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Montana’s food culture is taking a walk on the wild side, literally. Last weekend, nearly 200 people came to the North Bridger Bison Ranch in Wilsall for the inaugural “Feral Feast: Montana’s Wild Food Fest,” bringing together hunters, wild game chefs and foragers for a day of proving that the best meals come from the field, not the freezer aisle.
Though she’s long been interested in wild food, event organizer Beth Brennan just learned how to hunt a few years ago. The event, she said, was a way to bring together others who are interested in learning how to procure and cook wild food but don’t know where to start.
BELOW: Jaime Teigen, a wild game chef, leads a cooking demonstration during “Feral Feast: Montana’s Wild Food Fest” at North Bridger Bison Ranch in Wilsall on Aug. 22. RIGHt: A plate of food from “Feral Feast”. (Courtesy of Beth Brennan)
“I noticed that there weren’t a lot of in-person resources to learn those skills that can sometimes be a little bit intimidating,” Brennan said. “For a lot of feral feasts, it’s not just about the food itself. It’s about the educational component that comes with it.”
When she got the idea for the event about a year ago, Brennan reached out to Poldi Wieland, host of the “Year of Plenty Podcast,” which explores generational cooking skills and unprocessed food.
For Wieland, the answer was an easy and enthusiastic “heck yeah,” as he said the event was the perfect way to take his passion beyond his podcast.
“In the last few years, so much has gone digital,” Wieland said. “I thought the community really needed this because it brings all the people who like to nerd out about these topics into one place.”
Brennan and Wieland agreed the event grew far beyond what they’d initially envisioned, a turnout they said speaks to just how many people are hungry for a deeper connection to wild food and the vast opportunities to explore it in Montana.
“We know that not everyone can forage and hunt their food,” Brennan said. “It’s definitely a luxury, and I think it’s very connected to the Montana way of life. Since we do have that luxury, we feel like why not learn how to take advantage of it?”
At the ranch on Saturday, tables of elk sausage, foraged mushroom dishes and fire-roasted game drew steady lines, and attendees moved between information tables and sampling stations. But for Brennan and Wieland, the day wasn’t just about fun and new friendships. It was about how to think past the grocery store and put new skills into practice.
Attendees line up for food during “Feral Feast: Montana’s Wild Food Fest” at North Bridger Bison Ranch in Wilsall on Aug. 22, 2026.
“Thousands of years ago, foraging, hunting and fishing is what people did,” Wieland said. “It’d be a shame to let those skills just go away. So part of this, for me, is to help preserve that knowledge and inspire people to use those skills. To modernize them, and create their own recipes bringing the wild into the kitchen.”
Part of that education, though, is learning where the real dangers lie. Less than a month before the event, a group of 11 people were hospitalized, seven of them in serious condition, for suspected poisoning after eating mushrooms foraged in Park County, KBZK reported.
It’s exactly the kind of risk Feral Feast presenters like River Shannon Aloia, a wild food specialist and private chef, want to help people avoid.
“Never ever eat anything that hasn’t been positively identified by an expert,” Aloia said. “There’s a lot of foraging apps out there. That’s not an expert, so never trust the foraging app.”
At the event, Aloia fried wild mushroom Rangoons for sampling in a pot of boiling oil. Those mushrooms, she said, were sourced from SporeAttic, a gourmet mushroom farm in Bozeman. But typically, she forages her own.
“I’ve been foraging for 40 years, and I’ve never once been poisoned,” Aloia said. “Because I’m careful.”
A plate of food from “Feral Feast: Montana’s Wild Food Fest” at North Bridger Bison Ranch in Wilsall on Aug. 22, 2026.
Aloia also teaches a foraging class in the fall, offering the education she said is essential to explore wild food safely.
“Other than that, always cook your wild mushrooms thoroughly,” Aloia said. “A lot of mushrooms can really sicken you if you eat them raw. Cooking them usually renders them safe, but that’s not true for every mushroom.”
Beyond mushrooms, harvesting meat has its own precautions. For Jaime Teigen, a wild game chef and presenter at the festival, that means having all necessary processing equipment at home.
“I started hunting when I met my husband,” Teigen said. “My very first whitetail that I ever got, we decided to take it into a processor. When we got it back, we were so disappointed and we decided to get our own processing equipment.”
As a chef, Teigen said many people have a misconception that wild game has a tough, gamey texture. But that view often changes once they taste it cooked properly.
“Wild game being as lean as it is, it’s very easy to overcook it,” Teigen said. “I think that’s what most people get in their head.”
The leaner meat, however, is not only healthier, but often cheaper than beef at the supermarket, where prices continue to climb.
“We haven’t bought domestic meat in probably 18 years,” Teigen said. “We literally live on wild game.”
For herbalist Spencre McGowan, the benefits of wild food go beyond the savings. Herbs can offer real health benefits when eaten consistently, McGowan said, but even an occasional dose brings something special to the table.
“When you’re tasting the herb, it’s just such an intimate way to get to know it,” McGowan said. “You feel more connected to your food.”
That connection is something McGowan has built a career trying to teach others. She got her start writing a zine about herbalism, which caught the attention of a HarperCollins editor and led to a 2018 book deal, followed by a second book deal in 2022 for her herbal cookbook, “Forest + Home.”
Jesse Akozbek, Poldi Wieland, Orion Aon and Tim Clemens pose for a photo under the event sign during “Feral Feast: Montana’s Wild Food Fest” at North Bridger Bison Ranch in Wilsall on Aug. 22, 2026.
“I really try to focus on accessible herbalism in the sense of you don’t need to forage everything,” McGowan said. “That’s just not accessible to people. I think it’s really important to let people know that they can make this type of food with stuff that you can just buy.”
Feral Feast was McGowan’s first event in six years as she gets ready to jump back into leading classes and workshops, both in the New England area where she’s from and in Butte where she lives now.
“One of my favorite things about doing events is just the people that you meet,” McGowan said. “This has been such a great way to ease back into it.”
Based on the interest and community they saw come together, Brennan and Wieland said they hope this inaugural Feral Feast is just the first of many to come.
Dining and Cooking