Travel Tips

Culinary Travel – Seasonal Foraging

If you’re interested in culinary travel that involves both seasonal ingredients and hands-on activities, this one is for you.

Fall means apple season. And that can mean a lot more than just apple picking and hay rides. For example, Soons Farms in New York State has a U-pick apple orchard, but it also hosts cooking lesson and dinners on the farm.

Braise Culinary School in Wisconsin offers cooking classes, dinners and tours through tomato patches and apple orchards in the fall, and strawberry farms in the spring.

Late fall and winter is truffle season, and you don’t have to travel to Tuscany or Provence to enjoy it. Eugene, Oregon celebrates its truffle crop with the big festival every January, with truffle hunting, cooking classes and other educational experiences.

If you’re a fan of seafood head to St. Joe’s Bay, Florida between July and September, for recreational scallop diving.

And in California counties like Mendocino, Sonoma and Monterey, you can go abalone diving from April to July, and from August to December. It requires some experience, but guides can help you harvest, clean and prepare the abalone for eating.

After all, hands-on experiences bring new meaning to “sourcing your food.”

Find out more in our Culinary Travel section.

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