A Campbell River personal chef is likely one of the contestants on a brand new cooking competitors present known as Cooks vs. Wild, streaming on Disney+ on Oct. 26.
In every episode, two world-class cooks from throughout North America are paired with a survivalist and dropped right into a distant space of B.C.’s Sunshine Coast. They should survive 4 nights with nothing however a change of garments and a backpack to gather their foraged meals, then prepare dinner up a three-course meal for the judges.
Campbell River’s Jade Berg says it put all of them to the take a look at not simply in cooking however surviving.
“Sleeping on the chilly exhausting floor for that many nights, not consuming after which going right into a cooking competitors boy had been we examined mentally and bodily,” Berg mentioned.
The 31-year-old personal chef has been cooking for years with a deal with wild meals discovered on Vancouver Island. He began posting a few of his creations and adventures on Instagram. After which final 12 months he acquired an uncommon personal message.
“We’re the producers of Alone and Grasp Chef and Hell’s Kitchen and we’d love to do a brand new present are you ? And I wrote it off as a rip-off,” Berg jokes.
However he finally realized it was the actual deal and he was whisked away for his four-night stint on the present throughout final November’s atmospheric river. He says his information of the native lands didn’t assist him a lot there.
“I do know lots of people, myself included, had by no means skilled that sort of chilly earlier than for that extended,” he mentioned.
It’s the second present being launched this month that focuses on this area’s rugged atmosphere. Netflix’s Island of the Sea Wolves, narrated by Canadian actor Will Arnett, comes out subsequent week. Tourism officers say they’ve little doubt that exhibits like these will entice individuals to go to.
“I believe it exhibits the standard of the atmosphere and with this specific present the standard of foraging alternatives and the excellence of the cooks that we’ve got on this area and so they all go collectively to create a extremely constructive tourism expertise for guests,” mentioned Brian Cant, vice-president of Enterprise Engagement for 4VI, previously Tourism Vancouver Island.
Whereas Berg can’t say how he did on the present, he does say he needed to get inventive.
“I can say I ended up utilizing seafood in my dessert which was a extremely large danger,” he mentioned.
Berg says one among his most troublesome nights on Cooks vs. Wild impressed him to create his personal wild meals chef enterprise, now known as Wild Isle Cooking.
“This epiphany like holy moly, sure I’m depressing however I’m right here, I’m alive and I’m doing precisely what I wish to do and I’m not going to let this break me.”