Yeah. For me, one of the first things i do is get Scoutcraft to 3 (Stealth!) and then try and get Survival to 10 to grab Dark Cauldron. That way, in the forest you can combine 2 food into Vegetable Soup which keeps a lot better. The sustainability means that you can repeatedly leave and reenter the same rainforest square, harvesting every food item there along with the white dragon weeds, cook everything you found into food and then repeat the process. And because you're not actually moving squares, time isn't passing as much as it would otherwise have.
Then, when satisfied, head back to town to dump all the white dragon weeds you picked up along the way for a nice stack of coins. That along with a stack of stew should set you up nicely for whatever it is you want to do next. The increase in forage in other locations doesn't exactly hurt either.