0:08

Hi and welcome to

0:11

the Big Deep podcast . Big

0:14

Deep is a podcast about people who have a connection

0:16

to the ocean , people for whom

0:18

that connection is so strong it defines

0:20

some aspect of their life . Over

0:24

the course of this series we'll talk to all sorts of people

0:26

and in each episode we'll explore

0:28

the deeper meaning of that connection . Today

0:32

I speak with an edible landscape forager from

0:34

South Africa whose unique passion is

0:36

wild indigenous seaweed along the rocky

0:38

intertidal coast of Africa . Hello

0:42

, this is your host , jason Elias . Welcome

0:47

to the Big Deep podcast

0:49

. In

0:51

today's episode I speak with South African edible

0:54

landscape forager Roshanna Gray . When

0:57

I first heard of Roshanna's unique take on eating from

0:59

the wild landscape , i was intrigued , particularly

1:02

as it related to her deep dive literally

1:04

into the seaweed off her local coast in

1:06

Cape Town . Roshanna's

1:08

initial foraging for edible wildfires in the spring

1:11

and mushrooms in the forest in the winter

1:13

was so different from the way I usually

1:15

view my relationship with the environment . I

1:17

was almost shocked you could do this before

1:19

I recognized how fundamental that way

1:21

of eating once was . And

1:23

, of course , i was interested in the ocean aspect

1:25

and her foraging with the over 900

1:28

edible seaweeds found in South Africa's intertidal

1:30

rock pools . But , maybe

1:32

unsurprisingly , what came out of our interview

1:34

that was of interest to me was less about

1:37

what she did and more about why

1:39

she did it , and I found her

1:41

way of talking and relating to the ocean to

1:43

verge on the magical and it was

1:45

exhilarating . And this

1:47

view has now led Roshanna to teaching this

1:49

way of foraging and cooking with the edible landscape

1:51

around her through her immersive culinary

1:53

school . Veld and Sea . And

1:56

when we did our interview , roshanna spoke openly

1:58

about the journey to having her eyes open to the edible

2:01

landscape in the sea around her , what

2:03

it meant to have your passion for the ocean connect

2:05

with discovering a sense of purpose in her own

2:07

life and a largely unremarkable

2:10

free dive in South Africa that ultimately

2:12

unloved the mysteries of the ocean

2:14

for her .

2:16

My name is Roshanna Gray . I

2:18

am in Cape Point , Cape

2:20

Town , South Africa , and I

2:23

am a foraging teacher and a very

2:25

curious foodie with a love

2:27

of exploring and

2:29

tasting our edible landscape .

2:31

So , Roshanna , you mentioned before our interview

2:33

that growing up in South Africa it was hard

2:35

to not have a connection to the

2:37

ocean . Can you talk a bit

2:39

about that and when you first remember

2:42

your connection to the water ?

2:44

Well , if you grew up in

2:46

Cape Town , it's hard not to be connected to the ocean

2:48

because we are so beautifully situated

2:51

. We've got the warm

2:53

Indian Ocean up the east and we've got the

2:55

lovely freezing cold Atlantic Ocean on

2:57

the west . And personally , i grew

2:59

up having many adventures along the coastline

3:02

. My

3:06

father and my mother's side of the family were all recreational

3:09

fishers , and so I

3:11

spent many an hour on the

3:13

harbor walls , mostly

3:15

for catching calamari

3:18

, usually in the evening

3:20

under a light , so

3:22

the lights glistening on the surface of the sea and

3:24

attracting these calamari , and

3:27

so there's many memories of sitting

3:29

on the harbor wall as a child with a picnic

3:31

, listening to the ocean

3:33

coming through the little cracks very

3:36

special memories .

3:38

I'm sure those were special times and

3:41

I know you still live near Cape

3:43

Town , this huge metropolis

3:45

, but I also know it is still fairly

3:47

wild and raw where you live in Cape

3:49

Point , about an hour outside of town . Can

3:52

you talk a bit about that landscape and

3:55

did that play any part in your journey

3:57

of discovery with Edible Seaweed ?

4:00

It's not that far away from the busy city

4:03

life hub of Cape Town , but

4:05

it's very elemental out here

4:07

. So I'd already been working

4:09

with edible plants growing

4:11

in the wild in the land in winter time . In

4:14

springtime there's edible flowers and

4:16

in autumn it was the wild mushrooms growing

4:18

in the forest . But in summer time here it's

4:21

almost a dormant season , because

4:23

it is very hot , there's a prevailing southeaster

4:26

wind that blows , really drying up the vegetation

4:28

even more , so , in terms of foraging

4:30

it's quite difficult to find something juicy

4:33

and delicious . So there was this missing puzzle piece

4:35

, until this

4:37

amazing human called

4:39

Hiromu Jimbo , a Japanese

4:43

traveler , came to

4:45

visit us . He

4:48

had been travelling on his bike , zigzagged

4:50

his way up from Istanbul all the way down Africa

4:53

, and he ended up knocking on our door and asking

4:55

if he could come . He had such

4:57

an extraordinary story and

5:00

he had been travelling for three and a half years . So

5:02

of course we let him stay and his

5:05

three night stay turned into

5:07

three months And every now

5:09

and again he would hop on his bike with

5:11

a little bucket at the back and he would cycle

5:13

off to the nearest beach and he'd come back

5:15

and shortly afterwards there'd be these delicious

5:18

cockling smells coming from his campsites

5:20

. So

5:23

one day I went down with him to

5:25

the intertidal zone and

5:27

he just looked over the coastline with me And

5:30

there are so many sea vegetables

5:33

here . He couldn't understand

5:35

why nobody was eating them . There

5:37

was such a delicacy where he was from , in

5:39

Japan . So

5:41

this really opened my mind and

5:44

my curiosity was

5:46

awakened And

5:48

I just wanted to learn as much as I could about

5:51

this new edible

5:53

landscape , this old

5:55

edible landscape .

5:58

Yeah , it's so interesting how , sometimes

6:01

, ideas that seem so fresh and new

6:03

are simply reconnecting

6:05

us back to the wisdom of people who

6:07

lived before us , and yet with

6:09

that , we can take those ideas

6:12

and learn new ways of moving forward

6:14

. And so I guess my question to you is has

6:17

this way of foraging for edible seaweed

6:19

changed your relationship to the

6:21

ocean ?

6:23

It definitely has . If

6:25

anybody had told me what I'd be doing now

6:27

, back when I first started , i would

6:29

have thought they were completely crazy . And

6:32

at first started out as a hobby . I

6:34

wanted to learn more about seaweeds

6:37

. There wasn't a course that

6:39

I could do , so

6:42

I decided to create one myself and

6:46

that meant a long , slow journey

6:48

of learning in nature . And

6:52

I'm still on this

6:54

path of learning And

7:00

I think it's that magic place where , when

7:04

something you are so passionate about connects

7:08

with your sense of purpose in life , anything

7:13

is possible . When

7:19

you first go down to the rock pools and you look

7:22

over the intertidal zone , it's

7:26

what I call seaweed

7:28

blindness . You

7:32

kind of just see a lot of the same

7:34

colour , there's

7:36

maybe a difference in texture , but

7:40

you don't really know what you're looking at . But

7:45

if you creep a little closer , maybe

7:49

get down on your hands and knees and

7:53

you start to really look closely

7:55

at the different colours and textures , tastes

7:58

, even Learn

8:02

a little about their culinary

8:04

applications and their medicinal properties

8:06

, learn

8:10

about the ecosystem surrounding it . You're

8:16

never going to walk through that space in

8:19

the same way again And

8:23

it almost changes your senses

8:26

. You

8:29

don't just walk through there visually

8:31

, you

8:33

walk through there with a flavour palette

8:35

running through your mind . So

8:40

it's not just about foraging , it's more

8:43

about creating

8:47

awareness of

8:50

how incredible

8:53

and how special our

8:55

oceans are , and

8:59

when you learn this knowledge , you are more likely to

9:02

want to protect and preserve the areas , and

9:06

it's a great step in nurturing custodianship

9:10

of the oceans . Yeah

9:16

, it's beautiful . We

9:18

can take a lot of life lessons from

9:20

being in the ocean .

9:27

Oh , i agree with that And it's

9:29

the primary reason I started this podcast

9:31

. It's really about people who

9:33

have been changed by their connection to the

9:35

ocean , and I think your story epitomizes

9:38

that in some ways . But

9:41

I think something else unique about your

9:43

story is because you look

9:45

for the edible aspects of the ocean , like

9:48

the relationship a farmer might have

9:50

with their land . I suspect you

9:52

have a deeper connection to the changing

9:54

energies of the ocean over

9:56

the year And I'm wondering if

9:58

you find there are different characteristics of

10:00

the ocean in the different seasons of

10:03

the year And , if so , how

10:05

does that guide your relationship to foraging

10:07

for seaweed ?

10:09

In the rock pools . There's lots of different seaweeds

10:11

. In South Africa we're really

10:13

lucky . We have just over 900

10:15

different species of seaweed And

10:18

out of all of those 900 , there's only one that

10:20

you can't eat . There

10:22

are obviously choice edibles . There's

10:24

a lot of very delicious seaweeds And

10:27

the flavor is very different . You

10:29

kind of have to think of sea

10:32

vegetables just like land vegetables . Each

10:34

one has their own flavor

10:36

, their own season , their own texture

10:38

, And it's

10:41

this reciprocal relationship that we start

10:43

to form with the ocean when we are

10:45

in this place . Right , I mean

10:47

just by being physically in

10:50

the rock pools . We are

10:52

having a reciprocal relationship , whether you

10:54

realize it or not . And

10:56

to access this intertidal

10:58

zone and to witness these

11:00

things on a macro level , you have to

11:02

work on an even bigger scale . So

11:06

in wintertime it's very elemental

11:08

and very wild and powerful

11:11

, but from an energy coming outside

11:13

of the ocean , not inside

11:16

. So the outside

11:18

elements are creating this force within

11:20

the ocean . In autumntime

11:23

there's still a little bit of a dormancy

11:25

within the intertidal zone . In

11:28

springtime We

11:31

get the seaweeds that grow once

11:34

a year . So , like a lot of the land plants

11:36

, there's quite an energy shift within the

11:38

rock pools . There's an excitement

11:41

and there's a growth spurt . It's

11:43

like the feeling that you feel on land in

11:45

springtime , when all these beautiful little

11:47

flowers start blossoming and blooming

11:50

and new leaf growth happens . A

11:52

lot of this stuff is happening in the intertidal

11:54

zone as well . In summertime

11:57

, the seaweeds have grown

11:59

and there's abundance , And

12:02

when seaweeds are at the beginning

12:04

of summer , they are at their most nutrient

12:06

rich And so the coastal

12:08

garden is full of sea

12:10

vegetables . So

12:13

summertime has a lot of energy and

12:15

life force within the ocean

12:17

, And summer is the

12:19

time that we go coastal foraging in the intertidal

12:21

zone . So once you

12:24

dive into the delicious world of seaweeds , it's

12:26

quite exciting from a foodie perspective

12:28

, because there's so much you can do .

12:30

Yeah it's just such a different way of connecting

12:33

to the ocean and I find something deeply

12:35

rooted in that . Now

12:37

, you mentioned , before we started our interview

12:40

, there was one free dive . You did a dive

12:42

that was unremarkable in almost every

12:44

way , and yet something shifted

12:47

for you on that dive . Can

12:49

you tell us the story of that dive and why

12:51

it meant so much to you ?

12:53

There's many magical epiphany moments

12:55

that happen when you connect

12:57

with the ocean , but I think a story that

13:00

I haven't really told is

13:03

my relationship with being underwater . For

13:06

ever I have been terrified

13:08

of being underwater and

13:11

felt like I

13:13

needed to connect a little bit more deeply

13:16

to explore the cup forests

13:18

. So I decided

13:20

to go on a free diving

13:22

course . But even

13:24

after the course and after going

13:26

into the ocean a couple of times

13:28

with my free diving buddy , i

13:31

was terrified . I didn't want to go too far

13:33

out , but

13:35

the ocean rewards familiarity

13:37

. And after going

13:39

for quite a few dives

13:41

in quite a few different locations over

13:44

a few years actually It

13:48

was this one day and it was very unremarkable

13:51

at a

13:53

lovely little place called

13:56

Winmell Beach , very

13:58

easy beach entry , you can just walk straight

14:00

into the ocean from the beach And

14:05

the kelp

14:07

glistening at the surface of the

14:09

sea and all these beautiful different

14:11

colours and the

14:14

sunlight just glistening on the surface

14:16

And

14:19

it's just absolutely beautiful underwater

14:21

there . Going

14:25

underwater there is like entering

14:27

into rainbow

14:31

coloured out of space underwater

14:35

worlds . There's

14:37

so many different colours and textures , with these

14:39

beautiful big fans just floating

14:41

with the current , and

14:45

the silence , the beautiful silence

14:47

when you're underwater , just the little crickling crackling

14:49

of the reef . Yeah

14:53

, it's something very special . But

14:58

something happened where

15:01

I was underwater

15:03

and something clicked . I

15:06

was comfortable and

15:11

relaxed And

15:14

I could hold my breath that much longer and

15:18

start to look around and see

15:20

what was there . And

15:26

for me that was a

15:28

pivotal point . That

15:31

was my change

15:33

. It

15:37

was a feeling in my mind and in my heart

15:40

and in my body . It

15:43

was an expansive feeling . It was a

15:47

feeling of belonging , a

15:52

feeling of excitement and joy . I

15:58

was really proud of myself for

16:01

having gone through this whole process

16:03

, from

16:06

being frozen in fear to

16:11

pushing through that barrier , through

16:15

the power of knowledge and

16:19

through the repetition of

16:21

visiting the ocean again

16:24

and again and again , until

16:27

she let me in . Yeah

16:32

, it was like coming

16:35

home .

16:41

Finally , we end every interview and

16:43

every episode with a single open-ended

16:46

question . we ask everyone we talk to

16:48

What does the ocean

16:50

mean to you ?

16:52

Sure , that's a beautiful question . The

16:55

ocean is

16:57

a very healing space . It

17:00

can hold memory , it

17:03

carries stories and heritage and

17:06

it offers freedom and hope

17:08

and nourishment

17:10

and happiness .

17:15

Thanks for listening to the Big Deep podcast Next

17:19

time on Big Deep . We

17:33

really appreciate you being on this journey into the Big Deep as

17:36

we explore an ocean of stories

17:38

. If you like what we're doing , please

17:41

make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts

17:43

. Also , please like and comment

17:45

, because those subscribes , likes

17:47

and comments really make a difference For

17:50

more interviews , deeper discussions with our guests

17:53

, photos and updates on anything you've heard . There's

17:55

a lot more content at our website , BigDeepcom

17:58

Plus . If you

18:00

know someone we should think we should talk to , let

18:03

us know at our Big Deep website , as we are always

18:05

looking to hear more stories from interesting people who

18:07

are deeply connected to our world's oceans

18:09

. Thanks again

18:11

for joining us .