A lot of us would like to live
"the good life", growing our own food and making more of our own essentials, which is why fresh produce markets are so popular at the moment. The problem with buying fresh from the markets is that it can be pricey, but now that more of us are strapped for both time and money, more people are exploring ways to source their food outside the supermarket box. One way to eat fresh and cheap is to forage for your food.
This is not an article extolling the merits of eating road-kill, or going poaching, it's a more veg-friendly discussion of some of the best ways to top up your fresh fruit and veg shopping in the UK's woods and forests, while at the same time trying out some new, but old, flavours.
Food that's free to be foraged either grows wild, wanders wild or isn't being farmed or cultivated for commercial consumption. And collecting it is largely about knowing what you can and can't eat, both legally and nutritionally.
Some of the easiest foods to forage for are
berries, fruit and
nuts. There are still wild hedgerows of blackberries growing all over the UK, and most people know what these look like from seeing them in the supermarket, but there are plenty of less familiar fruit that also make for good eating: damsons, elderberries, hawthorn berries and sloes for example. All you need to forage for berries is a bucket, some secateurs to cut your way though any thorny sections of brambles separating you from your fruity prizes, and some gardening gloves to protect your hands.
As well as eating them fresh, raw and on the hoof, berries can also be made into jams, cordials, preserves, pies and crumbles.
The UK still has quite a lot of wild apple and crab apple trees, but many of them produce fruit that's better for cooking than eating raw, so make sure you do a taste test before you pick too many to carry away. If you do know where there's a good, sweet tree, swing by at the end of the season and collect the left overs to make cider out of. Some Natural Trust parks and woodlands also have orchards that you're allowed to pick from if it's purely for personal consumption. The laws can be pretty complicated though, so check out this useful
article from the BBC first to make sure you're not doing anything illegal.
Nuts grow in hedgerows as well, and some of those are the familiar nuts you know and love, like chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts for example. Chestnuts are probably the most commonly found - but don't get them confused with horse chestnuts which are a lot more bitter than the regular kind you'll want served with your Christmas dinner. You can tell if you're on to a sweet thing when you open up the spikey outer casing - chestnuts will have up to three nuts inside, while horse chestnuts will only ever have one. Hazelnuts are also relatively abundant in the right areas. The trick with these is keeping them in storage for six weeks before you try and crack them open so that they've time to dry out and become tasty.
Mushrooms are another easy feast for foragers because there are hundreds of different varieties growing throughout the UK. The New Forest supports more than a hundred varieties on its own: in the warm dark spots beneath logs or the protected crevices between tree roots. The best time of year to pick mushrooms is September. Go out with a knife so that you can cut them neatly rather than rip them out of the ground, and make sure that you only take a few from each troop so that they keep growing in the same place in future years. Take a brush to dust them off with and go out in the morning when mushrooms are freshest if you can.
You might not normally consider eating the
weeds in your garden, but some of them are probably quite tasty. Nettles and dandelions make wonderful teas, and spice up any leaf salad, but there are other leafy greens that grow wild and edible and will add flavour to your meals. Watercress is relatively common by small waterways, and garlic mustard, otherwise known as 'Jack-by-the-hedge' will add more pepper than rocket. Wild garlic is another good find for adding flavour, it grows in woodland, near or among bluebells, and is identifiable by its green, garlic-like smell and long leaves, which, unlike domestic garlic, are the bits you'll want to eat. Plantain and ground elder are good substitutes for spinach or addition to anything with spinach in it already, as are nettles. Borage, with the pale blue flowers, has a mild cucumber-y taste, so shouldn't be used in the same salad as sorrel which has a much stronger flavour and is a good one to add to soups. Hogweed can be cooked and eaten like asparagus.
If you're a real red blooded carnivore there are some ways to augment your foraged meal with some animal protein. You could go fishing or crayfishing or collect snails... If crayfishing aim to catch the American red signal crayfish which have invaded the UK's streams and are a pest...so sort of have it coming for pushing out our natural crayfish.
When you're foraging there are a few niceties to adhere to, please:
- When you're picking weeds or other plants don't take the whole plant unless you have to, by leaving some of the plant there you're allowing it to grow up again and for someone else, human or animal, to eat from it.
- If you want to forage on someone else's land ask their permission. Some farmers won't mind if you're picking dandelions or nettles, or other plants they'd consider to be weeds.
- Don't eat anything you're unsure about - taking a wild food guide book with lots of pictures is highly recommended, 'cause some plants and fungi will make you sick if you eat them. The British Mycological Society and the Association of British Fungus Groups offer reliable guides for mushroom foragers.
- Don't pick anything endangered.
As with many new experiences it can be useful to go with a guide the first time around - as more people get thrifty about their eating habits there are more wild food courses and escorted foraging opportunities becoming available. The truth is always in the tasting though, but good life food often tastes good too - just for knowing exactly where is comes from and the for fun in finding it.
