Food Foraging – One Of The Modern Trends In Ecotourism

One of many new trends in ecotourism today is food foraging. Ecotourism has become more popular in tourism industry nowadays and many people realize or even start to like it. That is the reason why travel agents or tour operators develop many kinds of activity that can connect the culinary with ecotourism together at the same time. Cooking your own food by learning with the professional chef is going to be interesting. Foraging for local ingredients directly from the garden, forest or even traditional market makes the trip would become meaningful. In the article, 9 New Travel Trends to Watch in 2018, Shannon Mcmahon (2018) says that food foraging has become part of the latest culinary trend. Buying a food from the restaurant is pretty common and the easiest way to do while travelling. Today, it needs a little effort to enjoy the food. Instead of buying the ready to eat food, the travelers prefer to join the cooking class with professional chef in order to know more about the process. Knowing the ingredients by joining the expert to the field, foraging the traditional ingredients and exploring the forest before cooking time will give different sense. “Hunting down truffles or herbs in forests and plucking scallops and seaweed from shorelines have become popular across the globe, from England and Portugal to Australia, Cape Town, and Abu Dhabi”.

Jim Cornfield, in his article, Culinary Ecotourists Turn Wilderness Foraging into Dinner (2009), explains that fun things of culinary ecotourism. It is amazing to experience eating the food that the travelers are able to capture around them. That is what make this activity different from another culinary tourism. The main reason is not to become a king in a fancy dinner but jump into area of gardener, farmer, gatherer or even the member or the kitchen employee. The requirements of food foraging tourism are the food that is used or cooked should be grown around the local area and it must be seasonable. This will help the local people as well because they are able to provide all of the fresh stuff and it can improve their economics.

Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations. Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations. Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations. Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations.

Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations. Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognised to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations. “Evidently, the kind of food and drinks that are produced locally and available at a destination has been recognized to have implications not only to the local economy, but also to the local culture and ensuring the environmental sustainability of the tourism destinations”. The new perspective from Alias and friends is quite interesting. Food foraging does not only affect the local economy and environment, but also the local culture. It makes sense because when traveler trying the original food with the best traditional ingredients of the local area that is visited, automatically the people will recognize how they life their live especially in the way they are looking for the things to eat, how they prepare and also how they cook. The taste will definitely differ from the place where they live. This is the reason why a must requirement of this activity is using the local product.

Zoheb Davar, in his article, Travel Trends Towards Sustainability: This is Ecotourism (2017), explain how the restaurant which use the ingredients from the local area will decrease carbon footprints of the trip. Imagine the amount of carbon dioxide and other carbon compounds emitted due to consumption of fuels that people use to move in order to get the food. Some restaurants import the food materials from another city or even country to serve international food. By using the source from the area nearby the restaurant, foraging local ingredient from the forest of the farming and garden in the area will definitely save the environment. Davar (2017) also give an example of the restaurant in Nicaragua, called exhibit A: Morgan’s Rock, which has its own an on-site organic farm and fishery that is used to serve travelers in their place. It is so interesting to see how the restaurants manage their stuff to become ecotourism. A blog written by Trafalgar titled “Wild Food Foraging at Liscannor Bay” (2015) shares the story about local food expert Oonagh O’Dwyer who is close friend with the owner of Barrtra Seafood Restaurant in Liscannor Bay, Ireland. They do a great job in food foraging tourism.

Oonagh leads the tour along Wild Atlantic Way. It is such an amazing experience because he brings the traveler walk along the beach to do foraging adventure before back to the restaurant and cook it together. The goal is to make the food as authentic as possible. The traveler can definitely enjoy the moment in the restaurant. It has been proved since they won EDEN award for tourism and local gastronomy and they are also awarded foodie destination of Ireland 2015 by The Restaurants Association of Ireland. Many people amazed by the moment that they could experience in that area because that isolated stretch if Irish coast give them something beyond the expectation. Food foraging is a new way to enjoy culinary sensation for those who love the food. Tourism is always developing from time to time. Traveler used to buy or enjoy the traditional food by buying it directly to a restaurant without knowing how they cook, where are the materials from. Now, as a customer, there are a lot of things to do instead of eating only. They can experience how to hunt the food from local, knowing exactly where they find it, and also feel the atmosphere as a local people. There many things to enjoy and learn. Knowing that the trips can make travelers happy, save the environment and the culture is the goal that every human being should respect.