Kevin Kossowan is a filmmaker, forager, and hunter best known for From the Wild, a James Beard nominated series he shoots, edits, and scores entirely on his own in the Canadian wilderness. In this episode, he talks about how he thinks about wild food as a full pantry, why terroir applies just as much to a forest as a vineyard, and what happens when you slow down and pay attention to everything around you, not just the thing you came for.
If you hunt, forage, cook, or just find yourself curious about what's growing outside, you'll like this one.

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LINKS
Kevin Kossowan
https://www.fromthewild.ca

From the Wild on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/@fromthewild

The Perennial Plate (Daniel Klein, mentioned)
https://www.theperennialplate.com

Heartland Bowhunter (mentioned)
https://heartlandbowhunter.com

Strathcona Spirits / Clear Stock (mentioned)
https://strathconaspirits.ca
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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 What makes From the Wild different from other hunting shows
02:00 Kevin's influences: Heartland Bowhunter, Jamie at Home, The Perennial Plate
05:30 Leaving finance for filmmaking and rebuilding a food system from scratch
07:30 How From the Wild started
09:00 How the show has evolved toward plants, spirits, and sea kayaking
10:30 Terroir in wild spaces and why time and place change everything
14:00 Why elk hunts turn into mushroom hunts
15:30 Noticing everything around you in the field
16:30 Snow goose, digestivos, and what happens when you look beyond the target
18:00 Wild tinctures, neutral grain spirit, and what alcohol percentage does to extraction
19:30 Learning from people who know more than you
21:00 Lamb's quarter, fireweed tea, and the plants that replaced grocery store staples
24:00 Galium triflorum: the wild plant that replaced 98% of a restaurant's vanilla bean order
28:00 The pull between documenting food and just eating it
29:00 Filming the pace of nature and post-production as a time machine
31:30 What a good episode looks like: fishing, crabbing, foraging, cooking, being there
33:30 Why the show stays unscripted
35:00 Making something for yourself and sharing it
36:30 When wild ingredients are challenging and what chefs do with that
38:00 Tall blue lettuce, wormwood, and finding the right application for bitter ingredients
41:00 Growing up on moose meat and learning almost everything else from scratch
42:30 How Kevin approaches learning something new
44:00 Why most of the forest turns out to be usable
45:30 One plant, a whole menu: dandelion, spruce, and what that opens up
47:00 Sweden, Finland, and how related species can taste completely different
50:00 Working alone and what that produces creatively
51:30 Self-shooting and why a second camera changes the dynamic
53:30 From the Wild as documentation of real friendships
57:00 Season 13 plans: BC coast, goose barnacles, lingcod, halibut by sea kayak
01:00:00 How to preserve fish when you're paddling back to port
01:03:00 What else is out there beyond salmon and halibut
01:07:00 Seaweeds on the BC coast
01:09:00 What time in the field does to how capable a person feels
01:11:00 Gin, tonics, herbal medicine, and where plant-based drinking came from
01:13:00 Robert Rogers: 65 books on plant and fungal medicine