“My family used to grow their own food in Korea. They lived by rivers, harvesting fish, so being sustainable is a very familiar thing,” Margaret Cho says. The stand-up comedian and actor is well-known for her jokes and social critiques—but not as well-known is her enthusiasm for gardening, which runs in her family. During her youth in San Francisco, Cho’s parents and grandparents would frequently go camping and fishing. And in both California and Korea, her ancestors would forage for fernbrake—a fiddlehead some cultures steam or stir-fry.
“But now, people can buy it at Asian grocery stores,” Cho says. “It was such a beautiful thing to find them in the Korean grocery store.”
Fiddleheads aren’t the only plants Cho’s family “foraged.” “My family always had gardens, and my grandparents would always take us to conservatories and arboretums while I was growing up,” Cho says. “I realize now that they were stealing things to propagate. So, don’t do that! But my family always had huge gardens—due to their thievery! It was something they were astutely doing for many years.” Now, years later, Cho is able to reach into her own garden to snag bountiful harvests.
Eating off the Vine
“To me, the idea of growing food is so exciting and fun,” Cho says. At her home in Southern California, she grows a Japanese tomato cultivar named ‘Aiko,’ a highly productive and disease-resistant indeterminate tomato.
