Dining in the Commons: My Food Show Elevator Pitch

If I had lots of time and money I'd produce a show that was …

… one half Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's A Cook on the Wild Side …


… one half Professor Richard Judd's Common Lands, Common People …

… one half Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop …


… and one half Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus.

While that may seem like several halves too many, I think it would all hold together. I'd drive around Maine in a Toyota Land Cruiser, fishing, fowling, foraging, hunter-and-gathering and otherwise collecting free ingredients from great ponds, salt marshes, rivers, forests and the Gulf of Maine. Then—because I'm too much of an amateur hack to do it myself—I'd take my finds to local chefs to prepare in interesting ways. We'd eat alewives and elvers and sea lettuce and wild mushrooms and herbs and everything in between. Along the way I'd talk about our common rights to public resources and how our access to those resources and our knowledge of how to use them are slowly dwindling. But I'd also find a bunch of people who are keeping old food traditions alive or who are importing and forming interesting new ones. I'd release the whole series over the web under a creative commons license.

Anyone have a camera crew, a land cruiser and lots of spare time they want to lend me?