Project Summary
In 2025 we are building on our work of Food Forest Taste Test with a new round of Food Forest Taste Test events (FFTT). We want to refine and expand our experiments to engage a broader range of eaters.
The food forest movement has been gaining momentum in recent years, both internationally and here in the Netherlands, as a response to the urgent question: how can we grow food sustainably? This movement has been lead by activists and farmers. While a great deal of work has been done on the side of designing, planting and maintaining a food forest, less people are exploring how to integrate these new and novel ingredients into daily cooking.
Food forests offer a wide range of benefits: increased biodiversity, greater resilience to drought and flooding, and long-term soil health. But they also present unique challenges. The ingredients in food forests are uncommon and diverse. The experts at haute cuisine restaurants can creatively incorporate these ingredients, but what would you do with a cola plant? Or with ‘Hemelsleutel’ or ‘Lievevrouwebedstro’? While the fine dining resturant De Nieuwe Winkel has done amazing things with food forest ingredients and produced a beautiful cookbook, everyday eaters have little knowledge around using these ingredients in their kitchens, at home or commercially.
Food Forest Taste Test is a project that develops the rituals, rhythms, and recipes needed to bring micro-seasonal, food forest produce into daily life.
By optimizing for flavour we hope to contribute to growing a larger network of people who engage with and care about eating from resilient agro-ecosystems.
FRESH PERSPECTIVE: PHASE 2
We have received a Fresh Perspectives grant from the Creative Industries fund to work with innovative food forest producers to prototype desirable food futures. The aesthetic and cultural components of cuisine, flavour, and social conviviality must be considered when imagining a more just, biodiverse & beautiful food system. For Phase 2, we aim to address climate issues by prototyping aesthetic and cultural approaches to boosting food forest ingredient uptake.
To kick off phase 2 or this project, we traveled to Flevoland to meet with Anje Portman on April 1, 2025, and visit three different food forest sites that she has designed, initiated and/or helped to develop:
Each site was at a different scale, and had very different for plans for how it was to be managed, maintained and harvested in the future.
SITE 1: THUISHAVEN (2 Hectare + Additional Hectare )
In 2024 our studio visited Thuishaven and cooked with ingredients at multiple points in the growing season.
Within the Thuishaven site there are three areas:
— The romantic food forest (planted in 2018) of 2 hectare.
— The production food forest (planted in 2021/2022) of an additional hectare.
— A wild edible garden.
We have previously written about this site during our 2024 visit, but as a reminder, the surrounding landscape consists of neighboring conventional farms laid down in rows, and power-producing wind farms (also laid down in rows).
One quote from today’s visit: “Every day I discover new plants and animals. You’d wish for people to connect like that too — connection takes time, just like a food forest takes ten years to grow.” – Iris.
Field Notes: The interesting interplay between the romantic forest and the productive forest — that they are informing each other. For example, in the ‘romantic forest’ they discovered a delicious pear, which led them to cultivate more of it in the productive forest. So food production is also led by taste.
The importance of Art and Symbolism: There is a small hill in the center of the romantic food forest and at the top of it is a boat, indicating sea level. Seeing the boat sculpture above your head helped orient you to the sea level, and remind you that this land is underwater.
SITE 2: Het Lydia Waterreus Voedselbos (1 Hectare)
“The Lydia Waterreus Food Forest is an educational, novel food forest, open to all residents of Zeewolde. The food forest is on land owned by the municipality of Zeewolde and is managed by a regular group of volunteers from IVN Zeewolde.” (link)
Field Notes: Some sections of the site were well-established and very beautiful to walk through. Other sections were starting to be overgrown with volunteer plants and needed some more active maintenance. A great community asset that is hopefully continued and cared for by large(r) section of residents.
Q: If we wanted to harvest and serve some produce from this food forest (in order to contribute to the culinary possibilities of the site) who would we talk to, who would we serve? Is there a way to make the harvesting and (especially) the preparation, presentation and serving of the food into something?
SITE 3: Voedeselbos Eemvallei Zuid (30 Hectares)
“A unique combination of a food forest, herb-rich meadows and recreation Eemvallei Zuid is a joint initiative of the Food Forestry Foundation , the Buytenwold Foundation , the Vliervelden Nature Farm and the State Forestry Service within the framework of the New Nature programme of the province of Flevoland. In June 2017, they signed the agreement for the realisation of an innovative nature reserve (50 hectares) with a unique combination of a food forest (30 hectares), herb-rich meadows and various recreational opportunities for children and adults.” [link]
Field Notes: There were some innovative management plans on how potential buyers of the produce can pay to have access during the season, and then come harvest one or more kinds of produce.
BONUS – SITE X: The Green Cathedral
At the end of our visit we had the chance to visit the artwork De Groene Kathedraal (1996) by Marinus Boezem. (Small side note: our studio originally learned about this artwork while browsing the bookshelves in Stavanger, Norway’s public library, where an entire book dedicated to Flevoland’s abundant and unique history of land art commisions. The power of libraries, printed books and serendipity offline! But, also the awesome work of Land Art Felvoland). There was some small controversy in the Netherlands in 2025 because MVRDV also proposed building an artwork / installation with the name Green Cathedral.
This project has been selected for a development contribution as part of the Open Call: Fresh Perspectives by the Creative Industries Fund NL 2025.
