WALK ON THE WILD SIDE
Inspired by the land
Big Green Egg Champion Tait Miller is a ‘wild chef’ – but not in the hard-living, table-flipping sense of the word. Tait’s mission is to shine a light on the joys of cooking in the wild using locally foraged ingredients. “For me, foraged ingredients are the ultimate realisation of our most natural food,” he says. “We gather from the land around us and create dishes inspired by the land.”
A MiniMax Big Green Egg, our portable model, plays a vital role in his outdoor adventures. “I love the temperature control and the theatre of the cooking experience,” he says. “I’m a year-round fan. From slow smokes to soufflés, I use it for everything I can.” Tait brought his MiniMax along to the fields and woods of the Cowdray Estate in West Sussex, where he and the estate’s head forager George Linklater teamed up to create a stunning three-course autumn menu packed with wild ingredients.
Watch the videos
THE MIGHTY MINIMAX
The MiniMax EGG, our most compact model, is the perfect tool for a wild chef like Tait: easy to transport, fun to use, but still big enough to feed a hungry gathering. It comes up to heat in no time at all and has the same versatility, control and heat retention as its larger siblings. The Foldable Stand with Acia Shelves makes cooking on the MiniMax secure and comfortable – and does so without compromising on portability.
Top five tips for foraging
As autumn kicks into gear, the British countryside abounds with wild ingredients, from mushrooms and berries to leaves and herbs. You don’t have to be a professional like George to enjoy the pleasures of foraging, but you do need to be careful. Here are our five golden rules:
A quick guide
Enjoy a foraging experiencing at the Cowdray Estate
Join us on Saturday 16th November for a truly unique foraging experience on the picturesque Cowdray Estate. Led by Tait and George, you will get to forage for wild ingredients, discover flavours you may never have tried before, learn the secrets of cooking over fire, and enjoy dishes inspired by our wild cooking mini-series — all against the backdrop of sweeping countryside views. Tickets cost £95, including food, and we have just 20 places available.
ENTER OUR INSTAGRAM COMPETITION TO WIN 2 TICKETS: We have a pair of tickets to give away. To enter, follow Big Green Egg UK, Cowdray Estate and Tait Miller and tag the friend you want to bring along with you.
About Tait Miller
After starting out as a pot washer at the age of 14, Tait honed his craft in some of the top restaurants in London and Berlin, before leaving the confines of the kitchen to try his hand at events, private cheffing and consultancy. In 2020, he realised that his true calling involved cooking outdoors, celebrating wild ingredients and telling the stories of the places, people and produce he discovers along the way. One of our family of official Big Green Egg Champions, he owns two EGGs – a MiniMax for his outdoor adventures and a Large that he keeps in his granny’s garden.
ABOUT THE COWDRAY ESTATE
Set in the rolling hills of the South Downs with a stunning Tudor manor house at its heart, the Cowdray estate offers the perfect base from which to explore the very best of the English countryside. Visitors can enjoy pursuits such as clay-pigeon shooting, fly fishing, riding or hill walking, take a round of a championship-level golf course, and enjoy the spectacular local produce found in the estate’s farm shop and restaurants. Big Green Eggs are an important part of the food offering, used to turn out amazing food at some of Cowdray’s many outdoor events.
