But most of his talk focuses on the tastes of plants, roots, berries and herbs and on the various ways to saute, boil, steam or merely munch them raw. Those in short supply, such as yellow watercress, he doesn't pick. Others, such as sassafras, Juneberries and burdock, which Brill says are plentiful and easily regenerated, are yanked, snipped, picked and plucked as Brill meanders among the crowd.
Brill said his mother's death at 57, and his family's history of heart disease, prompted him to move away from junk food and meat and into a vegetarian lifestyle in the 1980s.
He eventually became a vegan and devotes part of his tour to urging foragers to try his cookbooks and check out his app. He met his wife when she came on a foraging tour Brill was conducting for a singles group in the late 1990s, and they have an 8-year-old daughter, who Brill said is growing up with a healthy, but not rigid, diet.
"I don't deprive her of birthday cakes when all the other kids are having it. But we try to keep the bad stuff on the low side," he said, defining "bad stuff" as refined carbohydrates, sugar, white flour, artificial chemicals and animal products.
