Famous Forager Enjoys Victory Over Department of Public Health
Deer do it. Cows do it. But when Iso Rabins forages for food, he runs into trouble. Based on his passion for hunting edibles, Rabins has built a little indie empire known as ForageSF. Earlier in the year the organization's Underground Market was shut down by San Francisco's Department of Public Health (DPH) and more recently it was fined over a permit issue with its Wild Kitchen dinners--where for $40ish guests are served a gourmet meal of hunted and foraged foods.
This week, SFWeekly reports that Rabins recently enjoyed a triumph over the Man when the department dropped the fines, which were posted at $1,063 per event, with six on record this year. DPH Environmental Health Director Rajiv Bhatia sided with Rabins when he proved that the department had not notified him of the need for a permit until after the fact.
Now the Wild Dinners are completely up to code and are cooked in commercial kitchens, which Rabins told SFWeekly, "really takes away from the life of the dinners," and went on to say, "but I guess that's what [health officials] need."
Strange that you can legally jump out of a plane but you can't eat wild nettle soup out of a man's kitchen. Rabins told us, "I think that if a person makes an informed decision to eat homemade food, or raw milk, they should be able to. If food safety is truly the issue, it makes more sense to me to work together to find solutions rather than simply pretend it's not happening."
And why should anyone pretend these cottage businesses aren't happening when they're so inspiring? Rabins says, "Whenever I think of all the small scale businesses being created in the home kitchens around the country I get really excited. It's exciting that people are taking the opportunity to create truly unique businesses. Businesses that are created for exactly the time and place in which they live."
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