Food Fridays: Blaze Your Own Trail (Mix)

In honor of Geography Awareness Week, celebrated the third week of November each year, we’re rolling out a special Food Fridays post inspired by guerrilla geographer Daniel Raven-Ellison, one of National Geographic’s emerging explorers, and Mission:Explore Food.

What’s guerrilla geography, you ask? It’s about challenging yourself to see the world differently — asking questions about places and encouraging others to ask questions, too. For Daniel, geography is about curiosity, exploration, and discovery — for kids and adults alike. “It gives you the power to see places in new ways, even imaginary ones,” he says.

We don’t care if you take one of his suggestions — ask for directions, then do the exact opposite; make your way across a park by going from tree to tree or bench to bench instead of keeping to the path — or make up your own “mission,” we just want you to give guerrilla geography a try. It’s a lot of fun. (Just check out this video if you don’t believe us.)

Here’s Daniel’s recipe for making raisins for your own custom-blend trail mix to take on your next adventure: 

• Get your hands on a bunch of seedless grapes.
• Remove all the stems from the grapes and wash them, then gently pat dry.
• Arrange the grapes on a large dish so they are not touching each other.
• Cover the dish with some clean cheesecloth or other material that will stop any bugs or dirt getting in.
• Find a warm place in your house that gets lots of sunlight and put your dish there — then wait!
• After five days you will start to see a difference.
• Take a taste test to see if they are dry enough to be raisins, and if not, wait for another two days.
• When your raisins are ready, put them in an airtight container where they will last a month.

Find out more about the playful spin Daniel Raven-Ellison puts on exploring the world by following him on Twitter @RavenEllison and checking out the Geography Collective website.