4:30 pm
Tinkham Veale University Center Ballroom A
11038 Bellflower Road, Cleveland, Ohio 44106
With industrial advances in food production, is it possible that we have forgotten how food, as nature intended, tastes like? The chemical modifications of natural ingredients and our increasingly desensitized taste buds have undoubtedly contributed to unleashing a ravenous human appetite leading to an overconsumption of tasty yet low-nutrient calorie dense foods. And with cutting-edge AI technologies on the horizon, we are yet to experience a further revolution where AIs are able to collate and process data of plant molecules to create new tastes and products.
Our panelists, consisting of an ethnobotanist, a forager and sustainable food system expert as well as a Michelin-star and Food Network chef, reflect on the recent changes in human taste and appetite and what it means to consume foods in one’s bioregion. As part of the event, we will invite participants to sample foods such as plants and crops that are native to the Great Lakes and AI-generated plant-based cheese in our search of envisioning a future with greater health and ecological balance.
Registration requested. Register HERE.
About the Panelists:
JB Douglas is a forager and creative professional based in Cleveland, OH. He is the marketing and communications manager at Zero Foodprint (James Beard Humanitarian of the Year) and provides volunteer marketing support at Food for Climate League. He was the first hire at Foraged Market (Foodtech 500), where he directed culinary production and community engagement. His wild food recipes and photography have been featured in Edible magazines, VegNews, and The New York Times. You can find JB’s work in upcoming publications from Alexis Nelson (@blackforager) and Gabrielle Cerberville (@chaoticforager), and on his Substack, The Wild Grocery (@jbouglas.food). JB holds a Master’s in Sustainable Food Systems from the Culinary Institute of America and a BFA from New York University. Learn more about JB Douglas HERE.
Gale Gand is a Chicago-based pastry chef, cookbook author, television personality, and winner of the 2001 James Beard Foundation Award for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Gand was the host of the Food Network show Sweet Dreams which ran on the network from 2000 to 2008. She was the Chef-in-Residence at Elawa Farm, in Lake Forest, Illinois. Gand is a partner and was the founding Executive Pastry Chef at Tru, a restaurant that got awarded two Michelin stars. In 1996, Gand was chosen by Julia Child to appear on two episodes of the PBS show Baking with Julia. Gand was the host of the Food Network show Sweet Dreams that ran on the network from 2000 to 2008. She was also an Iron Chef: America contestant. Learn more about Gale Gand HERE.
Alison McKim is an ethnobotanist, a nature educator, and a lecturer in the Department of Cognitive Science at Case Western Reserve University. From 2016-2019, Alison served as Director of the Horticultural Therapy Program at UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, where she provided a wide variety of opportunities for patients, staff and families to find respite, in the rooftop garden as well as inside their rooms. Alison has been providing opportunities locally and nationally for students of all ages to connect with nature and "rewild," utilizing Earthskills, primitive skills, herbalism, foraging and organic arts. She has written a curriculum for a bioregional Forest School in the Pacific Northwest, highlighting local plants and teaching how to identify and use them.