MENDOCINO & LAKE COUNTIES
Celebrating Local Food and Drink, Season by Season
What’s Cooking edible
mendocino & lake counties
PUBLISHER & MANAGING EDITOR
Karen Elowitt
DESIGNER
Cheryl Koehler
CONTACT US
To reach us by mail: Edible Mendocino & Lake Counties 705 N. State Street #191 Ukiah, CA 95482
For advertising inquiries please email: ads@ediblemendocino.com
For editorial inquiries and press releases, please email: karen@ediblemendocino.com
Edible Mendocino & Lake Counties is published quarterly in September, December, March and June. Distribution is throughout Mendocino and Lake counties, and nationally by subscription.
Visit EdibleMendocino.com to explore our online content, subscribe to the magazine, sign up for our newsletter, find out about advertising, and much more
This magazine does not utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to generate articles or other written content.
Every effort is made to avoid errors, misspellings, and omissions. If, however, an error comes to your attention, please accept our sincere apologies and notify us. Thank you.
No part of this publication may be used without written permission of the publisher. © 2025. All rights reserved.
facebook.com/ediblemendocino instagram.com/ediblemendocino
4 WASTE NOT, WORM NOT
Terra Sávia, the winery and olive oil maker in Hopland, is the first facility in the country to pilot vermifiltration of olive mill wastewater.
6 THE ART OF THE HUNT
Foraging for wild mushrooms is about more than getting out, and looking down. For a more successful and fulfilling hunt, you’ve got to tune into the “mycoverse.”
10 KNOW YOUR FUNGI: A GUIDE TO LOCAL EDIBLE MUSHROOMS
Local mushroom expert William Sprague offers an overview on where, when, and how to find and identify seven of the most popular edible mushrooms in Mendocino County.
12 THE MUSHROOM HUNTER’S KITCHEN
Bay Area-based chef Chad Hyatt is passionate about cooking with mushrooms. We’ve reprinted three recipes from his new book, The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen: A Culinary Homage to Wild and Cultivated Mushrooms.
18 ANCIENT FLAVORS, FUTURE TABLES
One local company has ambitious plans to put native Californian foods such as acorn and lupine on our tables, and transform how we do agriculture in the process.
Cover image by Macro Viewpoint
First Course
We are fortunate to live in a region where the producers are so committed to sustainability. Here sustainability is actually the rule, rather than the exception. This issue highlights many ways that sustainability is woven into the fabric of our community, which could one day become the capital of the sustainable food industry, if one organization has its way.
We start at Terra Sávia, the winery and olive mill in Hopland. If you’re familiar with them, then you probably know about their conservation and sustainability practices, from solar power to fish-friendly farming to their onsite animal sanctuary. They also use vermifiltration (worms) to treat their winery wastewater, and recently decided to pilot the same process on the wastewater from their olive mill (see pages 4–5). Though worms make some of us squeamish, there’s something poetic—and powerful—about these critters’ ability to naturally filter toxic substances from water and return it safely to Mother Earth.
And it’s not only producers who are committed to sustainability—our counties are home to thousands of individuals who practice sustainability in their everyday lives. This includes the foragers who harvest wild mushrooms in our forests. Wild foraging is the ultimate no-impact form of feeding oneself: it doesn’t involve farming, has almost no carbon footprint, and if done responsibly, preserves the ecosystem. On pages 6–8 we’ve got advice and tips from local mushroom expert William Sprague on how to increase your chances of finding fungi while also keeping yourself and the forest safe. Keep reading and you’ll find some delicious mushroom recipes from a passionate forager who just happens to also be a professional chef.
Sadly, local edible mushrooms are one of the only native Californian species that we routinely consume. Yet there are hundreds of others out there, and few outside of Indigenous communities ever utilize them. One startup company in Mendocino County is trying to change that, by bringing nutritious, abundant native Californian foods such as acorn and lupine to a mass market. They’re hoping that by doing so they’ll be the catalyst that pushes California—and the world—towards more sustainable agriculture in the face of climate change and dwindling biodiversity. You can read more about their plans on pages 18–24.
We hope that you enjoy this issue, and that it provides much food for thought—and for your belly—as we get through this long, cold winter together.
Karen Elowitt Publisher and Managing Editor
Kristen S. Stehling FAMILY MEDICINE
Unforgettable Serve
Aged even more Aged
Made with care
Crafted in Spain
THE EXCELLENCE OF EUROPEAN D.O. CAVA AND JAMÓN CONSORCIOSERRANO
Crafted in Spain, perfected by time
In a world that often prioritizes speed over substance, there remains proof that good things, and excellent taste, take time. D.O. Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano are two such treasures, each representing a unique blend of Spanish tradition and taste created with time and perfected over centuries.
Cava has earned its place among the world’s finest sparkling wines, yet it remains wonderfully versatile. Whether paired with a simple salad, a casual meal or a celebratory toast, Cava brings a touch of elegance to every occasion. What makes Cava de Guarda Superior unique is that it is produced using the traditional method where secondary fermentation occurs in the bottle.
This meticulous process, lasting a minimum of 18 months, is carefully overseen by the D.O. Cava regulatory body, ensuring that each bottle upholds the highest standards of quality and authenticity. Made from organic vineyards that are over 10 years old, Cava de Guarda Superior reveals its craftsmanship with every pour. As the delicate, harmonious bubbles rise to the surface, you can truly appreciate the time and care it took to perfect them!
Similarly, Jamón ConsorcioSerrano is more than just a drycured ham. This exquisite product is made using traditional curing
methods which takes a minimum of 12 months to deliver a delicate and rich flavor. Each production is upheld to the rigorous standards of the Consorcio del Jamón Serrano Español, which ensures that every piece of Jamón ConsorcioSerrano bearing the seal is of exceptional quality. Like Cava, Jamón ConsorcioSerrano is not merely an accompaniment to festive tables; it is a versatile delight that can elevate everyday meals with its complex flavors and delicate texture.
Both Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano are perfect examples of how time-honored craftsmanship, underpinned by the European Union’s commitment to quality and tradition, creates products that are unmatched in their category. They are not just crafted in Spain; they are perfected by time, offering a taste of excellence that is both accessible and extraordinary. Whether enjoyed on a special occasion or as part of your daily life, Cava and Jamón ConsorcioSerrano bring the best of Europe to your table.
Learn more on our website
Waste Not, Worm Not
Hopland’s Terra Sávia is the first facility in the country to pilot vermifiltration of olive oil mill wastewater
BY KAREN ELOWITT
Visitors to Terra Sávia, the winery and olive oil maker in Hopland, can find an array of animals on the property: In addition to the donkeys, horses, goats, birds, sheep and bull in the animal sanctuary, there are also resident dogs and cats.
Then there are the worms. While not as cute and cuddly as the other creatures on the farm—who spend their days at leisure—the worms do a very important job: they filter and clean the wastewater from the winemaking process.
Terra Sávia recently added almost 150,000 more worms to do yet another job: filter the wastewater from the company’s olive oil milling operation.
While vermifiltration of wastewater derived from winemaking is fairly common at sustainability-minded farms around the country and locally, Terra Sávia is the first in the U.S. to try it on olive mill wastewater (OMW).
The company is doing so in partnership with BioFiltro, the same firm that provided the vermifiltration system for its winery. Terra Sávia approached BioFiltro earlier this year about doing vermifiltration on the 500,000 gallons of OMW the olive mill produces every year, but had no way to sustainably process.
“We’d been using it for dust control on our dirt roads in the summer, but there wasn’t really much else we could do with it,” said Carlos Suarez, Drrector of Operations at Terra Sávia.
BioFiltro enthusiastically agreed to a threemonth pilot, knowing that several studies had shown that vermifiltration could be successfully achieved with OMW.
“There was literature on using vermifiltration for olive mill wastewater that looked promising,” said Sarah Haupt, a sales engineer at BioFiltro. “So that was enough for us.”
BioFiltro, which was founded in Chile in 1990 and is now headquartered in Davis, CA, is a wastewater treatment provider that developed a patented Biodynamic Aerobic (BIDA®) vermifiltration system. They have worked on over 200 projects across nine counties, including 25 operational plants in California, Oregon, Washington and Texas that process wastewater from rural sanitation facilities, wineries, the food industry, dairy farms – and now, olive oil mills.
Handling of OMW is an ongoing concern for olive mills. Unless it is treated, it can’t be used on crops, soil, or for animals because it contains high quantities of fat, grease, phenolic compounds, and other suspended solids that can be toxic to plants, pollute aquifers, and degrade the quality of soil.
“If [OMW] gets discharged to a river or surface soil, it’s going to take so much oxygen out of that soil or water that it’s going to be detrimental to the environment,” Haupt explained. “The solids can cause sealing on the soil, which creates odor problems. It also tends to be high in total nitrogen, which is especially a problem here in California. We already have a lot of nitrates in our groundwater, which isn’t great as far as water quality is concerned.”
Some olive mills find ways to safely use OMW on non-agricultural land, as Terra Sávia previously did. Others store it in evaporation ponds, then haul the sludge that is left behind to a landfill.
Still others recycle it for agricultural use. Besides vermifiltration, there are several ways to make OMW safe for use on farms. Chemical treatment and membrane filtration are the two most common. However, neither of these methods are fully environmentally sustainable.
BioFiltro was keen to test vermifiltration at Terra Sávia, as both companies are firmly committed to sustainability.
“Vermifiltration is actually the most natural way to treat olive mill wastewater,” Haupt added. “It regenerates water, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and revives soil.”
Photo courtesy of Terra SÁvia
Photo by Karen Elowitt
Above: Sofia Rivier, Winemaker and Vineyard Manager at Terra Sávia (right) and Carlos Suarez (left) stand in front of Terra Saviá’s new olive oil wastewater vermifiltration unit, which is being piloted in partnership with BioFiltro. Below: Rivier checks out some worms from the unit. The company already uses vermifiltration to filter wastewater from its winery operation.
Although the composition of OMW is somewhat different from that of winery wastewater, the vermifiltration process is nearly identical. The only real differences are in the type of material used to build the filtration units and their size, which can vary widely depending on the amount of wastewater being filtered.
The system that BioFiltro installed at Terra Sávia is about 12 cubic yards and can process about 20 gallons of OMW in four hours. It actually has two parts: a control unit, which aerates the water, filters out larger solids, and adjusts the pH to a level that is amenable to the worms; and another larger unit where the worms work their magic.
The second unit, which looks a bit like a double-decker cargo shipping container, has two identical stacked tiers. Each has a bottom drainage layer, a middle layer with soil, microbes and earthworms, and a top layer of wood chips (see inset diagram). The wastewater is pumped in from the control unit and sprinkled evenly across the surface of the wood chips via a built-in irrigation system. It then percolates through the wood chips into the middle soil layer, where the worms— specifically Eisenia andrei, also known as the “red wiggler worm”—consume the solids and other substances in it. The resulting “cleansed” water then drips onto the sloped bottom, and drains out through exit pipes.
In addition to the detoxified water, the system also produces worm poop, otherwise known as vermicompost. Vermicompost is a great soil amendment for crops, as it’s rich in microbes and improves nutrient cycling, water retention, and soil health. It also reduces greenhouse gas emissions.
“There’s no sludge in our systems,” Haupt said. “The biofilm that dies and would otherwise become sludge in a pond or a membrane bioreactor system turns into vermicompost in a vermifiltration system. So you still have a solid to deal with, but it’s a much more stable, valuable, nutrient-rich natural fertilizer rather than having this stinky sludge that you’re hauling to a landfill.”
Vermifiltration is also more energy efficient than other methods of OMW treatment, because no machinery is required to maintain it—the worms do all the work.
“The worms create drainage channels for the water to percolate through,” Haupt said. “They’re passively aerating the system for us. It’s much more energy-efficient than some of the other technologies for this type of treatment, which rely on mechanical aeration to move the sludge around and keep it aerobic.”
After the three-month trial is complete, BioFiltro will test and evaluate the wastewater, then make any adjustments necessary to the system before Terra Sávia purchases and implements it on a permanent basis. The goal is to use the filtered water to irrigate the 25-acre vineyard, the gardens, and the fields where alfalfa is grown for the animals.
This latest sustainability measure adds to a long list at Terra Sávia. The property is 100% off-grid, relying on water from freshwater springs, and power from solar and wind energy. The vineyards and orchards are certified organic and fish-friendly, and are cultivated to make as little impact as possible to the environment.
In every way, vermifiltration is a perfect model of sustainability: it safely returns water to the very ground that it originally sprang forth from, after being cleaned by thousands of Earth’s own creatures. Very fitting indeed for a company whose own name intentionally suggests reverence toward nature, and translates to “wise earth.”
Terra Sávia is located at 14200 Mountain House Road in Hopland. It is open for tastings and tours seven days a week. For more information about Terra Sávia (and its associated brands Olivino and Ettore), visit terrasavia.com.
Photo by Karen Elowitt
A cross section of a typical BioFiltro vermifiltration system, showing the different layers
Courtesy of BioFiltro
The Art of the Hunt
How to tune into the “mycoverse” for more successful—and fulfilling—mushroom foraging
BY KAREN ELOWITT
William Sprague, a mushroom expert based in Albion, emerges from the forest after a successful day of foraging for wild mushrooms (Photo courtesy of William Sprague)
The wild mushrooms of Mendocino County are many things: widely celebrated; stunningly beautiful; highly versatile; sometimes edible; and often elusive.
Every year thousands try their hand at foraging—it’s basically the unofficial winter pastime in Mendocino County. Some have more success than others. But here’s an insider tip: your chances are much better if you tune into the mycoverse.
Mushroom foraging is not simply a matter of waking up on a bright wintry day, grabbing a basket, heading out to the forest, then keeping your eyes on the ground until you eventually bump into some fungi. Sure, you may luck into a couple this way, but it helps to look at the big picture, not just the ground in front of you.
For example, you won’t find the same mushrooms in a cool, flat, sandy, coastal valley amid a grove of eucalyptus as you would on a warm, earthy, inland mountain slope amid a stand of redwoods. Like grapes, each variety of fungi thrives in a slightly different set of conditions (with some exceptions).
If you’re so inclined, there are many books that can help you pinpoint the best places to find different species of mushrooms, the best being Mushrooms of the Redwood Coast by Christian Schwartz and Noah Siegel. Sprague recommends this book because it’s the only one that provides detail on the micro-regions within Mendocino County, each of which is unique from the others.
Instead of leaning too much on guidelines, Sprague recommends becoming your own
and temperature fluctuations play a big role in mushroom development, and can alter a bloom cycle. For example, if it rained recently, or if the temperature increased or decreased significantly in the last day or two, you might not find what you’re expecting— or you might find something totally different.
“Sometimes the environment looks exactly right for a specific mushroom, but it’s not there,” he added. “I’ve definitely encountered this throughout my years as a mushroom hunter. Sometimes I just have to look a little harder in the duff, but sometimes the timing’s not quite right. Then when I come back in two or three weeks to take another look, lo and behold, there they are!”
More importantly, Sprague advises not being too goal-oriented, and enjoying the
“When I’m hunting mushrooms, I spend more time looking up than I do looking down.”
Because where and when mushrooms grow is partly a mystery known only to Mother Nature, and partly a puzzle that can be solved by paying attention to crucial clues such as moisture, elevation, topography, soil type, microclimate, and perhaps most crucially, trees.
“Understanding trees is the key to understanding where mushrooms are,” said William Sprague, one of the Mendo coast’s most well-known mushroom enthusiasts. “I tell people that when I’m hunting mushrooms, I spend more time looking up than I do looking down. Mushrooms have a mycelial connection with the environment. They create symbiotic relationships with certain trees and shrubs, which is why different mushrooms do better in different scenarios. I’m amazed by the number of foragers and hunters who don’t understand the trees at all, and who are not plugged into the other key elements.”
expert. First educate yourself on different local tree species, then simply be observant when you’re out on the hunt.
“Whenever you find some mushrooms, you really just want to stop and take a look at what’s happening right there,” Sprague emphasized. “What trees are they growing under? Are they on a northwest facing slope, or a southeast facing slope? What’s the soil like, and what is the understory like? Is it huckleberries, or is it ferns?”
“Eventually, after spending some time moving through the woods, you’ll begin to recognize familiar scenarios,” he added. “You’ll be able to say, ‘oh, this looks exactly like that spot that I found those chanterelles in!’”
Don’t get discouraged if the conditions and location seem right for the mushrooms you’re seeking, but you still don’t find them. Rain
About William Sprague
hunt for what it is: a chance to be outdoors, get unplugged, and recharge. He personally sees it as more of a spiritual quest.
“Foraging gets me out into nature, which is also kind of my church, my happy place,” he said. “It makes me feel good in so many other ways.”
The following guide to finding seven of the most commonly eaten wild mushrooms in Mendocino County will help steer you in the right direction, but ultimately, Mother Nature offers no guarantees. As the headline says, it’s an art, not a science. So it’s up to you, the forager, to pay attention to the terrain, microclimate, and timing when you encounter a mushroom colony, and paint your own picture. And the more time you spend foraging, the better you’ll get at it.
Albion-based Sprague has been a mushroom enthusiast for nearly a decade. When he’s not hunting mushrooms in Mendocino County and throughout the western United States he’s using them to create dyes, teas, medicines, food and art. He is also a member of the Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club, and a mushroom educator. You can buy a wide array of his artisanal mushroom products and merchandise (including mushroom hunting knives) through his website, bornfreenaturalmystic.com. When his busy schedule permits, he does private guided mushroom foraging tours. For more information on booking a tour, contact him at obsidianmonarch@gmail.com or Instagram @billysprague.
Sprague with a bucket full of lobster mushrooms
TIPS FOR NOVICE FORAGERS
Stay on the trails at first: Newbies should stay on marked trails—or venture off them only a short distance—until they gain some experience. It’s best to slowly get to know a new area, and inch your way towards deeper forest exploration (also known as bushwhacking). One great idea is to go foraging with people who are more experienced until you feel able to get out of your comfort zone. Not only is this a safer approach, but you can learn faster that way. There’s really an app for that? It’s true that many people forage to get away from their electronic devices and commune with nature, but if you’re a newbie forager, or even an expert foraging alone, technology can be invaluable to help you find the best spots to forage and avoid getting lost. Gaia GPS, onX Hunt and other apps can do things like track your location and provide details of the topography, elevation, trees, creeks, and other natural features. However, it’s best not to get too reliant on them—treat them as one of the many tools in your toolbox.
Don’t be greedy: You’re not the only one who’s foraging. In addition to other humans on the hunt, many animals rely on mushrooms as a food source. Leave some behind for them, and to allow spores to disperse so that more will grow next week, next month, or next year.
Harvest smartly: Whether you cut or pluck, remove the mushroom from its base without disturbing the soil or duff in which it’s growing. This ensures that the mycelium stays intact and allows other mushrooms to grow. Follow the ethical forager’s mantra: “leave no trace.”
Don’t eat anything until you’ve 100% positively identified it: Guidebooks and apps are not a substitute for expert knowledge. If you’re a newbie and are unsure whether a variety that you foraged is edible, consult an expert. The Mendocino Coast Mushroom Club can help, and their meetings are open to the public. Visit mendocinocoastmushroomclub.org for more information.
WHERE TO FORAGE
If you plan to forage on your own in Mendocino County, be aware that it is not allowed on private property without the permission of the property owner.
Foraging is also not allowed in state parks. The best place to safely and legally forage is in the 200-square mile Jackson Demonstration State Forest (JDSF), which has 50 miles of trails and dozens of microclimates that sustain multiple varieties of mushrooms.
To forage in JDSF, you must buy a $20 permit in advance, by mail. Permit information can be found at fire.ca.gov/what-we-do/natural-resource-management/demonstration-state-forests/ jackson-demonstration-state-forest
Top: Sprague harvesting black trumpet mushrooms on the forest floor. Bottom: Freshly harvested chanterelles. (Photos courtesy of William Sprague)
Know Your Fungi A Guide to Local Edible Mushrooms
Here are seven of the most popular local mushrooms that can be foraged in Mendocino County, which also happen to be very versatile for cooking. William Sprague offers tips on where, when and how to find them, and in some cases, how to distinguish them from lookalikes.
Chanterelle
Perhaps Mendocino County’s most abundant mushroom, chanterelles also have one of the longest seasons. They can be found in coastal areas as early as August, as they are able to fruit without rain (these are known as “summer chanterelles”). Heavier fruitings happen once the rainy season gets under way and continue until it gets cold, around January. They are found in mixed conifer forests (hemlock, redwoods, firs, oaks, etc.) with ferns in the understory. Since mixed conifer forests make up a large portion of the flora in the county, chanterelles are not hard to find. But you have to know which slopes and ridges to look on: they start on southwest facing slopes and migrate to north and northeast facing slopes through the season. The hitch is that there are several other mushroom species that look very similar to chanterelles (including some that are inedible and poisonous), so you have to inspect them very closely to make sure you’ve got the right ones: chanterelles have ridges, not gills, and they have a solid stipe or stem, not a hollow one. Chanterelles also tear like string cheese, whereas lookalikes don’t.
Porcini
Black Trumpet
The delicate, flower-like black trumpet, which is actually a type of chanterelle, is most commonly found at least five miles from the coast, with the best spots around 20 miles inland. They tend to grow on sandy, gritty soil near groves of mixed hardwoods that are heavy on tanoaks. They are usually found on slopes—sometimes very steep—and migrate throughout the season from southwest facing to northeast facing ones. Black trumpets have a relatively long season (from December-ish to March-ish), and don’t like too much rain, which can tear their hollow funnels.
The stout, tan-colored porcini have a fairly short season (which likely has passed by the time you are reading this) and are primarily coastal. Look for them around the base of pine trees—it doesn’t matter whether it’s shore pine, bishop pine, or bull pine, as long as it has needles. They can be found inland as well, mainly around pines, but sometimes around oak trees too. Porcini like sunny, moist, cool days after a good rain. The temperature does need to rise a bit at first to incite fruiting, but then needs to cool down again so that fungus gnats stay away.
Photo courtesy of William Sprague
Photo by Iwona
Photo courtesy of William Sprague
Candy Cap
The highly sought-after, maple-scented candy cap is closely identified with Mendocino County, although it is not exclusively found in our area. Early in the season you can typically find them near tanoaks and pines within five miles of the coast, then once the rain really starts they’ll also appear further inland. Small and rusty-brownish with a hollow stem or stipe, they’re a little tough for beginners to find, because they’ve got five or six doppelgangers that often grow in the same patch of soil. One way to tell a true candy cap is by the scent. In the field, hold a flame under the edge of the cap until it starts to burn. If you smell a maple syrup aroma, you know it’s a candy cap. Or you can wait until you get home and dry them out – if they have the telltale maple scent after being dried, you’ve got the right ones.
Chicken of the Woods
These wood-dependent fungi are a complicated species: sometimes they’ll have a banner year, then hardly be seen at all the following year, for reasons that are not always clear. Unlike many other species, they start early in the season in more inland areas, and migrate toward the coast later in the season. In coastal areas they can be found primarily around eucalyptus, and to a lesser extent around oak and redwood. Inland however, the script is flipped, and they are found primarily near oak. They are not heavily reliant on rain, and will fruit without a lot of moisture. They like oaks that are dead, dying or scarred (including stumps), but the spores will also attach to healthy trees with scored roots or trunks.
Oyster
Lobster
The lobster mushroom is one of the few local fungi that doesn’t have any lookalikes. Its sheer size and bold reddish-orange color make it hard to miss, and easy for beginners to find. Lobsters start to appear early in the season (around September-ish) and like to grow within 15 miles of coast near mixed conifers (with hemlock and firs thrown into the mix). They tend to fruit without a lot of rain. The lobster mushroom is named for its color, not its scent, although it does develop a fishy aroma when it starts to go bad. Incidentally, the color darkens almost to magenta as it gets older.
The greyish-white, flat-topped oyster is a great mushroom for beginners to forage because they’re very consistent: you can find them every month of the year, both inland and near the coast. Look for them on dead and dying oak and alder trees, particularly near streams and in areas that stay moist but cool for most of the year. Though oyster mushrooms do grow wild and are easy to find while foraging, they are also very easy to cultivate and are grown and sold by many companies in Mendocino County such as Mulligan Gardens and The Forest People.
Photo by
Photo
Photo
The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen
Chef and forager Chad Hyatt shares his passion for mushrooms in a comprehensive new cookbook
BY KAREN ELOWITT
Chad Hyatt is a double threat: both a classically trained chef and a connoisseur of wild mushrooms. These two skill sets have afforded him a unique niche in the culinary world, and allowed him to expand the boundaries of what is possible when cooking with mushrooms.
Formerly an engineer, Hyatt got hooked on foraging not long after switching careers. He had always been interested in local foods – both wild and farmgrown—but the mystery and uniqueness of mushrooms in particular really entranced him, and inspired him to incorporate them into his cooking.
“I find mushrooms to be interesting the same way vegetables are interesting,” Hyatt said. “They have as much diversity in terms of flavor, texture and aroma as vegetables do. I love exploring those qualities and figuring out how I can do different things with them and incorporate them into different dishes.”
His passion for mushrooms and dissatisfaction with the recipes he found in cookbooks motivated him to write his own book (see sidebar to the right for information on how to buy it).
“As a chef, I always wound up doing the same things with mushrooms,” Hyatt said. “I was searching for new ideas, but everywhere I looked I only found 1950s-style ‘Betty Crocker’ cooking. I wanted recipes that were a little more interesting. So I challenged myself to come up with different ways to use mushrooms.”
Hyatt also wanted to expand readers’ notions of which mushrooms are desirable to eat, and dispel myths and misinformation about them. The book includes not only recipes, but also a bit about the science of mushrooms, details on how to prepare and cook them, and an extensive appendix of over 60 wild and cultivated edible mushrooms.
“Most of what we’re taught about how to handle mushrooms seems to be based more on old wives tales and mythology than it is about their actual chemistry and biology,” Hyatt explained. “For example, hearing things like ‘don’t get mushrooms wet and don’t cook them in water’ drove me nuts. And in terms of varieties, I think too many people get hung up on only looking for things like porcini and chanterelles. I really want people to start exploring other mushrooms.”
Based in the Bay Area, Hyatt previously worked in restaurants and even owned his own barbecue joint for a while, but he currently spends most of his time spreading the gospel of cooking with mushrooms all around northern California and beyond. He frequently teaches mushroom-related cooking classes and hosts mushroom-themed dinners in northern California, including one recently at the Little River Inn in Albion during Forage Mendocino’s second annual Mushroom Symposium.
For more information about Chad Hyatt and his cookbook, visit themushroomhunterskitchen.com.
Pre-order a copy now!
The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen: A Culinary Homage to Wild and Cultivated Mushrooms will go on sale on July 1, 2025 but is available for pre-order now. Visit theexperimentpublishing.com/catalogs/summer-2025/ the-mushroom-hunters-kitchen/ for information on where and how to pre-order.
The recipes, photos and narratives on the following pages are from The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen: A Culinary Homage to Wild and Cultivated Mushrooms—with 120 Recipes by Chad Hyatt © 2018, 2025. Reprinted by permission of the publisher, The Experiment. Available everywhere books are sold. theexperimentpublishing.com
Photo by Lenny Hyatt courtesy of The Experiment
PorciniPotato Latkes with Salmon Tartare
I always loved my mom’s potato latkes, which were just pressed together shredded potato and onion with a little matzo meal to bind them. In my version, porcini add an irresistible earthy mushroom undertone; they make the latkes a little denser, but it’s a worthwhile trade-off. Cooking off the mushrooms’ excess water before adding them will yield crispier and more cohesive latkes. I do not add any egg to the latke mix, as I feel it takes away from the flavor of the potatoes and mushrooms. The moisture given off by the potatoes and onions, combined with the matzo meal, provide more than enough binding power. Use as little matzo meal as possible, because it dilutes the flavor of the potatoes and mushrooms as well as making for a denser, heavier pancake. I like to eat these latkes on their own, garnished solely with sour cream, but you can take them to another level by serving them with the Marinated Porcini Buttons and the Salmon Tartare.
Mushroom Substitutions: Use mature porcini for this recipe, or substitute any good-flavored pored mushroom. For cultivated choices, portabella are great, but reduce the amount to ½ pound (225 g).
Serves 4 to 6
For the latkes
1 pound (450 g) fresh porcini, cut into ¼-inch (6 mm) slices
Neutral oil
1 pound (450 g) russet potatoes ( about 2 potatoes), peeled
¼ medium yellow onion, grated or minced
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
¼ cup (30 g) matzo meal, plus extra if needed (Can substitute all-purpose flour)
Butter
For salmon tartare
1 pound (450 g) sushi-grade salmon, cut into ¼-inch (6 mm) pieces
¼ cup (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 shallot, finely diced
2 tablespoons drained and roughly chopped capers
1 Meyer or regular lemon, zested and juiced, or more to taste
Sour cream
To make the latkes: Dry sauté the mushrooms in the oil. Brown the mushrooms lightly but don’t let them get too dark, as they will be cooked again. Set aside to cool.
Grate the potatoes into a large mixing bowl. Mix in the onion, salt, and black pepper, and set aside.
Chop the mushrooms into ¼-inch (6 mm) pieces. Use your hands to squeeze out as much
moisture as possible from the potato and onion mixture, and drain out the water. Mix the mushrooms into the potato and onion mixture, then add the matzo meal, stirring to coat everything evenly.
Heat a large heavy-bottomed pan over medium heat. When hot, add 1 tablespoon of oil. Using your hands, grab a handful of the shredded mixture, form a ball, then press it into a round, flat pancake shape. Press it tight and flat between your hands to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. You want the latke to be about ⅜ inch (1 cm) thick when you are done. Place the latke into the pan. Repeat until the pan is full, but leave at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) between the latkes. Add 1½ tablespoons of butter to the space between the latkes. Do not move the latkes until they are ready to be flipped. When the bottom of the latke is crispy and golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes, carefully flip it and gently press on the top to get a nice flat surface on the bottom.
When the second side is crispy and golden brown, another 4 to 5 minutes, transfer to a cooling rack or plate lined with paper towels to drain any extra fat, and sprinkle with a small pinch of salt. Repeat until all latkes are cooked, adding more oil and fat to the pan as needed. Keep the cooked latkes uncovered in a 200° F (95°C) oven.
To make the salmon tartare: Add the salmon, olive oil, shallot, capers, lemon zest, and lemon juice to a bowl and mix well to combine. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve the latkes hot with the sour cream and salmon tartare.
Roasted Vegetable and Mushroom Salad with Black Trumpet Vinaigrette
This hearty salad makes a light, satisfying meal. I love all the different textures, and how the sweetness of the roasted vegetables plays off the earthy depth of the mushrooms. The recipe makes enough vinaigrette for a couple batches of the salad, and it will keep for at least a week in a covered container in the fridge. The vinaigrette may separate a bit after lengthy refrigeration. Let it warm up to room temperature on the counter for 30 minutes to an hour before giving it a quick whisk to bring it back to life.
Mushroom Substitutions: Almost any mushrooms will work in the salad. You can substitute yellow foots for the black trumpets in the vinaigrette, which will lighten both the flavor and the color.
Serves 3 to 4 as a main, or 6 as a side
For the vinaigrette
0.33 ounce (10 g) dried black trumpets or 5 ounces (140 g) fresh
1 cup (240 ml) warm water
Neutral oil
¼ cup (60 ml) Banyuls vinegar or sherry vinegar
½ cup (120 ml) extra virgin olive oil
For salad
1 large eggplant, cut into ½-inch (13 mm) pieces
¼ cup (60 ml) extra virgin olive oil
1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
4 cups (450 g) maitake (hen-of-the-woods) mushrooms, broken into 1-inch (2.5 cm) pieces
3 cups (115 g) loosely packed arugula
To make the vinaigrette: Add the black trumpets and water to a bowl and soak until softened, 15 to 20 minutes. Strain, reserving the liquid separately, then clean the mushrooms, if necessary. If using fresh black trumpets, skip to the next step.
Heat a sauté pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add just enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan and add the black trumpets. Add a pinch of salt and stir regularly until the mushrooms are lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the soaking liquid and cook until reduced to about ¼ cup (60 ml), 4 to 5 minutes. Add the vinegar and blend the mixture until smooth using a blender or immersion blender. While blending, slowly drizzle in the olive oil to emulsify. Taste and add salt if needed. If the vinaigrette becomes too thick to blend properly, add a little cold water to loosen it.
To make the salad: Heat the oven to 375° F (190 C). Line three rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Toss the eggplant with salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons oil. Spread out in a single layer on one of the prepared sheets and roast until soft all the way through and just starting brown, 15 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
Toss the cauliflower with salt, pepper, and 1 tablespoon oil. Spread in a single layer on the
other prepared sheet and roast until lightly browned, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool completely. (If there is space in the oven, the cauliflower can be roasted at the same time as the eggplant; just start checking the eggplant for doneness a few minutes before the cauliflower.)
After removing the eggplant and cauliflower from the oven, toss the maitake with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt, and pepper, then spread out on the third prepared sheet to oven roast. Remove from the oven and let cool completely.
Toss the mushrooms, cauliflower, and eggplant together in a large mixing bowl, adding enough of the vinaigrette to coat, and mix thoroughly to coat evenly. Let marinate in the fridge for up to 2 hours.
Add the arugula, a pinch of salt, and another 1 to 2 tablespoons of vinaigrette to the bowl. (You want enough vinaigrette to barely coat all greens, so it’s better to underestimate on the first addition. You can always mix in a little more.) Serve.
Tip: Banyuls vinegar is a unique vinegar made from the classic French fortified dessert wine of the same name. Its flavor is almost halfway between that of sherry vinegar and red wine vinegar. It is worth adding to your pantry, but if you can’t find it, substitute sherry vinegar.
9550 & 9520 Main Street Upper Lake, CA
Tallman Hotel 707-275-2244 ▪ Blue Wing Saloon 707-275-2253 tallmanhotel.com | bluewingsaloon.com
Candy Cap Granola
The maple essence of candy caps turns this standard granola into something magical. I like to eat it with yogurt for a light meal or use it as an easy snack on the run. You can adjust the proportions and types of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit to your taste. Shredded, unsweetened coconut also makes a great addition. The only real rules are that the oats should make up at least half of the total volume, and the dried fruit should be mixed in only after the rest of the ingredients have come out of the oven. The granola keeps well for several weeks stored at room temperature in an airtight container, but it never lasts that long in my house. This recipe scales well. I often make double or triple batches. Turning the Candy Cap Granola into more portable granola bars is simple, and the bars are every bit as irresistible as the regular granola. If making the granola specifically to turn into bars, chop the nuts into smaller pieces before making the granola. The smaller pieces more easily bind together as bars.
Makes about 6 cups (720 g)
1 cup (220 g) brown sugar
¼ ounce (7 g) dried candy caps
3 cups (270 g) rolled oats (not instant oats)
½ cup (55 g) slivered almonds
½ cup (60 g) walnut pieces
½ cup (65 g) sunflower seeds
½ cup (60 g) pumpkin seeds
⅓ cup (80 ml) neutral oil
½ cup (65 g) dried cranberries
Combine 1 cup (240 ml) water, brown sugar, and mushrooms in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to low and simmer gently, covered to help avoid over-reducing the syrup, for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let stand, covered, for 10 to 15 minutes to cool slightly, then blend until smooth using a blender or immersion blender.
Combine the oats, almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and pumpkinseeds in a
large mixing bowl. Pour in the candy cap syrup and the oil and stir until all of the ingredients are evenly coated.
Heat the oven to 300°F (150oC). Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour the mixture onto the prepared sheet and spread it into a layer about ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Transfer to the oven and bake for 1 to 1½ hours, until evenly and lightly browned, stirring every 10 to 15 minutes to ensure even browning.
Remove from the oven and let cool completely, then mix in the dried fruit.
Candy Cap Granola Bars
Makes 16 to 20 bars
1 batch of Candy Cap Granola
¾ cup (135 g) quinoa, uncooked
1 teaspoon candy cap powder
Pinch of salt
14 ounces (400 g) pitted dates (about 28 dates), chopped
Bring 2 cups (480 ml) of water to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat. Add the
quinoa, candy cap powder, and salt, cover, and reduce the heat to low to simmer gently until all of the water is absorbed, about 15 minutes. (The quinoa should look mushy and overcooked; this will help bind the granola bars.) Remove from the heat and let cool completely, at least 30 minutes.
Pulse the dates in a food processor until they become almost paste-like. Set aside, then pulse the cooled quinoa mixture in the empty food processor until smooth, sticky, and paste-like.
Combine the processed quinoa and dates in a mixing bowl, then add the granola. Use your hands to incorporate the granola into the quinoa-date mixture, squeezing and kneading until it starts to come together (this will be a bit sticky and messy). Once thoroughly mixed, transfer the mixture to a cutting board and roll it into a ¾-inchthick rectangle. Use a heavy, sharp knife to cut into 16 to 20 pieces. Any stray granola can be pressed back into the bars before dehydrating.
Arrange the granola bars on a dehydrator tray and dehydrate for 6 to 8 hours at 145°F (60°C) or bake for 3 to 4 hours in a 200°F (93°C) oven. Serve immediately, or store, covered or wrapped, at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.
Ancient Flavors, Future Tables
Manzanita Cooperative’s got ambitious plans to put native Californian foods on our tables, and transform agriculture in the process
BY KAREN ELOWITT
To paraphrase an old adage: to get to know a place, you have to eat the local food. In California, that typically means sampling farm-to-fork fare that’s grown or raised locally. This was the basis of the chef-driven “California Cuisine” movement that started in the 1980s, which capitalized on the abundance of fresh, seasonal ingredients found throughout the state.
You’d also have to try some multi-cultural fusion cuisine to truly understand California. Our melting pot state pioneered such innovative combinations as Mexican-Korean and French-Asian.
But there’s something that’s overwhelmingly overlooked in the pantheon of Californian food: native species. Which begs the question: how well can someone really know California, without ever having tasted what has naturally grown here for millennia?
Jed Wheeler, CEO and co-founder of Manzanita Cooperative, gathering acorns in Cobb last November. Manzanita plans to make affordable, acorn-derived products available to consumers starting in 2025, with other native California foods following in successive years.
Photos by Karen Elowitt
With the exception of Native Americans and some dedicated home cooks, few residents or visitors to California have ever cooked or eaten anything made with ingredients derived from native flora.
But one Mendocino County-based company is well on its way to changing that. Manzanita Cooperative, an employee-owned organization, plans to bring some of California’s most plentiful native foods to a wider market. In doing so they hope to achieve two rather lofty but admirable goals: to redefine what we consider “California cuisine,” and to promote a more sustainable approach to agriculture in an era of advancing climate change.
The first products that Manzanita plans to mass produce are derived from acorns, arguably California’s most abundant but least utilized—tree nut. Over two billion oak trees produce up to a trillion pounds of acorns per year in the state—a vast, untapped resource.
Worldwide, acorns have been a traditional food for thousands of years, across hundreds of temperate-zone cultures. The tradition remains unbroken in places like Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, China, and Korea, and acorn is in fact seeing a resurgence in those countries.
In other places, such as Scotland and Ireland, the link was severed long ago. In ancient and medieval times, both the Scots and the Irish relied on acorns as a food source in times of scarcity. However, this ended by the late 18th century, after oak forests were decimated by the British Navy to source lumber for shipbuilding. This left people vulnerable to the famines that forced so many to emigrate abroad.
Acorns were also a staple of Indigenous California cuisine. Because of their ubiquity and nutritional value, acorns were used by many Native communities for daily consumption, in sacred rites and rituals, and for medicinal purposes. It is estimated that before European contact, acorn-based foods comprised 40% of the diet of local Pomo tribes in Lake and Mendocino counties. Commonly consumed foods included acorn mush, acorn soup, and acorn bread.
But beginning in the late 1700s, the culinary traditions of Native Americans were either
“We’re trying to help bring acorn back to its rightful place in the common heritage of humanity.”
deliberately erased or willfully ignored by European and American colonizers, who favored non-sustainable monoculture crops that were not native to the area.
“If you go back and you read accounts of the first European settlers coming here, they consistently wondered at the natural beauty of California, which they saw as a garden with no gardeners,” said Jed Wheeler, CEO and co-founder of Manzanita Cooperative. “But they failed to see that the gardeners were right in front of them! They didn’t recognize the intentionality of what Native people were doing. So they cut down the garden and killed the gardeners, and now we wonder why it’s starting to fall apart.”
“We’re trying to help bring acorn back to its rightful place in the common heritage of humanity, as a food eaten across large swaths of the world for longer than modern Homo sapiens have even existed,” Wheeler added.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Wheeler’s own family ancestry reflects this generational blind spot.
“When my great-grandfather moved to Winters, California from Glasgow, Kentucky, he chopped down an oak forest on his land and planted an almond orchard, because he knew how to farm almonds,” Wheeler said. “He didn’t know what to do with oak trees.”
It’s a pity that early settlers did not recognize the value of acorns, because in addition to their ubiquity, they are a nutritional superfood. Nutrient-dense and calorie-rich, acorns contain substantial amounts of protein, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamins A, E, C and B6, and antioxidants.
“Acorn flour and acorn starch are versatile, gluten-free, low-glycemic, and very, very nutritious,” Wheeler explained. “Their high protein content is particularly helpful for vegetarians, who sometimes struggle to get the protein that they need. Acorn is a complete protein.”
The potential market for acorn flour and acorn starch is huge, as they can be used in the same recipes—and in the same ratios— as pantry staples such as wheat flour and corn starch.
“Acorn starch is a thickener, and it can be used as a replacement for corn starch,” Wheeler explained. “It’s got such a wonderful subtle nutty flavor. It also makes the best breading for fried chicken that you’ve ever had, and I really, really like it for desserts. And acorn flour is an excellent substitute for traditional flour in recipes for pasta, breads, cakes, cookies, and stews.”
But acorn products haven’t been more widely adopted because, to put it simply, the production process is extremely labor-intensive. All of the acorn flour currently produced in California is ground by hand or with small-scale equipment. It is tedious and time consuming to make at home, and it translates to very steep prices for the retail buyer.
“It takes an hour of work to produce a pound of acorn flour by hand,” Wheeler noted. “A lot of people try it out, think it’s cool, and say, ‘okay, that was delicious, but way too much work.’”
Acorn flour, made by grinding acorns by hand with a mortar and pestle, has been a staple food in Pomo and other Native American cultures for thousands of years.
Acorn flour that’s available for retail sale costs around $50 per pound and is typically only available online. Acorn starch can be found more easily and at a much cheaper price, but it’s sourced almost entirely from the thriving Korean and Chinese acorn industries, not from native Californian trees.
Manzanita plans to produce native acorn products cheaply, quickly and efficiently by leveraging existing processing machinery.
“If you really want to change the way that we eat and the types of flours we consume, it has to be mass produced,” Wheeler explained. “We are testing machinery that was created for California’s $8 billion tree nut industry, which we are adjusting for acorns.”
The acorns will be processed into whole leached acorns, acorn flour, and acorn starch in a facility that Manzanita is hoping to locate somewhere in Mendocino County, and have operational by September 2025. The machinery is currently being tested and fine-tuned with a “beta” crop of 500 pounds of acorns.
“We’re currently comparing the impacts of different processing techniques,” Wheeler said. “Once we know what works best, then we’ll have a lot more information to go to market. We’re also testing some really interesting proprietary technology that we’ve developed specifically around the leaching process.”
Leaching, an essential step in acorn processing, involves using water to remove the tannins from the nuts—a substance that would otherwise make acorns toxic, and too bitter to eat. Manzanita has plans to re-purpose the tannins and other byproducts, with the goal of having a zero-waste production stream.
“We’re trying to make sure that we use every part of the nut,” Wheeler explained. “Tannins are a two-and-a-half-billion-dollar industry in the U.S., and they’re used in everything from pizza boxes to pressure-treated lumber to cancer medicine. So we can sell our main waste product as a valuable product in its own right. There are also some potential uses for the leftover acorn shell material, which can be turned into packaging material, or even biochar.”
Employing local Indigenous people at the processing facility is another priority for Manzanita. The company plans to start with 15 employees, and grow to 85 by 2030.
“I’m hoping to recruit as many people as possible from our local Indigenous communities,” Wheeler said. “I think it’s really important, given the historical linkage between acorns and Native Californians, to offer those jobs to our Indigenous neighbors, especially since so many of the reservations have such unacceptably high unemployment and so few opportunities.”
Various species are being considered, including tanoak, valley oak, blue oak, and black oak. UC Davis is funding a study to analyze the nutritional values of the different types, and the processing equipment is being tested with different varieties. The intent, however, is not to choose one species, but to process multiple species. Each has different characteristics, a different harvesting “window,” and a different flavor profile, like grapes.
As far as harvesting, the acorns will be sourced from existing trees in Mendocino, Lake and Humboldt counties, on land that is contracted from private landowners. The company currently has 2500 acres with five landowners under contract, with plans to add 10 times that many in the next few years.
Harvesting acorns from existing trees is part of Manzanita’s two-pronged effort to help landowners while protecting oak trees, which are under threat throughout the state.
“Much of California’s native oak forest is on privately held lands,” Wheeler said. “And it’s shrinking because there’s this economic pressure to cut and clear it for logging revenue, farming, housing, and so on. We are helping landowners to monetize their intact old-growth oak forest and remove that pressure to cut the trees down.”
Acorn flour can be substituted for other types of flour in bread recipes. It is highly nutritious, holds moisture well, and has a slightly nutty flavor.
“As far as I’m aware, we are the only company in the world attempting to commercialize domestication and diversify crops by rapidly domesticating new species.”
Photo by Fotema
“Oak forests are incredibly import ant to our ecosystem,” Wheeler added. “They’ve got more biodiversity than any other biome in California, with over 6000 species.”
Manzanita is careful to harvest not only sustainably, but with sensitivity toward Indigenous communities.
“We take 25% or fewer of the nuts from any given site, to ensure that there are enough left behind for replanting, and for the animals that rely on them,” Wheeler said. “We are also harvesting only on privately owned lands where Native harvesting has not been historically permitted—not on public or tribal lands. We’re working really hard to make sure we’re good neighbors.”
Acorns from four oak tree species native to Mendocino County: black oak, white oak, valley oak and tanoak.
Wheeler acknowledges that achieving substantial sales volume hinges primarily on availability, because he feels that the demand is already there.
but I can help put food in the hands of people who want to eat it.”
The CIMCC, which is based in Santa Rosa, plans to buy acorn flour for its Acorn Bites program. This microenterprise makes and sells small acorn-based snacks, and the proceeds benefit educational and cultural advancement of Indigenous youth in Sonoma and Lake counties. The program has experienced supply chain issues in recent years as some of its main acorn flour vendors retired.
Although wild harvesting is Manzanita’s current method of obtaining acorns, the company is also planning to sustainably farm oak trees. In fact, their vision is to one day replace most orchards in the state that grow non-native tree nuts (such as almonds and pecans) with oak orchards.
“We will be planting oak trees eventually, but we’re not going to try to recreate a monoculture system with a different tree,” Wheeler said. “It will be done using a polyculture agroforestry approach with multiple crops growing together. Most almond orchards are actually sitting on former oak forests, so it would be a form of habitat restoration.”
One of Wheeler’s personal goals is to buy his great-grandfather’s almond orchard in Winters and replant the oak forest that used to be on the land.
If Manzanita successfully scales up according to its business plan, it could save California over eight trillion gallons of water per year.
“Almond orchards use 17% of California’s water,” Wheeler noted. “You save 400 gallons of water for every pound of acorn flour produced in lieu of almond flour. Replacing almonds with acorns would be transformative for California’s water supply and do so much to support river restoration efforts and climate adaptation.”
Manzanita’s first-year goal is to harvest 96 tons of acorns, which will be processed into about 33 tons of food. In each successive year they plan to produce five times the amount of the previous year.
“There’s actually a lot of interest in acorn flour from consumers in California,” Wheeler said. “A lot of people would like to try it, and others have tried it somewhere and then couldn’t get it again. But if you really want sustainable foods to be widely adopted, you have to make it easy for people to buy them.”
Manzanita intends to make its products not only affordable, but available directly to consumers through Amazon.com, through the Manzanita Cooperative website, and potentially through local grocery stores.
“We’re hoping to launch with a price pegged either even with—or slightly above—the price of almond flour, and bring it directly to consumers,” Wheeler explained. “The plan is very much to bring acorn flour to the masses through those different channels.”
The company also plans to make acorn products available at below-market rates to local Indigenous communities.
“Right now we’re working with a couple of different Indigenous-led organizations—including the California Indian Museum and Cultural Center [CIMCC] to help source acorn products for their food programs,” Wheeler said. “We’re going to offer these products to local tribal groups at pretty steeply discounted wholesale prices. And I’m hoping that we’re able to do that at a relatively large scale relatively quickly, because being cut off from their land and the loss of access to traditional foods has had terrible health consequences for Indigenous people. I can’t make a land-back program happen,
“The thing that needs to happen for us to try to create more acorn bites, to scale up our business and make it more accessible, is we need more acorn flour,” said Nicole Myers-Lim, Executive Director of the CIMCC. “Our partnership with Manzanita was very natural because we were looking to increase that flour supply, and Manzanita was seeking to provide it.”
Lim also sees acorn flour fitting in at the traditional food incubator that the CIMCC is creating. It will function as a teaching kitchen, a place to process and store traditional foods, and a place where native food vendors can grow their businesses.
“I think partnerships like ours demonstrate the opportunity for Native and non-Native organizations to work together in a collective effort that benefits our tribal community by improving cultural resources and nutrition,” Lim added. “What Manzanita is doing is going to create stability that’s really going to grow more Native food centers and that’s going to benefit all of our community.”
While the CIMCC has no specific preference for which oak trees its acorn flour supply comes from, Manzanita plans to cater to organizations that do have a preference by making products from different species.
“You talk to people in some [Indigenous] communities and they’re like, ‘yes, this is our acorn,’” Wheeler said. “Then you talk to people in other communities, and they say ‘oh, those are garbage acorns.’ People have very strong feelings about which acorns they want to eat.”
A little further into the future, the company plans to expand into wholesale opportunities in different industries.
“I’m having discussions with a company
Photo by Karen Elowitt
right now that wants to do a beverage derived from acorn,” Wheeler said excitedly. “There are also some really fantastic opportunities in commercial baking in particular, because the moisture that acorn flour retains keeps baked goods moist longer so that they don’t go stale as quickly.”
To help raise the acorn’s public profile, Manzanita plans to launch an educational website, EatAcorn. com, which will go live in January 2025.
Created in collaboration with the CIMCC and several other organizations, the site will showcase Indigenous cuisines from around the world that use acorns, with an emphasis on acorn recipes from California. It is being edited by Sara Calvosa Olson, an award-winning Native American chef and cookbook author.
“One of the things we want to do with EatAcorn. com is teach people how to prepare foods themselves,” Wheeler said. “I think that’s actually really important because we live in a world of increasing food insecurity, so teaching people how to use and process and eat this abundant food is an important skill for people to have.”
Manzanita does not intend to stop at acorns. In fact, acorns are just the first step in its ambitious plan to widen the adoption of native species and revolutionize how agriculture is done in the state. The company’s next project is gene-informed rapid breeding.
In a nutshell, gene-informed rapid breeding is a technology that uses genetics to quickly improve crops for use in agriculture. By doing sophisticated and detailed genetic testing on every generation of a crop, then leveraging the results to pinpoint the best plant varieties to cross-breed with to get the desired result, gene-informed rapid breeding allows scientists to create hybrid species in a fraction of the time that traditional breeding takes. It does not involve modifying or changing the genes themselves.
It has been used for years to create new domestic crops from existing ones. But Manzanita plans to use it in a different way: to create new domesticated crops from wild species, hopefully in the next couple of years. While domestication of wild species for use in farming is not a new concept, it previously took decades to accomplish.
“A century ago, when Elizabeth White domesticated the blueberry on the East Coast, it took her 30 years to do it,” Wheeler said. “And more recently, the folks who developed Kernza at The Land Institute in Kansas spent about 20 years breeding for that project.”
“As far as I’m aware, we are the only company in the world attempting to commercialize domestication and diversify crops by rapidly domesticating new species,” Wheeler added.
Having a diversity of crops available for cultivation is the ultimate hedge against climate change, according to Wheeler. With crop failures happening around the world due to extreme heat, water shortages, and increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, being able to turn to a different crop when conditions are no longer ideal for the existing one is a wise strategy.
“There are 30,000 species in this world that can provide food for humans, but only 174 of them are grown commercially,” Wheeler explained. “That genetic bottleneck creates real risk in a changing climate, because all of those 174 are adapted for the climate as it was, and to some degree as it is now. But they’re not adapted for the climate as it will be. And we’re seeing more and more frequent disruptions. One of the most powerful things that we can do is adopt the same strategy that an investor would use—diversification. If you’ve got a bunch of assets, some of them may go belly up. But if you’ve diversified, you won’t lose everything.”
With a grant from the National Science Foundation, Manzanita is currently working on domesticating lupine (also known as lupin), a flagship native California plant species. You’ve probably been seeing the purple flower-adorned bushes for years, without realizing it was lupine.
Lupine produces high-protein, high-nutrient lupini beans, which are similar to soybeans. Like acorns, lupini beans have been consumed by various cultures around the world for millennia, including some Native American communities. It is a staple food in places like Italy, Brazil, Portugal and Egypt, where it is currently domesticated and cultivated. But not in California.
Manzanita is developing a new native-derived, low-alkaloid lupini bean with the superior drought adaptation characteristics inherent to California’s lupine species. Research on five different species is currently taking place, primarily at a company lab in Utah.
“California has 120 species of lupine, out of the 220 in the world, but none of them has ever been domesticated,” Wheeler said. “And none of the other lupines in the world have the California lupine’s drought adaptations.”
The idea is for lupini beans to become an alternative to soybeans, which today constitute 75% of the global plant-based market. In addition to being very thirsty, soybeans are problematic in other ways:
Photos courtesy of Manzanita Cooperative
for thousands of years in cultures around
the vast majority grown in the U.S. are genetically modified, and many imported beans are grown via slash-and-burn agriculture. Manzanita’s initial research has shown that lupini could outperform soy as a food source for both humans and livestock, without the environmental consequences of soybeans.
The company’s bio-native version would first be planted as a winter crop for rotation in existing fields. As a nitrogen fixer, it would improve soil quality. Five or 10 years down the line the plan is to plant it as a ground cover on farmland that was previously oak savanna. To preserve local genetics it would ideally be planted between oak trees sourced from nearby wild populations, as well as bay laurels, and newly domesticated crops including native-derived grains, currants, hazelnuts. This would help reestablish biodiversity, rebuild native habitat, reduce water consumption, and crucially, act as a habitat for pollinator species.
“Lupine, which grows naturally amongst oak grasslands, is a keystone species for native
pollinators,” Wheeler said. “In fact, one of the key elements of our breeding program is to ensure that the domesticated version we produce does not have a radically different flower morphology from the wild version, because we want to ensure that the plant retains its habitat value for pollinator species.”
Field trials will begin in 2026, primarily in Mendocino County, but the company will also contract with growers in other parts of California to test the plant’s viability in a variety of climates. When commercial production is ready to start, Manzanita plans to launch a grower’s cooperative (also based in Mendocino County) to grow and harvest the crop.
Manzanita is not able to share too many other details—particularly of the R&D, since it is proprietary—but the company is certain that it is on the right track toward building a more sustainable way of doing agriculture in California, and has big plans to expand its remit.
“We’ve got a spreadsheet with 200 more
Left: Wild lupine grows near Manzanita’s research facility in Utah. Above: Bioinformatics Specialist Micki Palmersheim inspects lupine plants at Manzanita’s greenhouse in Utah. Left (inset): Chief Science Officer Christopher Hendrickson potting lupine at Manzanita’s research facility in Utah. Bottom: Lupini beans: These delicious beans have been eaten
the world.
Photo by Jiri Hera
“I think that the North Coast can become the capital of an industry built around native tree nuts and other species.”
species that have a lot of agricultural potential, and can be bred to produce food at the commercial scale,” Wheeler said.
If it all sounds quite ambitious, that is exactly the point: big problems need big solutions.
Wheeler had long been concerned about climate-driven food insecurity, the loss of biodiversity caused by over 200+ years of bad land management, and non-native monoculture. He knew something needed to be done to combat it, and soon.
“The deliberate destruction of indigenous land management practices because of racism and colonization are at the root of a lot of the challenges that we face as a state now,” he noted. “For example, why do we have wildfires? Invasive non-native species are actually one of the biggest drivers of that. The forests haven’t had regular controlled burn cycles for generations. And why do we have so many water shortages? Because rivers and aquifers are depleted by water-intensive crops such as almonds and alfalfa.”
He deduced that one way to tackle these issues was to make agriculture better through native species. Since he didn’t see anyone else doing it, he decided to start Manzanita.
“We did not choose a small problem to try to solve,” Wheeler admits. “None of our native crops are grown commercially, so we started the company to show that there’s important, valuable, climate-adapted food here that’s super nutritious. And starting with those two species [oak and lupine], we want to also create the beginning of a polyculture system.”
Of course, Manzanita Cooperative does not run solely on one man’s enthusiasm and experience. In addition to Wheeler, who has a background in technology, product development, gardening, and native habitat restoration, Manzanita’s six other team members bring over 130 years of collective experience in sustainability, conservation, horticulture science, marketing, manufacturing, operations, bioinformatics, and education.
The company is currently funded through a combination of private investors and public grants. As with the great majority of startups, finding funds can be a tough slog. Wheeler spends a lot of his time writing grant applications, courting investors, and sometimes facing disappointment when dollars are denied.
“The biggest barrier for us in funding is that nobody’s done this type of work before in California,” Wheeler lamented. “Once we’ve done it, we’ll have proven it’s possible. But getting there is the hard part.”
But unlike most other founders of scrappy startups, Wheeler is not trying to get rich doing what he does with Manzanita. As a worker-owned cooperative, he and the rest of the team are motivated not by profit, but by a love for native species and a desire to improve the environment by changing how we grow food.
“Our culture has unknowingly terraformed California with a non-native biology that is not adapted to our unique climate,” Wheeler said. “So if we can do the opposite, and instead of trying to adapt the environment to agriculture, adapt agriculture to the environment, we can create a fundamentally more resilient way of producing.”
“We just want to make the world better,” Wheeler added. “It would be a really, really big win for Manzanita to be the catalyst that pushes California —and the world, longer term—towards more sustainable, climate-adapted native crops. I think that the North Coast can become the capital of an industry built around native tree nuts and other species.”
Manzanita Cooperative is currently seeking additional backers to help support and expand its work. If you are interested in becoming an investor, please reach out using the contact form at manzanitacooperative.com.
Manzanita staff, from left to right, top to bottom: Christopher Hendrickson, Maia Steward, Mauro Finlez, Leslie Nuccio, Rich Bolton, and Micki Palmersheim
Photos courtesy of Manzanita Cooperative
