Making KOS

Making KOS Making KOS - engaging people in knowing, growing and using local wild foods

"We no longer know or value the locally adapted delicious nutritious foods that grow wild in the landscapes around us. Let's challenge our passive roles in this unequal food system that our finite planet cannot sustain! " Loubie Rusch

I have been exploring local wild ingredients and innovating recipes since 2011, working as Making KOS. I started sharing my journey from early on through talks,

foraging walks and tasters of bottled produce. I have recently become even more active in promoting that we re-integrate wild foods into our lives. Participants joining my hands-on Masterclasses and Dinners are able get to know and take pleasure in cooking with and tasting a range of local wild ingredients. In addition to my own exploratory journey, the collaborations that I have initiated over the years have been instrumental in beginning to fill some of the gaps in both academic research and local knowledge bases. My pilot cultivation project in Khayelitsha succeeded in inspiring a number of small scale local growers to also try out cultivation. This has resulted in a range of local wild ingredients tentatively finding their way into some of our local kitchens. Through Making KOS, I am striving to catalyse a significant market in wild foods that has wider social and ecological impact. Increasing the number of us who are engaged in getting to know, to grow and to use our local wild foods to this end will remain at the forefront of our mission.

Plot twist: The porcupines were right all along. While we've been busy forgetting about the incredible edible plants tha...
30/03/2026

Plot twist: The porcupines were right all along.

While we've been busy forgetting about the incredible edible plants that South Africa's hunter-gatherers survived on for centuries, the local porcupines at Grootbos had to remind researchers just how delicious sea pumpkin really is. (They loved it so much, the team had to build protective fences!)

Five months into groundbreaking field trials, the Sustainability Institute and its Local WILD Food Hub, Kew Gardens, and Grootbos Private Nature Reserve are rediscovering what our ancestors knew: indigenous edible plants like dune spinach, ice plant, and sea parsley aren't just food—they're super food. Some pack up to FIVE TIMES more vitamins and minerals than the vegetables we're used to, and they laugh in the face of drought.

Want to know what tastes like? How thrives without irrigation? Why guinea fowl crashed the party? Read the full story!

https://www.sustainabilityinstitute.net/2025/11/18/from-porcupine-raids-to-drought-defying-plants-five-months-of-indigenous-edible-trials-in-the-cape/

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