Made the Wild His Livelihood
Few can claim to be professional foragers, but that is exactly what Thomas Laursen is. You might know him from TV, and he is also behind the company Wildfooding, which supplies wild herbs to some of the country’s best restaurants.
He knows almost everything there is to know about wild food, and he has been part of the wild herb scene for many years.
“I’ve always been involved with wild herbs and nature in some capacity. As a child, I went on many trips to France, where I remember collecting mussels and taking them home. The seed of my interest was probably sown there when I was six,” says Thomas Laursen.
Originally, Thomas Laursen was trained as a school teacher, and he has also worked as a chef before making wild herbs his livelihood.
“I’ve been collecting wild herbs for many, many years. Even back then, when it wasn’t really something people did. Wild herbs were considered a bit out there and for hippies, and there wasn’t much knowledge about them,” he says.
He has been instrumental in putting wild herbs on the agenda and has helped bring them into many professional Danish kitchens.
“I was probably a bit ahead, in the sense that I started incorporating wild herbs into a gastronomic context early on. Others began to catch up with me later. But I am the real deal because I’ve always found it fun, and I’ve always been very invested in it,” says Thomas Laursen.
As people began to emerge who knew a lot about food and the possibility of combining it with wild herbs, Thomas Laursen also learned a great deal.
“There were people with a lot of gastronomic knowledge that I had no idea about. So, for the last 15 years, my world has really expanded in that regard,” he says.
At the very start of his wild career, Thomas Laursen began delivering wild herbs to the top restaurant Noma in Copenhagen.
“It started when Noma began cooking with ants, and I saw they had someone foraging for them. He helped open my eyes to this world because I hadn’t thought it could be a livelihood. So, my world exploded, so to speak, and I thought it was fantastic,” he says.
In the beginning, it was much about foraging for the restaurants. Today, it’s also a lot about dissemination.
“I really want to show and tell people about what they don’t know themselves,” he says.
Thomas Laursen has been part of the entire journey, and he finds it interesting.
“There’s been a huge gastronomic development, which I have been able to follow. You could say there’s before Noma and after Noma. No one had the idea of using things from nature before Noma began cooking with ants. I was also collecting mushrooms for restaurants back in the 1990s, but they were simple mushrooms like trumpets. It was more of a barter situation or exchanging money and mushrooms secretly,” says Thomas Laursen and continues:
“Suddenly, it changed, and the interest was endless. Noma made ‘the wild’ something exotic, something exciting. The stranger, the better, and the more exotic, the better. Noma put ground elder on the plate and made it something fantastic, but also something exciting and dangerous. People thought, ‘you can’t do that,’ but you could.”
People knew about ground elder and dandelions, but there was a huge world they didn’t know anything about, Thomas Laursen says, and he was fascinated by informing them about it.
“Even the names were exotic. That’s not the case anymore. The development that stands out to me is precisely the ground elder, which has gone from being something we had in nature to people thinking ‘wow, ground elder, exciting,’ to ‘well, we use it for most things.’ It’s become common in the kitchen, people no longer think of it as something special,” says Thomas Laursen.
Today, the exotic and exciting is not necessarily the focus. People have also become more aware of green transition and sustainability, and here the herbs are also smart.
“There’s a sustainability angle to it because you can collect things yourself. They don’t need to be flown in. People also use it to understand and interpret the landscape and their own country. They go out and dive into things,” says Thomas Laursen.
We Ask – Thomas Answers
Get to know forager Thomas Laursen better with these ten questions.
What is your mission?
I want to remind people that they are animals. I think the divide between nature and agriculture has become too great. I want to show people that there is wild food everywhere. It’s not that we all need to be foragers, but that people think ‘I’ll just take this from nature,’ instead of buying it cheaply and poorly at a supermarket. Buy your pasta and potatoes, but collect your herbs yourself. That’s how I feel.
I would like the wild to have a greater place in people’s consciousness and on their plates.
What is your best kitchen memory?
I’m very gastronomically in the moment I’m in. The other day, I fried a flank in oil and butter. It was served with, among other things, wild garlic capers. It was delightful. There’s always something wild in what I make.
I also recently stood in the setting winter sun, dealing with porcini mushrooms with a bunch of people.
I also think back to a dinner at Noma that stands out quite sharply.
But actually, my best memories change a lot and all the time. There’s a lot of good to look back on.
What dish do you most like to make?
I almost never make the same thing twice. But right now, I have a thing for wild garlic because I have picked the first of the year. Among other things, I fried them, but I also recently made a wild garlic pesto with lightly grilled wild garlic.
Before the hard frost came, I was really fond of cabbage shoots. I pay money to a farmer where I help cultivate a small field and can take what I want. So, I’ve also gotten many cabbage shoots. They taste fantastic when lightly fried.
Which herbs would you say are the most important to have at home?
When I have herbs in the kitchen garden, it should be something other than what I can find in nature. There, I can, for example, find wild marjoram and thyme, which in my opinion are really good herbs, but they can, as mentioned, be found wild.
Otherwise, it could be tarragon, preferably Mexican, because it has a very distinct flavor. It could also be sweet cicely, and I love parsley. I can’t find that wild.
I also think celeriac is recommendable. I use the top in the same way as parsley.
I have a large cooling room at home, so I always have wild things lying around. But I also love to go out into my garden and pick.
What is your favorite dish?
It changes a lot, but I often lean towards something with turbot. It should be whole roasted and adorned with all sorts of pickles and herbs—and then eaten with fingers.
What is your favorite ingredient?
Turbot often comes up. I’ve just bought a stuffed turbot, for example. I also like king crab. But I also love the first wild garlic, fermented garlic mustard, and water radish.
There’s actually nothing I would give up for something else.
Something you always have in the fridge or cupboards?
I’ve just been interviewed as being a ‘collector’—that is, a collector of jars and pickles. I took stock of how many things I have. In jars, frozen, and vacuum-sealed, there are at least 500 different things. Besides that, there are raw materials, oils, and spices.
The 500 items are various forms of fermented, dried herbs, or other raw materials.
Previously, I was inclined to take care of things and not want to use them up, but I’m braver now. You can get most things again. It’s just that if I run out of something now, it might be that I can only get it in September, and then it must go through a drying or fermentation process that takes half a year. So, it can be a long time before I get it again.
Where were you last impressed by a food experience outside?
It was at Lyst in Vejle. It was simply everything that made it a good experience. There was good service, atmosphere, wine, and food, but it was also the day and the company. In the big picture, the food was perfect because I wasn’t alone—and the food fit perfectly into the company. The service was incredibly well-executed.
I helped with the creation of the restaurant, and it was great to see and experience the fruit of that. It also made it a good experience.
Do you have a favorite restaurant?
Noma for always opening up the world that is mine.
Amass for other things, good food, and atmosphere.
Kadau for deliciousness.
At home with myself.
Do you have any advice for people who want to start using wild herbs?
Learn a couple of herbs, pick them, rinse them, and have them in the fridge. You don’t necessarily have to think that it should be something new and special, but just use them for the food you’re going to have. If they are rinsed and ready, you can use them easily. Herbs can stay fresh in the fridge for about a week, and if not, you can just throw them out and pick some new ones.
If nothing else, you can experiment with using them on top of the food. There are things that exist in almost frightening quantities. Wild garlic in June, garlic mustard in April and May. There’s plenty to take from.
I would also recommend buying my books. I have just published a collection of four small books divided into four seasons, so you can easily take the book out and look up. In the book, there’s a picture of the herb and a picture of where it typically stands. It’s easy to approach, and the books are made to be aesthetically pleasing. There’s a little text, but it’s minimal, just a few words about aroma, taste, and habitat—and a bit about what it can be used for. They’re not cookbooks or recipe books as such, but small books you can take with you when you forage for herbs.
Facts
Name: Thomas Laursen
City: Sejs
Thomas Laursen is a forager (herb collector) and today works with just that. He disseminates, makes TV and podcasts, and advises—all centered around the wild. He is also the author of “Vild mad i køkkenet“, “Vild – Naturen ind i køkkenet” as well as “Den lille vilde“. The latter is a newly released collection of four small guidebooks, divided according to the four seasons of wild plants. The books describe and feature pictures of the most important herbs, flowers, fruits, and berries one can collect, and the books are sized so you can take them with you and identify different plants.
Follow Thomas on Instagram at @wildfooding or learn more at Wildfooding.dk.
Photo: Jannick Børlum