Foraging
I think I am obsesssed. In the past week I have collected blackberries, apples, elderberries, sloes, sorrel and hazelnuts from our plentiful hedgerows. Then I have been causing chaos in the kitchen by being in a mad rush to make recipes from them whilst they're fresh... and now my hands are purple.
We have had three blackberry and apple cakes and made elderberry cordial. Some recipes I have found are from totally dated and untrendy cookbooks whilst others have been tracked down on the internet with it's infinite sources of information. For lunch today I made sorrel omlette, something I haven't tried before - that recipe came from a book "The Wild Gourmets" which follows "award-winning cook Thomasina Miers and adventurer Guy Grieve as they search for the best wild food in Britain, turning seasonal food into sumptuous feasts" it's also a televised series on tomorrow 8.30pm opn Channel 4 and this week they are in East Anglia - hope I remember to watch.
Obviously foraging for food is one mind-step on from buying local /organic food or growing your own. When you start looking you realise what a wealth of opportunity is going for the large part unnoticed. There are so many blackberry bushes laden with ripe fruit at the moment it seems incredible that people are buying blackberries in plastic punnets in supermarkets. Todays consumers are so obsessed with finding the cheapest we are almost overlooking the obvious - free food. It's also a great way to see the seasons go by, watch the countryside change and to feel pride in your ability to source the best .... biggest, fattest, juiciest !
I haven't foraged for mushrooms - not brave enough, I do have a mushroom identification book but when I looked at the images they all seemed indistinguishably similiar so I'm just hoping that one day I'll meet a mushroom forager who'll be able to point me in the right direction.. and I want to watch them eat the mushrooms first.
Love this website : http://www.wildmanwildfood.co.uk
- Posted by emma on 24/09/2007.
- emma's site
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