far, I'm not exactly sure where, but they, um, their family, they've traced back through ancestry.com back to that location. And they came over to Australia in the forties, uh, to far north Queensland. Um, and, uh, after their village burnt down, apparently that's the story that we've all been told. Um, but, but it's interesting that your last names are fairly similar. Oh, except for an O and it's an I for them. But, um,
00:04:40
Speaker
Absolutely. There is how they say in my side of the world, in language means Bonetto, Beretta, and Capello, the classic MMT surname. So, you know, you can trace back where you're from by knowing your surname, that kind of ancestral culture.
00:05:03
Speaker
Interesting. Interesting. So obviously back to your back to the farm there. I imagine there was a lot of you kids that would all kind of take care of all the animals and, and would go foraging and how many siblings do you have? I have four sisters and, um, yeah, so it's not, nothing as romantic as you would like it to be. You know, when you grow in a farm, you, um,
00:05:32
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You don't approach the looking after and caring for animals and caring for the orchards from a point of view of amazing childhood and things like that. You just approach it as jobs to do. You start really early.
00:05:49
Speaker
chores. You start very early, there is no, you know, there's no thresholds, you know, how young you need to be to work. As soon as you can walk, the least task that you can do. Go and collect the eggs, that's the job of the kids. Going and tie up the tomatoes, that's the job of the kids. Go and make sure the goats don't run away, that's the job of the kids.
00:06:15
Speaker
And when you grow older you have more physical capabilities you get harder and harder jobs But yeah, so that's how I grew up and going collect the wall things. That's the job or the kids you just get taught and Off you go basking hands get out of my hair come back with food So that's how it happens So how did you end up in Australia?
Moving to Australia
00:06:41
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Because I
00:06:44
Speaker
I wanted to leave the farm several times. It's not a great prospect to set yourself up to work 365 days a year, twice a day. You've got to be there for the animals. So as a young teenager, I was looking at my mates and was going, what the heck, get me out of here.
00:07:05
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And so I did. I left the farm several times and by the time I was mid-20s I just left for good. And I found myself in Australia.
00:07:20
Speaker
So you moved to Australia in the 90s. Now that world is vastly different than Northern Italy. I always find it interesting when people have such a strong connection to our country or to Australia, but they do come from overseas. How did you find the adjustment between Northern Italy and Australia?
Cultivating Ecological Empathy
00:07:40
Speaker
If by that you mean understanding and caring for land, that's way more ancient. That's something that you acquire and you cultivate. It's ecological empathy. It's something that you can cultivate wherever you are, even in your apartment. So the fact that
00:08:09
Speaker
Some people grew up overseas, come over here and do deeply careful ecology, it's just a matter of how they learn to grow an understanding of how land works and how important is us as humans to understand processes and care for them.
00:08:33
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So that's how I shrink it down. I do not know if I answered your question there, but that's probably how in the area that you want to dig into how much ecological empathy
00:08:48
Speaker
Someone does have what i'm hearing from you there is that it doesn't matter where you come from if you've got that ecological empathy you'll have it here there or anywhere across the world absolutely you can see nature you can read nature you can understand processes
00:09:07
Speaker
So and then from there after you learn all of the immunity like you know the different species the different families but at the end of the day it's becoming aware or how to connect to place and that's a skill that you can build anywhere. Yes and then translate to anywhere I suppose. And then translate anywhere absolutely.
00:09:29
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We all live in cities, as you mentioned before, you can cultivate that within an apartment, within the local environment around you. But I do think that we in Australia, particularly maybe Western society, a lot of us do have a disconnect from the natural world. Do you think there's a longing to get back into the bush, to get back to a more basic existence or lifestyle, or at least to drag some of those older techniques into our modern day?
00:09:57
Speaker
Yes, so I feel I need to just point out that this is a trend that's happening all over the world. It's not only Australia. We are urbanizing all over the world. The countries and the fields are getting abandoned all over the world for
00:10:18
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looking for better life prospects and better job economical prospects in cities and urban situations. This connection that is created by the fact that we abandon our point of reference when we leave the country
00:10:40
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And when we come into an urban environment, we do not know how to find the nature around us is vastly reduced and controlled. So it's not the one nature that you would expect.
00:10:59
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in any country, areas all around the world, including Australia. So, you know, this less nature is less wild and we do not know how to find a way to connect to it because nature is less powerful in a way to enforce that connection and guide
00:11:22
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us through that connection. So yes, the whole world, urban world, come to cities to find economic betterment and find themselves trading in ecological connection.
00:11:41
Speaker
that is true and as you carry on as you better set with your economic reality you find your place you can pay your rent or even buy yourself a house you got a good jobs and then you look back and you see wow i miss the sea i miss running in the fields i miss having a dog i miss looking after chickens and growing my own food
00:12:08
Speaker
So these things are just after thoughts which by now they become very loud signals of disconnected humanities.
Reconnecting with Nature
00:12:24
Speaker
I suppose you've almost found a niche in a way of being able to reconnect people within urban or peri-urban areas through social media, through your media work. You have a unique ability to be able to help people reconnect with plants. Often those plants are weeds or what we consider weeds. How have you been able to cultivate that sense of imagination in people?
00:12:52
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What I do the most, I take people out for walks. So yes, I work. I'm very active in social media. I've been writing blogs for 20 years. And I've been dispersing and sharing knowledge about ecological connection.
00:13:13
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um but probably the most important the most uh what i'm mostly respected for is actually taking out people for a walk and show people that wherever you are even in a car park nature is there nature and the possibility to connect with nature is there so um that's how i
00:13:41
Speaker
hook people imaginations and drag them into my world of abundance. I hook people by pointing my finger on the floor and tell them you can eat that, that superior medicine, that your grandmother would love to have, you know, so I connect people with ancient stories of how we relate to land and the species that live around us.
00:14:12
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And I do that anyway. And that sparks people's imagination, really open up people's eyes. A common comment that I get from people coming to my workshop is, wow, Diego, I will never be able to look
00:14:34
Speaker
at my daily walk with the same eyes. You change the way I see my footpath, I see my garden, I see my park, I see my walk to work routine. Effectively, I give back the eyes that three generations ago everyone had. The eyes that enabled since forever
00:15:02
Speaker
Evolutionary, since we were fishes, we learned to harvest produce from the environment around us. So from there, we'll be able to evolve to what we are today, thanks to all of the produce that we'll be able to harvest and harness energy from. We are made of what we ate.
00:15:31
Speaker
all the way back to deep time and those things we ate are still with us today so it's our chance to connect to an ancient self is our chance to connect to the human animal is our chance to connect to
00:15:48
Speaker
a time through genetic memory when we were empowered in place and satisfied by the abundance in front of our eyes. And that is so enticing, empowering, romantic in a way, but above all, it's a good story.
00:16:17
Speaker
It's a good story and people really see the value of bringing back those good stories in their daily skills. Absolutely. And just changing foot a little bit and more into the foraging side of things, how important is it to be eating seasonally?
00:16:36
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Have we lost, we've obviously lost the capacity too. We're not the capacity, we've not lost the capacity. You're showing everyone that there is the capacity to eat seasonally. But how important do you think it is to our bodies to be eating what the land provides for us at that very time? It's extremely important, it's ancient, it's the way things always been. So when it comes to porridging, it's enforced.
00:17:04
Speaker
you will not find mulberries in the middle of winter. Have you ever collected mulberries, Michael? I actually have, yeah. There you have it. You have forager yourself. Mulberries is a great teacher in Australia.
Seasonal Eating and Foraging
00:17:21
Speaker
It's very common that kids, at some point in this cruel reality, someone told them you can eat that,
00:17:31
Speaker
And the day after they walk around and map all of the neighborhood to find the best trees. So those mulberries tall house.
00:17:40
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location, mapping of resources, seasonal abundance, and waiting for seasons. Because once you know when the mulberry are, when the tree is, you walk by that tree at least seven, ten, twenty times before the mulberries are ready. So when the mulberries are ready, so are you ready to enjoy the sweet treats that the mulberry offer. So
00:18:09
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that following season is enforced foraging because foraging does not, plants do not produce according to enforce decision like you would have in a garden, in a market garden, agriculture systems. Plants produce according to their own ecological cycle.
00:18:33
Speaker
say, um, why is it important to follow these cycles? Because modern nutrition, I'd say is at the most hundred, 150 years old. Okay. Before, uh, actually even less. The fridge is 80 years old for the forties. There wasn't many people with the fridge.
00:19:02
Speaker
I don't know where you come from, but only people with money had fridges. Before the fridge, people ate seasonal, and if there was an abundance, they preserved the seasonal abundance. And that's how cooking came to be, by processing produce that needed processing to be digested, and by preserving food that need to be stored for when it was not available.
00:19:33
Speaker
How important is to be seasonal? It was key to our evolution up to eight years ago. How important do you think it is? If someone feels the urge to get back into that seasonal eating, how would you advise to best do it? The best thing to do, if you're interested in taking advantage, depends where you live. It depends on your possibilities.
00:20:03
Speaker
If you have a garden, the best things you can do is start to put names to the things growing in your garden. You have plenty of edible weeds that you pull out and discard without even knowing their names, live along their debility or properties. So if you have a garden, engage with the abundance provided to you. If you do not have a garden,
00:20:34
Speaker
going, engage with abundance of friends, farms, and possibilities, you know, just engage with the environments that you have access to. Beyond that, join your Bush Regeneration crew.
00:20:48
Speaker
There is people who look after public resources every Saturday morning, they gather together, they have tea and coffee, they share a few jokes and pull out weeds. And the vast majority is the things they pull out, the edible or medicinal or even both.
00:21:07
Speaker
So you're interested in engaging with seasonal abundance and seasonal wild foods, join your Bush region crew, you look after native ecologies, which is extremely important in this country, we made the mess of it.
Foraging and Bush Regeneration
00:21:24
Speaker
So look after local ecologies, pull out edible weeds in the process and you fill up your fridge with it. Does it explain?
00:21:33
Speaker
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. That, that does bring me to my next question. You know, often the foods you're foraging are weeds, hence the weedy one. Do you think that foraging can play a massive role in, um, you know, bush regeneration and weed management as a whole? Yes, it does. There's a lot, I know plenty of Bush region people that everyone then they come home with a snack or two. So, uh, it is okay.
00:22:02
Speaker
Let's look at this question from a wider point. So ecological restoration is our attempt as humans to contain the damage we've done to this continent. Australia will not go back to pre-1788. Take it out of your mind. We're not going to garden Australia to pre-colonization levels because we changed a lot.
00:22:31
Speaker
We have the whole agricultural system is based on exotics and the damage of environment, the mining, the sprawling suburb, deforestation and so forth. We're doing massive damage to this land.
00:22:47
Speaker
So weeds, hold them all you want. Many of them are exotics, but there's also many natives that become opportunistic species in damaged environments. They are just that, opportunistic species that colonize damaged environments to do the process that they know how to do best, heal the land. Now,
00:23:16
Speaker
Some people disagree on that, but that's not for this moment. Regardless, when there is a high impact of exotic species, that means the land is being severely damaged. So the issue is not the exotic species, the issue is before that. How is that damage being created?
00:23:40
Speaker
So stop damaging the land and double stop creating new ecologies, as many biologists call them, new ecologies, anthropocene, the ecologies that we're creating as humans. Now, I teach weeds foraging because as a forager, I've been doing this for decades, as a forager,
00:24:10
Speaker
I take full responsibility of what I teach to people. I never teach plants that are endangered
00:24:23
Speaker
unique in particular sensitive bio-systems and so forth. The only plants I teach people to harvest are the ones that come in abundance. They can take their attention, okay? So the vast majority of them are weeds.
00:24:42
Speaker
So when people come to me and want to say, oh, what should I forage? Join your Bush region crew and eat weeds. You're not eating fast enough. So what's your favorite food to find?
00:24:55
Speaker
or it depends in season, at the moment mushrooms, plenty of mushrooms at the moment because of the massive rain we had in the past couple of years and particularly in the past couple of months. So mushroom at the moment, fine mushrooms specifically. And when there is that, there's plenty of wild olives around. At the moment, I mean Sydney, there's lots of African olives and they are excellent.
00:25:23
Speaker
and what else is autumn so we just finished the apples and the plum season so there's mushrooms there's olives there's fennel and there's the figs and then after that we wait for spring
00:25:43
Speaker
All those sound lovely. So you're big on foraging where you know. What does that mean? And what if you just don't know your environment? Then you slow down. So one of the big things that we talk a lot in the foraging community is slow foraging.
00:26:05
Speaker
um slow down if you do not do not know where you are slow down if you do not know if the price is being sprayed or not slow down if you're not confident in identification and you're still making mistakes slow down so once upon a time we used to walk with our uncle and aunties and
00:26:30
Speaker
They will point the finger on the floor and tell, you know, wait for this. This is good. That's totally awful. You know, so they take you around, walk you around and pass on the knowledge as it always happened. This passing on of knowledge as you learn and taste and touch and smell.
00:26:51
Speaker
And these days our uncle and aunties are too busy with superannuation. So yeah, missed the chance. They called generational gap. And so you kind of have to just get surrogate uncle and auntie and uncles like podcasts, like this ones, like internet, like online courses, books, and so forth. All of that is good. Uncle Diego.
00:27:22
Speaker
Uncle Diego, rent an apple. And so all of this is good, but please just be aware that you need to take it easy, slow down, make sure what you're doing, make sure you have confidence with your identification, make sure you know where you're harvesting from.
00:27:44
Speaker
particularly if you would like to make a big pie of the plants you're growing, you're eating, I think you should know before what actually is growing. So take the guesswork out of what you're foraging, make sure you're 100% positive on what that species is.
00:28:03
Speaker
people have this misunderstanding of forage mistaking it with this kind of popular TV show at the moment about survivalist kills when people get parachuted in the desert island and you know and they're trying to double guess what they can eat or not that's
00:28:23
Speaker
and that's problematic in so many ways in my I might say you know just it's a it's a paradigms that foster engaging with nature from a colonial point of view total as a foreign organisms not knowing anything away you stepping so you should
00:28:45
Speaker
approach foraging from the old stories of your grandmothers like if your grandmothers went foraging she would have gone
00:28:59
Speaker
around the block not very far to the tree that she always been foraging knowing exactly who else forage from that tree and exchanging recipe with the other people that's the foraging you want to do a foraging that comes out of edible cities of an environment where all around us is transformed from park golf courses food paths to
00:29:28
Speaker
nature, ecologies, and our way as humans to look after our environment so that there is more than just one services to be fulfilled. There's also the issue of
00:29:47
Speaker
People becoming enamored with foraging and taking that survivalist mentality and kind of rampaging through bushes. And I know you've said that you don't teach people to, you know, go into, you know, national parks or protected ecological zones. Absolutely not.
00:30:05
Speaker
Is there some sort of limit that, I don't know, government should put on or is there some way that we should be stopping people from doing that kind of rampage through the bush? What we need is ecological awareness. You're not going to stop people trashing the bush
00:30:27
Speaker
by telling them you can't do it they know they cannot do it yeah okay everyone knows you touch nothing national park everyone knows you don't get with the dirt bike through a national park okay so it's not that uh you know by putting a law you stop them what you want to do is foster ecological awareness create a picture in people's eyes as
00:30:56
Speaker
from kids, when they steal kids, put a picture in people's eyes to see that that mulberry tree is actually a good thing. It's actually yummy. So these kids, when someone comes along and wants to cut the tree, they're actually upset.
00:31:16
Speaker
That's the kids we want to grow. The kids who get upset when someone wants to cut down. Absolutely. It's almost creating an emotional connection to a particular site.
Media Appearances
00:31:31
Speaker
Postering ecological and
00:31:33
Speaker
Now you are no stranger to the media. I know you've had segments, actually I think just this month had a segment on Gardening Australia. You've also been on ABC Radio, been featured in Murray Claire. I had a question about where you found your passion for departing this information. So I
00:31:59
Speaker
So my teaching of college skills is an offshoot of my my interest in art. So when I moved to Australia one of the things that I did is look after a long-standing interest of mine for creative expression. So I did various type courses and I did a university degree and so forth and then eventually
00:32:26
Speaker
which eventually led me to set up the first foraging workshop as artworks in abandoned gardens, you know, 20 plus years ago. So that's where the performative part of teaching people foraging was born.
00:32:47
Speaker
Soon enough, as in almost immediately, the people who came to witness these information sharing performances, it became quite apparent that, you know, they start to invite their friends, their family, their mates and so forth. And it became quite apparent that people were coming to these events because they were interested in the information.
00:33:17
Speaker
I accidentally found an audience that transcended art altogether. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of the people wouldn't care less if I call it art or not. They're there for the knowledge. So I still operate as a respected contemporary artist, but it's beyond that by now. And in many way, the urgency
00:33:45
Speaker
for all human to find, to create within the skill sets a way to foster a better understanding of the environment and foster a better appreciation and care for the environment is everyone's obligation right now. So we have as humans of today an obligation for all the future generations
00:34:13
Speaker
to create a new system of care for the environment. Choose your skills, start working. My skills turn up to be teaching foraging,
00:34:27
Speaker
And this came out of people validation. Okay, so I teach leveraging and I still teach leveraging full time, all the time, all the way to segmenting gardening Australia and Mary Claire and whatever else medium because people
00:34:45
Speaker
validated what I have to offer I'm the fruit of people curiosity people want to know I'm just something to be the one who's delivering the information okay so and that's my part of it so
00:35:02
Speaker
Your job as a podcaster is to interview people who bring new ideas, new possibilities into people's lives. That's an excellent job, Michael. That's an excellent contribution at this point in time. Thank you.
00:35:17
Speaker
Now, you actually are making a very good contribution.
Announcing 'Eat Weeds'
00:35:23
Speaker
You are about to release your very, very, very first book, Eat Weeds. That is so exciting. It comes out...
00:35:35
Speaker
and it will be out on May 31st, next month, and in four weeks time, just over four weeks time, and it's available for presale right now from my website, Diego Bonetto.com. Hopefully you may put the links in this podcast. Absolutely, the link will be in the description below.
00:35:57
Speaker
fantastic and that's my first book it's 20 years in the making there's lots of stories from all over the world and on how to identify and use edible and medicinal plants
00:36:16
Speaker
to be found in Australia. So enjoy, have a look, beautiful images by Helen Argy, beautiful drawings by Mira Well, beautiful recipes from my wife, Marnie Fox, and so forth. And there were so many others, fellow followers who contributed to pull together hopefully a valuable resource.
00:36:43
Speaker
to get people to look at the land with different eyes. So you've really curated this book together, pulling on sources of a lot of different forages then.
00:36:54
Speaker
Yes, lots of resources from lots of people that I meet in my workshop. I've been running 20 years of workshop, up to two, 300 workshop a year. So I meet thousands of people. Many of them have incredible stories to share, stories from Japan, Korea, Peru, Poland, Yugoslavia, ex-Yugoslavia, Italy, Australia,
00:37:23
Speaker
Words of people that care for land from all over the world related to the plants living around us. So it's in a way, it's a book that pay respect to all that people share with me.
00:37:44
Speaker
and hopefully it's going to be a book that inspires other people to share what they know like you have stories to share about your experience with mulberries and those are important ecological relationships and ecological forming
00:38:02
Speaker
for a relationship that you have between you and three you and other organism you know so and you know if you think back and reflect at the young you you will find some amazing nuggets of ecological empathy dig down into you climbing the tree and picking those barracks
00:38:27
Speaker
And my mum yelling at me for staining my school uniform, making me under school uniform. Exactly. And you fully empowered coming back home and going, Hey mum, I already ate. I fed myself. I don't need you to cook for me today. Oh, wonderful. I will thank you very, very, very much Diego. I really appreciate your time. Um, best of luck with the book launch.
00:38:55
Speaker
Thank you. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Michael. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye for now.
00:39:05
Speaker
Big thank you to Diego for his time today. You can find Diego on Instagram at The Weedy One. You can also find out more about his book and his workshops at his website, which is diagobeneto.com.
Closing and Social Media
00:39:19
Speaker
I'm Michael Haw on Instagram, M-Y-K-A-L-H-O-A-R-E, and you can find the pod at Growing Media Oz. Don't forget to rate and review us. It really helps to get the word out and
00:39:31
Speaker
Maybe you can tell your garden-loving friend as well. Well, that's enough from me. Thank you so much for listening. Hooroo! See you in a month!