Tama Matsuoka Wong
Years of Participation
She began exploring the edible potential of wild plants, working closely with Chef Eddy Leroux to author Foraged Flavor, a wild food field guide and cookbook (Clarkson Potter June 2012), nominated for a James Beard award. In 2017 she co-authored Scraps, Wilt and Weeds with Danish chef Mads Refslund, a co founder of Restaurant NOMA.
In addition to running an innovative wild food business, with deep ties to Charleston and low country plants, Tama speaks to diverse audiences such as the James Beard House, Garden Club of America, the American Museum of Natural History, Slow Food, schools and has hosted foraging events, from Charleston to Seattle to Toronto.
Tama has been featured in CBS Sunday Morning “Our war against weeds” as well as the NY Times “Finding Flavor in the Weeds”, the WSJ, Edible Manhattan, Bloomberg Stealth lawyers, NPR Science Friday, the Leonard Lopate show, among others. She gave a 2013 TedX Manhattan talk on “How I did less and ate better, thanks to weeds”.
Tama lives in Hunterdon County New Jersey with her husband and has three daughters.