Keywords: reality TV, wilderness, climate change, food justice, food sovereignty, audience studies, audience ethics

Abstract
Chefs vs. Wild (2022) is a reality cooking series in which chefs are paired with a survivalist to forage to secure ingredients in the Canadian wilderness and then produce a five-star meal. Central to the creation of the fine-dining meal is a state-of-the-art outdoor kitchen erected in the remote, fly-in location. Throughout Season 1 (2022), indigeneity serves as a conduit for the representation of food and authenticity. The audience is educated in the narrative, collection, and presentation of the foraged foods by co-host Valerie Segrest, of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, a Native Nutrition Educator, and director of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project. Season 1 also includes the stories of various First Nations survivalists and chef contestants, who compete alongside non-Indigenous contestants. The conceptualization and construction of wilderness, however, is one of a hostile landscape, in which chefs are constantly bombarded by the elements and under threat of ingesting poisonous foliage and fungi. Thus, the show presents itself as both a decolonization and colonization of wilderness. According to Tsing (2015), the forest has “agency.” It has a way of “doing” life, as do the non-humans within it. Non-humans have stories to tell. This paper takes the agency of the “wild” forest as a starting point. Through a case study approach, it interrogates the aesthetics of food justice and the construction of ‘wilderness’ within the context of streaming reality TV. What constitutes consumption in the fine-dining culture of reality TV, and how do fantasies of foraging in the wilderness become embedded in a competitive foodscape? This paper argues that within the landscape of reality TV, nature is seen as an uncontrollable force to contain through knowledge of sustainable cooking and culture. In doing so, aesthetics of wilderness also become a form of consumable entertainment rather than a challenge to unsustainable food practices.