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Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

Discover the hidden culinary treasures of Prospect Park as you learn to identify and harvest edible and medicinal plants, mushrooms, and berries. Join us for a unique foraging experience led by an expert guide. Don't miss out on this opportunity to explore the park's natural wonders and enhance your knowledge of wild foods.

  • All levels
  • 13 and older
  • $20
  • Prospect Park - Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY
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  • $20
  • Prospect Park - Brooklyn @ Prospect Park - Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY 11238
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Notes Prospect Parks Grand Army Plaza entrance
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Notes Brooklyn, NY at Prospect Parks Grand Army Plaza entrance
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Notes $20 Ticket is for 1 person only. Accompanying Adult must purchase ticket separately.
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Notes Brooklyn, NY at Prospect Parks Grand Army Plaza entrance
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Notes $20 Ticket is for 1 person only. Accompanying Adult must purchase ticket separately.
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Class Description

Description

What you'll learn in this foraging class:

A great abundance of edible and medicinal wild plants and mushrooms makes this park a great place for edible and medicinal plants and mushrooms in late summer.

Burdock, an expensive detoxifying herb sold in health food stores, abounds in cultivated areas throughout the park. You can also use this invasive species as a superb root vegetable, or even marinate and bake it, to make "Wildman's" Vegan Beef Jerky!

The root of sassafras, which makes tea and root beer, is also a great, if unknown, culinary seasoning. Common spicebush (which also has allspice-like berries), and ground ivy (a gentle herbal diuretic) provide still more beverages.

Everyone will also find plenty of leafy green vegetables, such as hedge mustard, yellow watercress, wood sorrel, goutweed, lamb’s-quarters (wild spinach), chickweed (which tastes like corn), poor man's pepper, Asiatic dayflower, and lady’s thumb. These renewable "weeds" readily regenerate whether they've been harvested or mowed.

Nuts are coming into season. Hickory nuts, delicious but never commercialized (mainly because the trees don't produce good crops every year), litter the sidewalk 1/4 mile south of the Picnic House. Hazelnut bushes drop their nuts along the edges of the Mall, just north of the skating rink, but we'll have to race the squirrels for these. Beech trees grow throughout the park, but whether this year's crop will be a boom or bust is anyone's guess. White oak acorns, scrumptious after leached of their bitter tannin, are also widespread.

We'll  also find the seeds of the Kentucky coffee-tree as well, good for making the world's best caffeine-free coffee substitute, and an excellent-if-unknown seasoning for chocolate.

Gourmet fruits are represented by native hawthorn berries, relatives of apples, used in herbal medicine as a heart tonic. There may also be a bumper crop of crab apples, plus Northern black haw berries, a.k.a wild raisins. These sweet fruits resemble raisins, but taste like a combination of bananas and prune butter.

Another sweet fruit is the paper mulberry, a reddish sphere covered with prongs. There could also be American hackberries, with a hard pit surrounded by a coating that tastes like the outer part of M & Ms.

Spectacular mushrooms will abound if there's been enough rain beforehand. Huge hen-of-the woods (sold in health food stores as maitake), gigantic chicken mushrooms (which taste better than chicken), golden-brown honey mushrooms, ringless honey mushrooms, and savory wine-cap stropharia mushrooms could pop up anywhere.

Meeting Place:

We will meet at the stone benches by the stone wall, at Prospect Park's Grand Army Plaza entrance, across the street from the library between the columns with the eagles, NOT under the traffic circle, and NOT in front of the library. 

Please Note:

  • Participants should bring lunch, a pen, plastic bags, paper bags, containers, closed shoes (there’s always poison ivy around), clothing appropriate for the weather, and drinking water. Digging implements are suggested. Kids and well-behaved dogs are welcome.
  • Participants should be dressed for the weather, and be aware of very bad subway service. Trains are often canceled due to track work. 
  • No sandals (there are mosquitoes, thorns and poison ivy). 
  • Everyone should have plastic bags for veggies and herbs, paper bags for mushrooms, which spoil in plastic, containers for berries from late spring through fall, water and lunch, and extra layers when it's cold. Digging implements and pocket knives are optional. 
  • Dogs are permitted. Children are encouraged to attend.
  • There's no smoking whatsoever at any time.
School Notes:
If you can't attend the class you signed up for, please call or email "Wildman" Steve Brill a day before the start of the class. No-call/no-show creates an inconvenience to all participants since we can’t tell if absentees are having transportation issues, and this delays the start of the tour/class.

Kindly note that price posted is our suggested donation only.

Refund Policy

  • Participants can cancel 2 business days before an event and get a refund less a 5% nonrefundable registration fee.
  • If the participant failed to show up in the tour or failed to notify about their absence 2 business days before the class, they will be required to pay a $25 penalty per person before being allowed on another tour.
  • In any event where a customer wants to cancel their enrollment and is eligible for a full refund, a 5% processing fee will be deducted from the refund amount.

Reviews of Classes at "Wildman" Steve Brill (176)

(4.4-star rating across 176 reviews)
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 10/31/2023
    Wildman Steve is a quite the character, but a devoted and invaluable resource for learning about the world around us! Highly recommend this insightful and surprisingly affordable experience.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 10/8/2023
    It was great class and teacher! However please check hus website for the actual info of the class! Meeting location is the same but the time is probably different! Definitely worth it, he was very knowledgeable and funny!
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 5/29/2023
    Steve and Violet were immensely knowledgeable and I recommend this walk to anyone curious about connecting with the plants in their path. As an amateur forager, I left with several new plant allies to name and work with as food and medicine. Disclaimer: brace yourself for some seriously corny jokes :-)
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 3/19/2023
    wildman steve brill is an incredible teacher & entertainer! we had a blast learning about edible (& inedible) plants right here in nyc
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 3/19/2023
    Comprehensive and informative, really cool practical knowledge and fun guidance!
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 11/14/2022
    The instructor is very knowledgeable but the group was to large. I rather pay more for a smaller group. It was hard to hear him.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 10/25/2022
    I had reached out to reschedule my class but was unable to get a response.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 10/4/2022
    This could not have been any better. Mr. Wildman is about as entertaining and informative as any instructor ever. Bring a friend and take a walk around the park eating the edible plants you walk past un-knowingly every day. Make sure to bring water and a lunch unless you want to subsist on gout weed alone! Bring a plastic or paper bag if you want to keep some plants for recipes. We made a great pesto from the greens we collected.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by cathy b. on 9/9/2022
    Wildman Steve is a wonderful naturalist and guide. He shared so much with us, lore, botany, stories, herbalism. I learned a lot. I have been very eager to learn about foraging and he set me up.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by Jen C. on 8/8/2022
    Truly an amazing experience! Steve and Violent were so fun an informative, it was honestly one of the best things I’ve done in Brooklyn since living here!
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by elizabeth m. on 7/14/2022
    It was a fantastic class! I cannot believe all these edible plants we consider weed grow wild all over the park! Thank you!!
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Anonymous review on 7/12/2022
    Steve and Violet were excellent guides for our Prospect Park excursion. I wasn't expecting such a good turnout of people from diverse backgrounds, and I was so happy with the wealth of information that was generously provided by the guides and shared by everyone. It was fun and I want to do another tour with this father-daughter duo soon.
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by Josh S. on 5/16/2022
    Very family friendly and warm, educational
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by Elia T. on 5/2/2022
    Steve is a real treat! His knowledge and way to teach are exemplar
  • Prospect Park (Teens/Adults)

    Reviewed by cathy b. on 5/2/2022
    This was a glorious experience! Steve is so knowledgable, patient, nice, all around great. I cant imagine there is a person on earth who wouldn’t be happy spending a few hours foraging and learning with him.
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"Wildman" Steve Brill

Foraging expert Steve Brill has shared his foraging wisdom at schools, museums, parks departments, environmental organizations, and with scout troops since 1982. He’s written three books and an app, stars in a DVD and maintains a website.

His History with Foraging

As part of his exercise regime, he...

Read more about "Wildman" Steve Brill

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"Wildman" Steve Brill

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At the stone benches at park's Grand Army Plaza entrance, behind The Farmer's Market and across the street from the library, NOT under the traffic circle.

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