Innovative Solutions for the Rural Food Production Sector to Diversify into Sustainable Culinary Tourism Services

BASCIL

Success story: Wild cooking – a return to nature and locality

18 March 2025

Is it possible to cook without electricity? Wild cooking workshops involve local products, fresh herbs, and fire. It’s a unique experience where we create meals in a simple, natural way, respecting locality, environment and discovering how food can bring people together.

Technical details

In the heart of Kashubia in northern Poland, wild cooking redefines the approach to food and combines tradition with modernity. The workshops in “Chwastowe Pole”, named “Kaszebe Slow Life”, are a unique form of culinary tourism, where participants experience locality in its purest form. Cooking takes place over a live fire, without electricity, in complete harmony with nature.

Every ingredient here has a story. Vegetables, cheese, milk, eggs or flour are sourced exclusively from local suppliers – family farms a maximum of 10 kilometres from the workshop venue. In this way, participants not only support local producers, but also taste the fruits of their passion with every spoon or bite.

The workshop is a great opportunity to discover the potential of herbs and plants such as goutweed or nettle, which are often underestimated, and to learn how to enrich daily meals not only with taste, but also with nutritional properties.

However, wild cooking is first and foremost an experience – a culinary spectacle in which every participant becomes part of it. Without rigid recipes, using intuition and creativity, dishes with unique flavours and textures are created. Menus are seasonal and spontaneous, making each gathering unique.

“Cooking a meal together, outdoors, without electricity, makes people start to communicate which is not so obvious these days”, says Sylwia Piechowska, owner of “Chwastowe Pole” and emphasises the social dimension of the workshops

The workshops not only encourage conscious cooking, but also promote culinary tourism and learning about local culture through taste. Participants leave the meetings with a new perspective – they begin to see the beauty in simplicity and authenticity. The clients appreciate the pleasant atmosphere, the delicious food, and agree that cooking over a live fire, without recipes, is a unique experience.

Sylwia Piechowska started with the production of natural cosmetics and products based on herbs such as vinegars and teas. Participation in the BASCIL project enabled her to diversify her business and create a culinary tourism service. This unique experience, using Sylwia’s existing knowledge, has allowed to broaden an offer to her clients and reach new audiences. In turn, the use of local products during the workshops strengthens not only the potential of the service, but also the network of producers in the region.