A fun guy with fungi — Dawson has foraged some hefty loads of mushrooms over the years
It was overabundance that led Shawn Dawson down the path to the creation of Barking Kettle Farm. Six years ago, the Torbay, Newfoundland resident found that he had planted way too many tomato and pepper plants, so he started going to the local farmers market to sell the plants. It was the same thing at harvest time — he had too many tomatoes and peppers, so he brought them to the market to sell. But by this point he was making connections.
“I started meeting some of the chefs at the restaurants and selling my tomatoes and peppers and some herbs,” says Dawson. “Then they found out I was a bit of a mushroom nerd, so I finally got in to meet them through there and selling lots of wild mushrooms to local restaurants. They would always ask me for berries and any other foraged items, so it kind of just happened.” In the last two years, Dawson has been able to work on Barking Kettle full time. Since then foraging has become a bigger and bigger part of his work. Driven by local interest, foraging now makes up roughly 80 per cent of his product. The majority of that is selling raw materials to chefs, but he does produce a few products of his own, including jams and hot sauces.
“Originally, there were only one or two restaurants around town that were willing to buy wild mushrooms and things like that,” says Dawson. “In just the past three years, I’ve noticed such a difference in the restaurant industry. All the restaurants want to be using wild mushrooms and fresh berries and all that stuff.”
“When I was first picking mushrooms, everyone thought I was a weirdo and no one was at it,” says Dawson. “But now it seems like people are getting pretty interested.”
Tips for sustainable foraging
With that increase in picking activity, Dawson has also seen the potential for over-harvesting. Aside from the obvious paramount importance of knowing which mushrooms and berries are indeed edible, Dawson has a few quick tips for proper, sustainable foraging.
- Get a basket. Plastic bags and other nonporous containers are less than ideal for mushrooms because they prevent spores from spreading. If you gather with a wicker basket, the spores have a chance to spread as you move around, helping to grow additional mushrooms.
- Use a knife. If you want more mushrooms to harvest in the future, ripping them out and disturbing their roots is a very bad idea. Use a knife to harvest, leaving roots intact.
- Don’t use a berry picker. On a similar note, berry picker devices (often like a rake attached to a small container or tray) can uproot plants and harm them in ways that will reduce yields in the coming years.
- Leave at least 1520 per cent. If you find a patch of mushrooms, don’t harvest the entire thing. Leave a good portion of the patch behind so that it will continue to regrow in the future. This is also good advice for harvesting wild berries.
- Pick only what you will use. “As it gets more popular, I don’t want things to be overharvested,” says Dawson. “There’s enough for everybody’s family to get through the winter; don’t overdo it.”
- Whatever you bring in, take out. You want to have as little impact on your foraging areas as possible. Bring only what is essential and take it with you when you leave.
In addition to 15-20 restaurants, Dawson has also been supplying products to other businesses such as a soap company and a brewery. He has also held a variety of workshops to teach school children about which wild foods are and aren’t edible as well as preservation methods.
How has Dawson managed to forge so many productive relationships with local businesses and the community at large?
“I guess I’m so passionate about it myself that people kind of realize that this guy, he maybe has a few good ideas,” says Dawson. “I like to think that is pretty true, that Newfoundlanders are friendly. Everyone is so easy to deal with, so passionate about what they do. They want to use it all, like if I bring in an edible thing they’ve never used before, they’re so passionate to use it.”
Volatile climate the biggest challenge
The biggest challenge in the foraging model is the weather. As friendly as the people may be in Newfoundland, the climate can be volatile. “You could see four seasons in one day. And you’re getting paid for what you picked. Sometimes, there’s not enough hours in a day.”
Seaweed pickles, jam and cocktails
One of Barking Kettle’s newest offerings is seaweed and seaweed-based products. This idea started with a forager’s dinner with the Boreal Diner in Bonavista, where Dawson would bring a large load of forage to a chef for a specific dinner. In preparing for that dinner, Dawson harvested a load of seaweed which was then pickled. Dawson enjoyed it in the dinner and started harvesting seaweed during the slower forage season in the winter.
“It’s pretty interesting for sure and people use them downtown, like in cocktails and they’re using the seaweed jam and stuff like that. It’s cool. It’s a hard one to harvest; you can only get it when the tide’s out. You’ve got to harvest it fresh; you can’t use the stuff that’s washed up on the shore.”
The timing couldn’t have been better; around the same time that Dawson began harvesting seaweed, an article appeared in the local newspaper, The Telegram, touting that Newfoundland and Labrador seaweed could have cancer inhibiting properties.
“There’s lots of magnesium in it,” says Dawson. “So it’s really good, you’re getting lots of nutrients that you wouldn’t normally from things grown on the land.”
Dawson is quick to credit social media with helping to expand his connections and his customer base. Photos of his harvests on Instagram regularly inspire messages from potential customers. However, arguably, the real star of his Instagram page is Douglas.
The story of Douglas
“He’s a stray cat my friend found in the woods in Portugal Cove and I got him when he was pretty young. I think he was only a little over four weeks but he was super chill. I just kept him in my pocket. He grew up with me, coming into the woods, so I guess now it’s imprinted on him. He just loves coming out and being next to me while I’m picking. Sometimes you’ll find him waiting in a mushroom patch or something like that.”
A local artist is in the process of creating a children’s book about Douglas. However, that isn’t the only Barking Kettle related book in the works — after years of hosting foraging tours and being told by guests that ‘You should write a book, man,’ Dawson decided to take them at their word.
“I’ve never written anything before, but I see the demand. It’ll be a field guide which will tell you all the things that I’m harvesting and each chef that I deal with will put a recipe for each harvest. It’ll be a pretty informative book and it’ll give you an inspiration to go out and pick.”
Dawson acknowledges that tourism has played a significant part in his success. People coming to Newfoundland are interested in sampling the local cuisine. And Newfoundland is, along with Nova Scotia, one of the only provinces that permit restaurants to serve wild game.
“If you come here in season and you eat at a restaurant, most things were harvested within that week or close to it.”
While Dawson would like someday to open a forage-to-table café in Torbay, he’s open to almost any possibility for where his work may take him. He’s following his passion and he’s happy to see where it takes him.
— Matt Jones