The Botanist Wild a state of mind
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Roushanna’s Story
Cape Town, South Africa
Founder of Veld and Sea in South Africa, Roushanna Gray is a wild food innovator and avid forager.
Inspired by the outstanding natural beauty of the fynbos, a tiny strip at the bottom of South Africa with the highest density of species in all of the different floral kingdoms, Roushanna has been experimenting with the exciting flavours of Cape Point and its indigenous plants for over ten years. The range of delicious and nutritious culinary offerings from the inter-tidal rock pools of the nearby coast also play a major role in her cooking classes and workshops.
Roushanna’s exploration into the flavour and medicinal properties of foraged plants was inspired by her husband, Tom, who is an indigenous plant specialist and her mother-in-law, Gayle, an horticulturalist.
“She would identify the plants for me, then I would do the research to see if it was edible or not… And that’s how it all started!”
She has been able to take their expertise and turn that academic knowledge into something, living, breathing, and of practical application. Roushanna believes that on land, at sea, in forests and mountains, there is food all around us and we just have to open up our senses and reconnect. She strives to help people do just that, through the creative workshops and immersive experiences she offers from her base at Goodhope Gardens Nursery.
“With foraging, it’s the only way you can learn. You can’t Google it, it doesn’t work like that. The only way is to go out there an experience the plants, smell the smells, make the recipes and make those flops!”
Foodie turned forager: Roushanna Gray
‘I grew up in a suburb of Cape Town, without any sort of plant background. I was a foodie though.’ For so long an urbanite, she now considers herself immersed in, even obsessed with, the possibilities offered by the outdoors.
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