WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 Imagine walking through, you know, the ultimate 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:06.780 concrete jungle. Oh, right. You are right in 00:00:06.780 --> 00:00:09.240 the middle of New York City. The sirens are blaring. 00:00:09.599 --> 00:00:11.400 Taxis are just rushing by. And you've got these 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:14.880 massive skyscrapers looming overhead. Yes, standard 00:00:14.880 --> 00:00:17.980 Manhattan day. Exactly. But instead of just seeing 00:00:17.980 --> 00:00:21.339 pavement and, I don't know, manicured landscaping, 00:00:21.800 --> 00:00:24.859 you see something entirely different. You look 00:00:24.859 --> 00:00:28.219 down and you basically see a giant open air, 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:31.219 all you can eat buffet. Which is, I mean, that 00:00:31.219 --> 00:00:33.119 completely shifts the paradigm of what a city 00:00:33.119 --> 00:00:35.539 actually is. You stop seeing this sterile grid 00:00:35.539 --> 00:00:38.340 of concrete and you start seeing, well, a living, 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:41.560 breathing ecosystem. One that is constantly trying 00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:43.640 to feed you if you just know how to look at it. 00:00:43.780 --> 00:00:45.200 Right. And that is exactly what we're getting 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:47.659 into. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we're 00:00:47.659 --> 00:00:49.579 looking at a stack of source material mainly 00:00:49.579 --> 00:00:51.840 centered around a Wikipedia article detailing 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:54.439 the life of an American naturalist and environmental 00:00:54.439 --> 00:00:57.539 educator. A very unique educator. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:01.000 A man famously known as Wild Man, Steve Brill. 00:01:01.679 --> 00:01:04.239 And our mission today is to explore how this 00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:07.159 one guy looked at a city ordinance, looked at 00:01:07.159 --> 00:01:09.840 a dandelion, and, well, he chose the dandelion. 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:11.640 He really did. We're going to figure out how 00:01:11.640 --> 00:01:13.719 he turned the incredibly simple act of eating 00:01:13.719 --> 00:01:17.060 a weed into this legendary story of urban rebellion 00:01:17.060 --> 00:01:20.040 and, in the process, taught millions of people 00:01:20.040 --> 00:01:22.840 how to reconnect with the nature hidden in plain 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:25.689 sight. The overarching theme of his life really 00:01:25.689 --> 00:01:29.909 is a master class in seeing profound value, where 00:01:29.909 --> 00:01:33.670 the rest of society just sees a nuisance, something 00:01:33.670 --> 00:01:36.090 to be eradicated, and that requires a very specific 00:01:36.090 --> 00:01:38.670 type of mind to pull off, especially in a place 00:01:38.670 --> 00:01:40.790 like Manhattan. Okay, let's unpack this from 00:01:40.790 --> 00:01:42.689 the very beginning, because to understand the 00:01:42.689 --> 00:01:44.409 wild man, we kind of have to look at his origins, 00:01:44.930 --> 00:01:47.170 which surprisingly start out pretty conventional. 00:01:47.310 --> 00:01:49.450 Yeah, they really do. Right, like our sources 00:01:49.450 --> 00:01:52.030 note, he was born on March 10th, 1949, right 00:01:52.030 --> 00:01:54.269 there in New York City. He's culturally Jewish, 00:01:54.329 --> 00:01:56.310 and it was actually his grandmother who first 00:01:56.310 --> 00:01:58.370 taught him how to cook when he was a kid. And 00:01:58.370 --> 00:02:00.930 there's also that detail about his family, right? 00:02:01.030 --> 00:02:03.390 Yeah. They often went out berry picking and foraging. 00:02:03.629 --> 00:02:07.799 Yes. Which seems huge. It is. Those early tactile 00:02:07.799 --> 00:02:09.919 experiences are critical. Yeah. I mean, cooking 00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:12.060 with his grandmother and foraging with his family, 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:14.120 that established a foundational relationship 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:17.039 with food that most modern people simply do not 00:02:17.039 --> 00:02:20.240 have. Yeah. For most of us, food just appears 00:02:20.240 --> 00:02:22.800 on a supermarket shelf wrapped in cellophane. 00:02:22.860 --> 00:02:26.650 Exactly. But for him... From a very early age, 00:02:26.710 --> 00:02:28.810 food was an interactive process. It was something 00:02:28.810 --> 00:02:30.849 you had to actually seek out in the landscape 00:02:30.849 --> 00:02:33.509 and then actively transform with your own hands. 00:02:33.849 --> 00:02:35.629 But the funny thing is, he didn't just immediately 00:02:35.629 --> 00:02:37.550 run off to live in the woods. No, not at all. 00:02:37.629 --> 00:02:40.150 He went to George Washington University. He actually 00:02:40.150 --> 00:02:41.990 started out as a pre -med student. Which is a 00:02:41.990 --> 00:02:44.530 very intense, structured path. Right. And then 00:02:44.530 --> 00:02:47.210 he switches his major to psychology. OK. And 00:02:47.210 --> 00:02:50.610 then, this is the crazy part, post college, he 00:02:50.610 --> 00:02:54.020 does a complete pivot. He just... drops the traditional 00:02:54.020 --> 00:02:57.780 academic track entirely and completely self -teaches 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:01.560 himself botany foraging and, of all things, gourmet 00:03:01.560 --> 00:03:03.960 vegan cooking. A total left turn. It really is. 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:06.599 It's as if he realized that studying the human 00:03:06.599 --> 00:03:09.979 mind was fascinating, but learning how to feed 00:03:09.979 --> 00:03:13.039 it for free directly from the earth was the ultimate 00:03:13.039 --> 00:03:15.800 life hack. What's fascinating here is the way 00:03:15.800 --> 00:03:18.680 Brill synthesized these very different phases 00:03:18.680 --> 00:03:21.330 of his life. How do you mean? Well, he takes 00:03:21.330 --> 00:03:23.370 those hands -on family traditions of his childhood. 00:03:23.629 --> 00:03:27.090 Right. But he applies the rigorous analytical 00:03:27.090 --> 00:03:30.210 mindset you would need for pre -med and psychology 00:03:30.210 --> 00:03:33.610 to his own self -directed adult education. Ah, 00:03:33.610 --> 00:03:36.409 I see. And that rigor is incredibly important. 00:03:36.430 --> 00:03:38.590 You can't just guess with plants. I actually 00:03:38.590 --> 00:03:40.150 want to push back on this a little bit, though. 00:03:40.150 --> 00:03:42.370 Sure, go ahead. Because my immediate thought 00:03:42.370 --> 00:03:45.349 when I read that he self -taught himself botany 00:03:45.349 --> 00:03:48.210 so he could forage in New York City was, wait, 00:03:48.389 --> 00:03:50.759 is that even safe? That's a very fair question. 00:03:50.919 --> 00:03:52.900 Like, if you get a math equation wrong, you get 00:03:52.900 --> 00:03:55.759 a bad grade. If you get botany wrong out in the 00:03:55.759 --> 00:03:58.400 wild, you eat poison hemlock instead of wild 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.039 carrot, and you end up in the hospital. Or worse. 00:04:01.180 --> 00:04:03.539 Yeah, and that is the exact reason why his self 00:04:03.539 --> 00:04:06.639 -education had to be so incredibly intense. You 00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:09.039 cannot rely on trial and error when it comes 00:04:09.039 --> 00:04:11.340 to wild plants. No kidding. He had to master 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:14.349 the actual science of taxonomy. You know, how 00:04:14.349 --> 00:04:16.850 to identify plants by their leaf structure, their 00:04:16.850 --> 00:04:20.810 root systems, their subtle variations in different 00:04:20.810 --> 00:04:23.370 seasons. So he really did the work. Oh, absolutely. 00:04:23.569 --> 00:04:25.990 He bypassed the university system, but he definitely 00:04:25.990 --> 00:04:28.550 didn't bypass the science. He was out in the 00:04:28.550 --> 00:04:31.449 field, cross -referencing field guides, learning 00:04:31.449 --> 00:04:34.189 the biological mechanics of these plants so he 00:04:34.189 --> 00:04:36.910 wouldn't accidentally poison himself or, you 00:04:36.910 --> 00:04:38.730 know, the people who followed him later on. OK, 00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:41.269 so that explains the botany. That makes sense. 00:04:41.389 --> 00:04:44.329 But why the gourmet vegan? I mean, why didn't 00:04:44.329 --> 00:04:47.029 he just stop at, hey, this leaf won't kill me? 00:04:47.250 --> 00:04:51.149 Because wild urban weeds are notoriously tough. 00:04:51.509 --> 00:04:53.769 They're fibrous, and often they're incredibly 00:04:53.769 --> 00:04:56.689 bitter. Oh, right. Like a dandelion leaf plucked 00:04:56.689 --> 00:04:58.430 straight from the dirt doesn't exactly taste 00:04:58.430 --> 00:05:00.689 like a sweet piece of butter lettuce. Exactly. 00:05:00.970 --> 00:05:03.829 And if you want to convince a society that was 00:05:03.829 --> 00:05:06.829 raised on processed sugar and fast food to eat 00:05:06.829 --> 00:05:09.250 things growing out of the dirt, you have to make 00:05:09.250 --> 00:05:11.490 those things taste amazing. So it was a marketing 00:05:11.490 --> 00:05:13.980 tactic, kind of. In a way. Yeah. Yeah, he had 00:05:13.980 --> 00:05:17.279 a master gourmet culinary techniques blanching 00:05:17.279 --> 00:05:20.660 balancing acids and fats Developing complex flavor 00:05:20.660 --> 00:05:23.759 profiles all of that just to make urban foraging 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.259 palatable to the average person Wow, okay So 00:05:26.259 --> 00:05:28.819 you have this guy whose brain is wired to see 00:05:28.819 --> 00:05:31.399 the city as a free gourmet buffet, right? But 00:05:31.399 --> 00:05:33.600 when you take that highly specialized knowledge 00:05:33.600 --> 00:05:36.279 out of your own kitchen and into a dense concrete 00:05:36.279 --> 00:05:39.480 environment like New York You crash headfirst 00:05:39.480 --> 00:05:42.540 into a municipal system. Oh inevitably because 00:05:42.540 --> 00:05:45.540 in New York the field isn't some wild frontier 00:05:45.540 --> 00:05:47.939 it's a highly regulated public park and this 00:05:47.939 --> 00:05:50.199 collision is just inevitable you have an individual 00:05:50.199 --> 00:05:52.980 practicing an ancient human behavior running 00:05:53.290 --> 00:05:55.949 straight into the machinery of modern bureaucracy. 00:05:56.209 --> 00:05:59.110 Yeah, because starting around 1982, Brill takes 00:05:59.110 --> 00:06:01.310 his knowledge public. He begins leading these 00:06:01.310 --> 00:06:03.209 nature walks in Central Park and the greater 00:06:03.209 --> 00:06:05.610 New York area, teaching regular people how to 00:06:05.610 --> 00:06:08.129 find edible plants. Right. And initially, Brill 00:06:08.129 --> 00:06:10.149 claimed the Parks Department actually approved 00:06:10.149 --> 00:06:13.069 of his tours. Like, they were fine with it. But 00:06:13.069 --> 00:06:16.269 then, in 1983, they suddenly refused to issue 00:06:16.269 --> 00:06:20.209 him a, quote, weed -picking permit. Which is... 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:23.579 I mean, the very phrase weed picking permit is 00:06:23.579 --> 00:06:26.000 just a beautiful illustration of bureaucratic 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:29.180 absurdity. It really is. Think about it. A weed, 00:06:29.339 --> 00:06:33.180 by definition, is an unwanted plant that the 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:36.379 city literally spends resources trying to destroy. 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:39.120 Yet the moment a citizen wants to remove that 00:06:39.120 --> 00:06:42.259 weed for free, the city suddenly claims ownership 00:06:42.259 --> 00:06:44.680 of it and requires a permit. And he didn't get 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:46.490 one. But of course, he keeps doing his tours 00:06:46.490 --> 00:06:49.930 anyway, which builds up to 1986, which has to 00:06:49.930 --> 00:06:52.449 be the most absurd climax of his early career. 00:06:52.589 --> 00:06:55.290 Oh, the Sting operation. Yes. Steve Brill is 00:06:55.290 --> 00:06:57.850 leading a foraging tour in Central Park, and 00:06:57.850 --> 00:07:00.769 he is arrested. But not just by a passing cop, 00:07:01.149 --> 00:07:04.050 by two undercover park ranger. Literally staking 00:07:04.050 --> 00:07:05.689 him out. Here's where it gets really interesting, 00:07:05.709 --> 00:07:07.209 because I just have to laugh at the logistics 00:07:07.209 --> 00:07:09.610 of this. Wait, undercover rangers for a dandelion. 00:07:09.750 --> 00:07:11.850 It sounds like a joke. Right. Central Park is 00:07:11.850 --> 00:07:14.529 what, 843 acres? They have real crimes happening. 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.560 Was he actually a threat to the park's ecosystem 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:20.300 or was he just embarrassing a bureaucracy that 00:07:20.300 --> 00:07:22.199 basically didn't know how to handle a guy eating 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:24.439 their weeds? I think we know the answer to that. 00:07:24.740 --> 00:07:27.540 The charge was literally criminal mischief. His 00:07:27.540 --> 00:07:30.180 alleged crime was eating a dandelion and they 00:07:30.180 --> 00:07:32.379 gave him a desk appearance ticket pending a trial. 00:07:32.639 --> 00:07:35.040 This raises an important question though about 00:07:35.040 --> 00:07:37.519 how we fundamentally view our public spaces. 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:40.819 How so? Well, think of the concept of the public 00:07:40.819 --> 00:07:43.639 commons like an open source software project. 00:07:43.779 --> 00:07:46.480 Okay. For thousands of years of human history, 00:07:46.920 --> 00:07:49.860 the land was open source. Anyone could access 00:07:49.860 --> 00:07:53.860 the code, meaning the forests and fields to forage 00:07:53.860 --> 00:07:56.740 for food, gather firewood, sustain themselves. 00:07:57.160 --> 00:07:59.540 It is an ancient ancestral right. Right. People 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:02.720 just shared the land. Exactly. But a modern city 00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:05.579 park is a closed ecosystem. It's like Apple software. 00:08:05.699 --> 00:08:07.420 You cannot just tinker with the code. Because 00:08:07.420 --> 00:08:10.160 Central Park looks wild, but it's heavily engineered. 00:08:10.360 --> 00:08:12.439 It is highly curated. Every single blade of grass 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:15.600 is planned. So the friction here is that in the 00:08:15.600 --> 00:08:17.920 eyes of the city, everything within that perimeter, 00:08:18.139 --> 00:08:20.879 even an invasive dandelion, is municipal property. 00:08:20.939 --> 00:08:23.279 Wow. The city doesn't care about the biological 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:25.860 reality. They don't care that a dandelion's deep 00:08:25.860 --> 00:08:28.199 taproot actually pulls up trace minerals and 00:08:28.199 --> 00:08:30.259 improves the soil quality. Right. They just see 00:08:30.259 --> 00:08:33.879 a weed. The city only sees an aesthetic flaw 00:08:33.879 --> 00:08:36.960 that they happen to own. So when Brill eats that 00:08:36.960 --> 00:08:39.940 dandelion, the law doesn't see a man having a 00:08:39.940 --> 00:08:43.440 nutritious snack. The law sees a vandal destroying 00:08:43.440 --> 00:08:46.600 city property. He was essentially acting as a 00:08:46.600 --> 00:08:49.440 hacker in their closed ecosystem. And the irony 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:51.879 is that homeowners spend hundreds of dollars 00:08:51.879 --> 00:08:54.519 on toxic chemicals trying to poison the exact 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:56.500 same plant he was getting arrested for eating. 00:08:56.659 --> 00:08:59.259 The irony is rich, yeah. But the media completely 00:08:59.259 --> 00:09:01.940 caught wind of this. As you can imagine, prosecuting 00:09:01.940 --> 00:09:04.200 a man for eating a flower in a park makes for 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:08.000 a fantastic headline. So he gained serious notoriety 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:11.679 from this 1986 arrest. And it leads to a massive 00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:14.720 bureaucratic plot twist. Because the public relations 00:09:14.720 --> 00:09:17.659 nightmare really forced the city's hand. Completely. 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:20.460 So the New York City Parks Department drops the 00:09:20.460 --> 00:09:22.659 criminal mischief charges. Right. But they actually 00:09:22.659 --> 00:09:24.679 go a step further. They end up hiring him. Which 00:09:24.679 --> 00:09:27.769 is amazing. They literally put the wild man on 00:09:27.769 --> 00:09:30.529 the city payroll to lead the exact same foraging 00:09:30.529 --> 00:09:33.049 tours in Central Park that he had just been busted 00:09:33.049 --> 00:09:35.190 for by their undercover rangers. It is a total 00:09:35.190 --> 00:09:38.110 systemic reversal. So what does this all mean? 00:09:38.320 --> 00:09:40.860 To me, that is literally the equivalent of getting 00:09:40.860 --> 00:09:43.379 pulled over for street racing and the police 00:09:43.379 --> 00:09:45.559 department immediately hiring you to teach their 00:09:45.559 --> 00:09:48.120 defensive driving courses. It's wild. It really 00:09:48.120 --> 00:09:51.159 is. It's an incredibly rare moment of bureaucratic 00:09:51.159 --> 00:09:53.179 self -awareness. Yeah, you don't see that often. 00:09:53.279 --> 00:09:56.200 Normally, a large municipality would just double 00:09:56.200 --> 00:09:58.899 down to protect its authority. But someone within 00:09:58.899 --> 00:10:00.600 the Parks Department looked at the mechanics 00:10:00.600 --> 00:10:03.580 of the situation and they realized they were 00:10:03.580 --> 00:10:06.919 fighting a losing PR battle. Yeah. And more importantly, 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:09.519 they realized they had an incredibly valuable 00:10:09.519 --> 00:10:11.940 resource sitting right in front of them. Because 00:10:11.940 --> 00:10:14.379 he knew more about the park's ecology than the 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:16.820 people managing it. Exactly. And he's actively 00:10:16.820 --> 00:10:19.299 educating the public on environmental stewardship. 00:10:19.799 --> 00:10:21.879 So the city calculated that absorbing the rebel 00:10:21.879 --> 00:10:24.620 into this system, you know, harnessing his expertise, 00:10:25.159 --> 00:10:27.159 was far more beneficial than trying to prosecute 00:10:27.159 --> 00:10:30.039 him. They turned a liability into an asset. And 00:10:30.039 --> 00:10:32.360 he remained in this official role. working for 00:10:32.360 --> 00:10:34.620 the city until a change in park administration 00:10:34.620 --> 00:10:38.720 in 1990, which, you know, is typical. New administrations 00:10:38.720 --> 00:10:41.559 come in, priorities shift, budgets change. Right, 00:10:41.620 --> 00:10:44.120 the politics change. But losing that city job 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:46.960 didn't stop him at all. Freed from the confines 00:10:46.960 --> 00:10:50.159 of municipal employment, Brill scaled his operations 00:10:50.159 --> 00:10:52.980 significantly. He took everything he learned 00:10:52.980 --> 00:10:55.480 and expanded his scope to the entire Northeast. 00:10:55.820 --> 00:10:58.399 And eventually he conquered the digital world. 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:01.629 Honestly? Leaving the park was likely the best 00:11:01.629 --> 00:11:02.970 thing that could have happened to his broader 00:11:02.970 --> 00:11:05.789 mission. It forced him to solve the problem of 00:11:05.789 --> 00:11:08.799 scale. And our sources show just how wide that 00:11:08.799 --> 00:11:11.059 scale became. I mean, he became the reported 00:11:11.059 --> 00:11:14.200 foremost foraging expert in the Northeast. He 00:11:14.200 --> 00:11:16.940 didn't just lead private walks. He integrated 00:11:16.940 --> 00:11:19.039 his knowledge into the community, working with 00:11:19.039 --> 00:11:22.259 schools, museums, day camps, land trusts, health 00:11:22.259 --> 00:11:25.580 food stores. He really became a true multi -hyphenate. 00:11:25.639 --> 00:11:28.159 But the real challenge is, how do you get this 00:11:28.159 --> 00:11:30.120 knowledge to people who can't physically come 00:11:30.120 --> 00:11:32.019 on a walking tour with you? Well, you have to 00:11:32.019 --> 00:11:34.139 codify the knowledge. You have to put it into 00:11:34.139 --> 00:11:36.679 a format that can travel without you. Which brings 00:11:36.679 --> 00:11:39.360 us to his publishing era. And he doesn't just 00:11:39.360 --> 00:11:42.379 write one dry textbook. He tackles the problem 00:11:42.379 --> 00:11:46.679 from multiple angles. In 1994, he publishes Identifying 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.240 and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in 00:11:49.240 --> 00:11:51.919 Wild. and not -so -wild places. Which is basically 00:11:51.919 --> 00:11:54.720 the core manual. Right. But as we discussed earlier, 00:11:54.740 --> 00:11:57.120 knowing what a plant is doesn't mean people will 00:11:57.120 --> 00:12:00.779 actually eat it. So in 2001, he leverages all 00:12:00.779 --> 00:12:02.740 that self -taught culinary skill and publishes 00:12:02.740 --> 00:12:06.299 the Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, featuring 500 recipes. 00:12:06.539 --> 00:12:09.460 And that book is the bridge. It takes the intellectual 00:12:09.460 --> 00:12:11.779 exercise of identifying a weed and turns it into 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:14.460 a practical, cultural exercise of actually serving 00:12:14.460 --> 00:12:16.960 dinner. It proves the concept that wild food 00:12:16.960 --> 00:12:20.870 has genuine culinary value. adapting to, recognizing 00:12:20.870 --> 00:12:22.610 that you have to reach people while they're young. 00:12:22.789 --> 00:12:24.909 He self -publishes Shoots and Greens of early 00:12:24.909 --> 00:12:27.509 spring in 2008, and then Foraging with Kids in 00:12:27.509 --> 00:12:29.789 2014. Which makes perfect sense for him. Yeah, 00:12:29.929 --> 00:12:32.110 and this focus on the next generation is deeply 00:12:32.110 --> 00:12:34.529 personal because he frequently co -leads his 00:12:34.529 --> 00:12:37.090 tours with his daughter, Violet Brill. Yeah, 00:12:37.129 --> 00:12:39.929 she was born in 2004, and she basically grew 00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.070 up in this world and became a forging expert 00:12:42.070 --> 00:12:45.500 in her own right. It transforms his work from 00:12:45.500 --> 00:12:48.600 a quirky personal crusade into a generational 00:12:48.600 --> 00:12:52.080 transfer of knowledge. You know, he is rebuilding 00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:54.220 that family tradition he had with his grandmother, 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:57.259 but doing it on a public scale. But the adaptation 00:12:57.259 --> 00:12:59.399 that genuinely surprised me the most happened 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:03.720 in 2011. The app. Yes. Here is a guy whose entire 00:13:03.720 --> 00:13:06.960 life's work is intimately tied to the dirt, to 00:13:06.960 --> 00:13:09.220 walking slowly through the physical world looking 00:13:09.220 --> 00:13:11.620 at the ground, and he decides to build an iPhone 00:13:11.620 --> 00:13:14.519 app. It's a brilliant move, honestly. He co -creates 00:13:14.519 --> 00:13:16.720 the Wild Edibles Forage app with a team called 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:20.299 Winteroo. It covers 250 common North American 00:13:20.299 --> 00:13:23.240 plants available on both iOS and Android. If 00:13:23.240 --> 00:13:25.139 we connect this to the bigger picture, this app 00:13:25.139 --> 00:13:28.299 is a profound cultural pivot. He is successfully 00:13:28.299 --> 00:13:30.919 bridging two entirely different eras of human 00:13:30.919 --> 00:13:33.259 existence. What do you mean by that? Well, on 00:13:33.259 --> 00:13:36.519 one hand, you have the most ancient primal survival 00:13:36.519 --> 00:13:39.460 skill known to our species. The ability to just 00:13:39.460 --> 00:13:41.500 walk into a landscape, read the biology around 00:13:41.500 --> 00:13:43.399 you, and know what will nourish you and what 00:13:43.399 --> 00:13:46.320 will kill you. Right. A skill that, let's be 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:48.700 honest, the vast majority of modern humans have 00:13:48.700 --> 00:13:52.559 completely lost. Totally lost. We outsourced 00:13:52.559 --> 00:13:54.980 that ancestral knowledge to industrial agriculture 00:13:54.980 --> 00:13:58.159 and grocery store aisles, but Brill refuses to 00:13:58.159 --> 00:14:00.419 let that knowledge die. So instead of fighting 00:14:00.419 --> 00:14:03.080 the current of modern urbanization, he leverages 00:14:03.080 --> 00:14:05.720 it. Oh, I see. He takes that ancient open source 00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:08.980 knowledge of the forest and encodes it into 21st 00:14:08.980 --> 00:14:11.929 century technology. By putting it onto a smartphone, 00:14:12.610 --> 00:14:14.809 he meets modern citizens exactly where their 00:14:14.809 --> 00:14:16.610 attention is already focused on their screens. 00:14:16.809 --> 00:14:18.610 And if you open this app, you aren't just looking 00:14:18.610 --> 00:14:21.750 at sterile scientific diagrams. The app is a 00:14:21.750 --> 00:14:24.850 completely holistic experience. It features Brill's 00:14:24.850 --> 00:14:27.429 own original photographs of the plants alongside 00:14:27.429 --> 00:14:29.690 his own botanical illustrations. Because he's 00:14:29.690 --> 00:14:32.929 an artist too. Yes. Steve Brill is also an artist. 00:14:33.179 --> 00:14:35.320 Our sources mention he creates paintings and 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:37.460 sculptures of plants, which are heavily featured 00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:39.659 in the app and his books. And of course, the 00:14:39.659 --> 00:14:42.059 app includes hundreds of his vegan whole foods 00:14:42.059 --> 00:14:45.480 recipes. It provides the entire lifecycle of 00:14:45.480 --> 00:14:47.620 the foraging experience right in your pocket. 00:14:48.279 --> 00:14:51.440 You use the screen to identify the biological 00:14:51.440 --> 00:14:53.860 markers of the plant through his photos and art. 00:14:53.860 --> 00:14:56.759 Right. The app provides the safety warnings so 00:14:56.759 --> 00:14:58.820 you don't make a fatal error. And then it gives 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:01.080 you the culinary instructions to prepare it safely. 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:04.159 It's a closed -loop system for reclaiming that 00:15:04.159 --> 00:15:06.720 lost connection to the natural world, even if 00:15:06.720 --> 00:15:09.139 you are just, you know, walking your dog in a 00:15:09.139 --> 00:15:11.419 city park. It really is a brilliant evolution 00:15:11.419 --> 00:15:13.440 from a guy just walking through the park eating 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:17.360 weeds. So, to bring this deep dive all together, 00:15:18.100 --> 00:15:20.600 we've traced an incredible, unconventional journey 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:22.950 today. We really have. We started with a kid 00:15:22.950 --> 00:15:24.870 in New York City picking berries and learning 00:15:24.870 --> 00:15:26.830 to cook with his grandmother. We watched him 00:15:26.830 --> 00:15:30.289 abandon a safe pre -med path to dive into rigorous 00:15:30.289 --> 00:15:33.309 self -taught botany and culinary arts, basically 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:35.750 hacking the urban ecosystem to feed himself for 00:15:35.750 --> 00:15:38.190 free. And we saw him challenge the philosophical 00:15:38.190 --> 00:15:41.590 concept of public land by engaging in a standoff 00:15:41.590 --> 00:15:44.789 with undercover rangers over a dandelion, which 00:15:44.789 --> 00:15:47.250 really exposed the friction between ancient commons 00:15:47.250 --> 00:15:49.840 and municipal control. A standoff that forced 00:15:49.840 --> 00:15:52.600 a massive bureaucracy to blink, eventually hiring 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:54.500 him to do exactly what they had arrested him 00:15:54.500 --> 00:15:57.000 for. Still the best part of the story. It is. 00:15:57.379 --> 00:15:59.360 And finally, we watched him break out of the 00:15:59.360 --> 00:16:02.059 park entirely, scaling his knowledge across the 00:16:02.059 --> 00:16:05.399 Northeast through books, art, and an app, passing 00:16:05.399 --> 00:16:07.919 his legacy down to his daughter and to anyone 00:16:07.919 --> 00:16:10.269 with a smartphone. You know, his story leaves 00:16:10.269 --> 00:16:12.529 us with a very tangible challenge for our own 00:16:12.529 --> 00:16:14.909 lives. Yeah. The next time you walk down your 00:16:14.909 --> 00:16:17.210 street, take a close look at the weeds pushing 00:16:17.210 --> 00:16:19.909 up through the cracks in the sidewalk. We spend 00:16:19.909 --> 00:16:22.730 billions of dollars and countless hours trying 00:16:22.730 --> 00:16:26.409 to pave over, spray and eradicate the wildness 00:16:26.409 --> 00:16:29.570 from our cities. We obsess over aesthetic control. 00:16:29.690 --> 00:16:32.590 We definitely do. But perhaps, like the wild 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:34.370 man, we should pause and ask ourselves a different 00:16:34.370 --> 00:16:37.870 question. Are we looking at a nuisance? or are 00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:41.230 we simply ignoring a hidden feast? A hidden feast 00:16:41.230 --> 00:16:44.049 right in the concrete jungle. Thank you for joining 00:16:44.049 --> 00:16:46.350 us on this deep dive. I hope that the next time 00:16:46.350 --> 00:16:47.669 you walk through your neighborhood, you look 00:16:47.669 --> 00:16:49.570 at those wild green shoots with a little more 00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:52.309 curiosity and a lot more respect. Until next 00:16:52.309 --> 00:16:53.850 time, keep your eyes open.