WorldWild Podcast
Episode 14 27th June 2019
What Might We Become with Sunny Savage
Hawaii, a place of great biodiversity and endemism, has the highest rate of extinction per square mile on Earth. For Sunny Savage, wild food advocate, author & app-developer, part of the solution comes with people getting back in touch with their wild side; 'we can't come with the answer until people begin interacting with nature'.
Since her childhood in the wilds of Northern Minnesota she has been on a voyage of discovery through wild edibles which has landed her in one of the most diverse places on Earth. Here she talks to us about how it all made sense to her that day she realised that there were treasures in the woods, and how she now spreads her love of wild food in Hawaii; the history of 'canoe plants' - those brought to the island by ancient Polynesians, how food can act as the great unifier, and what can happen when we treat our bodies like an ecosystem - and intuition as a form of communication...
'We are in deep grieving here in Hawaii'
- Sunny Savage, episode 14
About Sunny Savage
Sunny Savage is a wild foods advocate, author of ‘Wild Food Plants of Hawai’i’, and creator of the app Savage Kitchen which empowers people in utilising edible invasive plant species. Sunny has always been a little wild; as a daughter of back-to-the-landers in the Northwoods of Minnesota, she remembers tapping maple trees and picking wild berries around their home. But it wasn't until she found out that the plants in her mother's medicinal herb book might also be edible that something clicked. She exclaimed: 'I've' been walking around my whole life and no one told me that all of this was edible!' She spent a year in Antarctica, 3 years of life aboard a sailboat, worked with the Pygmy in Congo, taught in the Dalai Lama’s temple, before landing in Hawai’i.
Further reading
> Find more from Sunny Savage and the Savage Kitchen app here.
> Find 'Wild Food Plants of Hawaii' here.
> Watch: Sunny's TEDxMaui talk 'You can eat that - The gift of wild foods'.
About the show
We offer a series of conversations to tap into the wildness within ourselves and to uncover what is possible when we do. It is our hope that through the WorldWild Podcast we can contribute to the revitalisation of wild food culture and conversation around the world.
Through people who know their landscapes intimately, we gather the threads to weave a rich tapestry. Piece by piece the vision of a wilder world comes into view. The wild embrace of nature welcomes us back and offers us a seat at the table. A feast, no less!
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