When We Were Wild
A documentary series exploring ancestral foodways and the timeless relationship between humans and the wild. Each episode profiles people who live in deep reciprocity with the land — drawing nourishment, meaning, and identity from it in ways most modern humans have forgotten.
Seven Stories. One Remembering.
Their connection to food is their connection to life itself — an invitation to rekindle the wild, wise, and deeply human part of ourselves that still knows how to belong to the Earth.
Forgotten Flavors
Our ancestors knew every edible plant, every healing herb — knowledge we’ve almost entirely lost. Forager Pascal Baudar moves through Southern California’s woodlands and desert with ancestral eyes, gathering what most would overlook. He forages wild plants for food and fermentation, hand-harvests clay to craft vessels, and creates an extraordinary feast that exists nowhere else. This intimate portrait reveals what we gain when we slow down enough to remember who we once were.
Watch the Film ↓Born Into Migration
Máret Rávdná Buljo is a Sámi reindeer herder, food storyteller, and Hurtigruten’s first Sámi Culinary Ambassador. Born into a reindeer-herding and cloudberry-picking family, she has devoted herself to preserving Sámi food knowledge — from traditional slaughter practices to championing an ethic of respect by using the whole animal. Around the fire, she prepares reindeer broth, crowberry sauce, ember bread, and lingonberry porridge — dishes that make Sámi tradition feel vivid, elemental, and alive.
Shoot scheduled · September
Wild Rice Wisdom
Keith Bear is a Mandan storyteller, chef, and educator. He shares his knowledge of wild rice — a sacred grain central to the diets and traditions of his people. From the harvest to the preparation, Keith reflects on the cultural significance of this staple food, and how it connects him to his ancestors, his community, and the land.
Shoot scheduled · October
More Than Gatherers
Jess Johnson is a bow hunter, conservation advocate, and a powerful voice for women finding their way into hunting on their own terms. She leads us into a circle of formidable women hunters, each carrying a different piece of ancestral knowledge — tanning hides, primitive smoking, harvesting and preserving wild food. The episode culminates in a Beast Feast: a wild, communal meal that celebrates skill, resilience, and the many ways these women reclaim and redefine ancestral foodways.
Shoot scheduled · 2027
Decay & Renewal
Maya Elson follows mushrooms not only as wild food, but as guides to a deeper understanding of relationship — between human and forest, decay and renewal, inner healing and ecological repair. Through her practice of Mycopsychology, she explores how connecting with fungi can help people rewild themselves. Her work extends to co-founding the Post Fire Biofiltration Initiative, using fungi to prevent toxins from burned homes from entering waterways — making fungi not just teachers of belonging, but allies in restoration.
Shoot scheduled · January 2027
Plant Wisdom, Ancient Knowing
Michael Tierra helped shape the modern herbal revival by weaving together Western herbalism, Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda into a practice he calls planetary herbology. In the 1970s, he helped reintroduce echinacea into modern American herbalism, reviving interest in a plant with a much older Indigenous medicinal history. In Michael, we find an elder guide to the medicinal wisdom of the Earth — a story about healing as a form of remembering our kinship with the living world.
Plant Wisdom, Ancient Knowing
Michael Tierra helped shape the modern herbal revival by weaving together Western herbalism, Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda into a practice he calls planetary herbology. In the 1970s, he helped reintroduce echinacea into modern American herbalism, reviving interest in a plant with a much older Indigenous medicinal history. In Michael, we find an elder guide to the medicinal wisdom of the Earth — a story about healing as a form of remembering our kinship with the living world.
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When We Were Wild is currently in production. Your support funds the filming, travel, and storytelling that makes each episode possible.
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