Wild Greens

Wild Greens šŸŒæ Reviving Wild & Forgotten Foods | Tubers ā€¢ Millets ā€¢

Not everything that comes to WildGreens goes straight into the kitchen. Some of it stays on the table.To be seen.Touched...
03/09/2026

Not everything that comes to WildGreens goes straight into the kitchen.

Some of it stays on the table.

To be seen.
Touched.
Smelled.
Recognised.
Remembered.
And talked about.

These photographs capture just a part of what we have been gathering and documenting this season ā€” Bharangi flowers, Kurdu, wild turmeric flowers, Anantmool, wild ginger flowers and roots, Kapru, Gomati, Mohor, Halinda, Kharpufi and Taro leaves, among others.

For many of us, food begins when an ingredient reaches the market or the kitchen. But there is an entire story before that ā€” the plant it comes from, the landscape in which it grows, its season, its local name, the part that is used, how communities recognise it, and the knowledge associated with it.

That is why, at WildGreens, we want our guests to encounter indigenous ingredients not only on the plate, but also before they become food.

We are gradually creating a space where seasonal wild and indigenous ingredients can be displayed, observed and discussed ā€” with their stories and community knowledge shared alongside them.

Some may eventually find their way into our dishes. Some may simply remain objects of curiosity and learning.

Because WildGreens was never meant to be only a cafƩ.

It is our attempt to create A Living Archive of Indigenous Foods ā€” where an ingredient can begin a conversation, a conversation can recover a memory, and a memory can help keep knowledge alive.

And this is only the beginning.

How many of these would you recognise if you came across them in the wild?

01/09/2026

When a performance stops being something you watch ā€” and becomes something you become part of.

During Raanpangat, women from a nearby Katkari Adivasi community came to WildGreens in their traditional attire to share their dance and songs with our guests.

One song in, one of our guests simply couldnā€™t remain seated.

He joined them.

This is an important part of what we imagine WildGreens to be.

Yes, there is a cafƩ.
There is food. There will be a nursery, indigenous produce and many more things as we grow.

But WildGreens was never imagined as just a cafƩ or a destination.

ā€œIndigenous food cannot be separated from indigenous people.ā€

Behind an ingredient is a landscape.
Behind a recipe is knowledge.
Behind that knowledge are people, communities, memories and ways of living that have carried it across generations.

So while Raanpangat brings indigenous ingredients to the table, we also want WildGreens to become a ground where the people, knowledge, skills, food traditions, art and living heritage of the region can find space, dignity and opportunity.

Not as something preserved behind glass.

But as something living, practised, shared ā€” and carried forward.

Perhaps this little moment of an unexpected dance says it better than we ever could.

WildGreens
A Living Archive of Indigenous Foods.

When the forest becomes the craft box. For Raksha Bandhan, our team at WildGreens decided to make their own rakhis.No ...
27/08/2026



When the forest becomes the craft box.

For Raksha Bandhan, our team at WildGreens decided to make their own rakhis.

No plastic decorations. No readymade embellishments.

They simply looked around.

Leaves, tiny flowers, ferns, seeds, berries and other naturally available materials growing around WildGreens and in the nearby forest were gathered and transformedā€”one by oneā€”into these beautiful rakhis.

What we loved most was not just the final result, but the instinct behind it.

To look at a fern and imagine an ornament.
To see a seed or a wild berry and find a place for it in a design.
To turn what the landscape offers into something meaningful for a festival.

This is also a form of knowledgeā€”one that rarely comes from a classroom or a design school. It comes from living close to a landscape, observing it and knowing how to work with what is around you.

At WildGreens, we often speak about indigenous foods as a living archive. But perhaps the archive is much larger than food.

It lives in hands, in memories, in creativityā€”and sometimes, in something as small as a rakhi.

A little Raksha Bandhan, the WildGreens way.

Sita Alambi ā€” one of the forestā€™s tiny monsoon harvests. Not everything the forest offers announces itself loudly.Hidden...
26/08/2026

Sita Alambi ā€” one of the forestā€™s tiny monsoon harvests.

Not everything the forest offers announces itself loudly.

Hidden close to the forest floor, sometimes among leaf litter and decaying organic matter, are these delicate little wild mushrooms locally known as Sita Alambi (ą¤øą„€ą¤¤ą¤¾ ą¤†ą¤³ą¤‚ą¤¬ą„€).

The name itself is interesting. Locally, ā€œSitaā€ refers to their remarkably tiny sizeā€”some so small that you could easily walk past them without ever noticing them.

Like many wild mushrooms, they appear only when a particular combination of rain, moisture, temperature, soil and forest conditions comes together. Their arrival can therefore be brief and intensely seasonal.

And perhaps that is what makes foods like Sita Alambi important.

They remind us that traditional food knowledge was never only about what could be eaten. It was also about knowing where to look, when to look, what to recogniseā€”and what to leave untouched.

At WildGreens, these small encounters are part of a much larger story we are trying to document: the foods that exist beyond farms, markets and cultivated fields.

Sometimes, an entire food tradition can be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand.

šŸ“Observed in the forests around Tamhini.

Wild mushrooms should never be consumed solely on the basis of photographs or local-name identification; correct species identification is essential.

This is Alu fruit.At first glance, it can easily be mistaken for chikoo because of its brown skin and rounded shape....
26/06/2026



This is Alu fruit.

At first glance, it can easily be mistaken for chikoo because of its brown skin and rounded shape. But the taste tells a different story.

Unlike chikoo, Alu fruit is not sweet.
It carries a distinct sourness.

In local food traditions, it is usually eaten with salt, or sliced, salted and sun-dried.

These dried slices are called Usarya.

Usarya is used as an accompaniment with meals ā€” especially when the plate needs something sharp, sour and appetite-opening.

This is exactly what makes indigenous food systems fascinating.

The same landscape gives us fruits for sweetness, fruits for sourness, fruits for preservation, and fruits that become small but important companions to everyday meals.

Many such fruits never enter formal markets.
They remain alive through memory, taste and local practice.

At WildGreens, we are documenting these ingredients before they quietly disappear from daily life.

Have you heard of Alu fruit or Usarya before?

24/06/2026

There are birthdays, and then there are moments that stay with you for a lifetime.

Yesterday, my team at WildGreens surprised me in a way I could never have imagined.

Instead of a conventional cake, they gathered wild fruits and flowers from the forestā€”Alu, Jam, Star Fruit and many more. They decorated a table with forest flowers, candles and colours that belonged to this land. Bhavana gifted me a necklace and, more importantly, an Amsul sapling she had brought from the jungle and planted for me.

The plan was even more beautiful than I knew.

They had secretly placed flower petals on the ceiling fan so that they would shower down when I entered the room. But because of heavy rains, a tree had fallen somewhere and there was no electricity all day. Most people would have given up.

Not them.

They simply took a stick and turned the fan by hand so that the petals would still fall.

Every girl came dressed in a beautiful saree. Before anything else, they welcomed me with halad-kunku, following our traditions.

What moved me most was not the celebration itself, but the thought behind it.

They could have chosen the easiest and most familiar way to celebrate. Instead, they created something that reflected WildGreens, our values, our forests and our journey together.

Their creativity, effort and affection made me feel truly seen.

Iā€™ve had birthdays before.

But this was the first time I felt celebrated in a way that was completely, unapologetically me.

My heart is full..šŸ˜

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Every forest begins with a sprout that nobody noticed.And every story begins with a moment that most people walk past.Th...
19/06/2026

Every forest begins with a sprout that nobody noticed.

And every story begins with a moment that most people walk past.

This morning, I found a tiny water droplet resting on the first leaf of a young Alu plant.

At first glance, it was just a drop of rain.

But when I looked closely, I could see the soil, the sky and the world around it reflected within that tiny sphere.

Nature has a beautiful way of reminding us that size and significance are not the same thing.

The smallest leaf can hold a drop of water.
The smallest drop can hold an entire reflection.
And the smallest observation can change the way we see the world.

Perhaps that is why forests are such great teachers.

They slow us down enough to notice what was always thereā€¦

ā˜”ā˜”

Many indigenous tubers spend months underground before sending up their first shoots. Their initial energy comes from th...
19/06/2026

Many indigenous tubers spend months underground before sending up their first shoots. Their initial energy comes from the stored food in the tuber itself, allowing them to survive harsh summer conditions and emerge only when moisture levels become favourable.

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