ForagingBaliwild food

What a Foraging Day in Bali Is Really Like

Forage Bali··3 min read

Most people find foraging the way they find a good warung: by accident, because someone who lives here took them off the main road.

That is more or less what a foraging day in Bali is. You walk into the food forest with Made, who grew up eating most of what grows here, and a hillside you would have called "jungle" slowly turns into something closer to a kitchen.

Yuka's writing about Forage Bali often comes back to something she learned growing up in Sidemen: food is not separate from place. A plant, a meal, a rice field, a ceremony, the person teaching you, they all belong to the same story. The day with Made is a simple way to feel that for yourself.

It starts with learning to look

The first part is slow on purpose. Made points at a plant you have walked past a hundred times and tells you it is dinner. Pegagan, the small round leaf spreading along the wet edges, the one people in Bali have eaten for generations. Jantung pisang, the deep red banana flower hanging at the end of the bunch. Kangkung growing where the water sits.

You are not memorizing a field guide. You are learning to look, which is the part that stays with you after you go home.

Then you actually eat

Foraging that ends in a photo is a waste of a good morning. So the day moves from the forest to the fire. What you gather, you cook, the way it is really cooked here, with Made and the team showing you how a banana flower becomes lawar or how the day's greens go into the meal.

It is hands-on and unhurried. There is no moment where everyone holds up a basket and smiles for the camera. You pick, you prep, you eat what you made, sitting down, in the place it came from.

Who it is for

You do not need any experience. Most people who come have never foraged anything. What you need is curiosity and a morning you are willing to spend slowly.

It tends to suit:

  • couples and small groups who want a real day, not a tourist stop

  • families with kids old enough to be curious about plants

  • private groups and retreats looking for something grounded and local

Because every group is different, we run these as private days rather than fixed tours. You can see how that works on our private events page.

What you come away with

A meal you made from a hillside. A handful of plants you will recognize for the rest of your life. And a different way of walking through Bali, where the green at the edge of the road stops being scenery and starts being food.

If you want to read more first, here is what you can actually forage in Bali, and here is what a private food forest day looks like.

When you are ready, tell us about your group and we will set up a day.

Experience It Yourself

Join us in the food forest.

Plan a Private Food Forest Day