Redditor to PDX Chefs: Stop Foraging from My Yard

Photo courtesy David Owens via Flickr

This may or may not be a joke (please be a joke?), but a local homeowner has taken to a Portland subreddit to ask for advice: "Homeowners: How do you keep local sous chefs from harvesting urban edibles on your property?" The original poster, who says he lives in inner-Southeast Portland, writes: "It was fine when they were just harvesting pineapple weed and mallow from the alley and the parking strip, although it was admittedly a little off-putting... But yesterday my neighbor called to let me know she had to help a sous chef who got stuck on top of my fence holding a baggie full of chicory leaves."

The resulting suggestions recommend everything from calling non-emergency police, installing surveillance cameras, or turning on sprinklers. And because this is Portland, several respondents seemed less despondent about the trespassing than possibility that some restaurants are serving foraged greens that may be sprayed with pesticides. Says one: "I'm into wild edibles, but would be super pissed off to find out a restaurant serving them without knowing exactly what they may or may not have been sprayed with (Round-Up was mentioned but also in my neighborhood there are tons of feral cats so toxoplasmosis would also be a concern)." So chefs: Stop stealing your neighbors' greens. They may have cat pee on them?
· Homeowners: How to Keep Chefs Out? [Reddit via Eater National]
· All Previous Portlandia Coverage [Eater PDX]