Environmental enabler to host edible weeds workshop in Mosman
DIEGO Bonetto is looking forward to teaching Mosman residents about edible weeds at Rosherville Reserve and Chinamans Beach next month.
Mosman
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TO DIEGO Bonetto, foraging for a bite to eat around his family’s dairy farm in Italy was second nature: “I grew up with it,” he said.
“I used to go and harvest wild food as a job. When you are a child you have things to do on a farm — ‘go feed the chickens’ — it’s not child exploitation!”
Mr Bonetto, who came to Australia in the mid-1990s, has specialised in urban foraging for about 15 years.
He showed the Mosman Daily a selection of edible weeds in Rosherville Reserve last week, where he will host a Mosman Council workshop next month.
“Really, you can eat that?” he mimicked the uninitiated’s common reaction to his enthusiasm for edible weeds. “I have plenty,” he said. “Yum, so good! This is weed — you can have as much as you want!”
Naturally, one of the inner westie’s first jobs in Australia was on a farm. “I was working in Orange in orchards in the western plains and did that for a few years,” he said.
“And then I was working in garden centres and then I started to run workshops and that’s what I do mostly, these days; I educate people about plants.”
Mr Bonetto said he rarely bought meat unless he knew its origin, but he would not refuse a dish if invited for dinner. “I eat what I get given. It’s the same with fish,” he said.
Mr Bonetto said that food and medicinal plants were “all around us”. “These plants grow where humans are. Call them weeds, whatever you want,” he said.
Mr Bonetto said what he would teach in the workshop was “old knowledge”.
“Three generations ago, this was common knowledge, no matter what culture,” he said.
“The second generation said ‘that’s peasant food’, so this was not passed on. But this generation of people want the knowledge back.
“That’s what I teach.”
Mr Bonetto said the workshop was an educational walk, not a harvesting exercise. He advised people to only forage in familiar areas, such as their own gardens, to never eat any plant they could not positively identify and to respect the natural environment.
The council’s environmental sustainability officer, Amy Croucher, said there had already been strong community interest in the workshop, the first about foraging in Mosman.
“Diego’s enthusiasm is infectious and he will share his knowledge of edible plants in Sydney and along Sydney Harbour foreshores with participants as they gain an appreciation and understanding of the natural environment,” she said.
Visit events.mosman.nsw.gov.au for details.
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