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It's not been so very long since humans relied very heavily upon food that could be gathered direct from the wild, and yet many of us today are oblivious to its presence, or worse, suspicious of it.
This page details my personal efforts to explore the wild larder of Britain
Everyone loves getting something for nothing.
Many people feel it's important to know exactly where and how their food is produced,
Others want natural produce that has not been interfered with chemically or genetically, and has not been forced to produce out of season.
Gathering food from the wild satisfies all these desires, all at the same time.
Don't make the mistake of thinking that I'll be chewing on dry bark and trying to convince you it's the best thing I've ever tasted. I won't - if I try something and it's no good, I'll say so.
That said, I know for a fact that there are lots of cases where wild-gathered food can offer a taste experience unmatched by any other. It's good, and I'm going to prove it.
(but intend to try soon)
A foreign invader - these were introduced to the UK in the 50's and they're now hugely abundant on the south coast. Apparently they're pretty good - softer than ordinary limpets (which can't be a bad thing - I've eaten those and they were a nice flavour, but texture like eating a rubber washer)
Lots of these in Southampton water and reportedly completely safe for human consumption.
Meat, on legs, in the park. OK, vermin meat on legs. Still, might be worth a try.
A grass-like plant common in damp woodland - abundant in my part of the world - the seeds can be ground to make a sort of flour
The winged seeds of the Ash tree (Fraxinus) - when picked young and tender - can apparently be used to make an unusual pickle
If you've got a suggestion that you think belongs in this section, please contact me to let me know.
(but haven't mentioned here yet)
Here are a few of my favourite things to seek out and eat. Next time I do, I'll post the details here...
Some years are better than others for these and some trees are better than others - they're fiddly to peel and eat, but they're good.
Not a nut at all, but the tuberous root of a plant related to carrots. they taste sort of nutty-carroty (who'd have guessed?).
Elderflowers can be used to make delicious cordials and wines, but I've heard they're also nice dipped in batter and fried.
(but probably should, eventually...)
Deliberate consumption, that is - part of me keeps saying that they can't really be any worse than prawns or crabs - which are pretty leggy, crawly and ugly. The rest of me keeps saying "You can't possibly mean that".
I came across a reference in one of my wild food books, stating that the flowers of the Lime tree (Tilia spp.), ground up together with the fruits, yielded a substance resembling chocolate. I decided to give it a try
The Amethyst Deceiver is a name that might conjure up images of a purple-clad comic-book villain. The truth is, it's a common edible mushroom
Fairy Ring Mushrooms were probably the first wild fungus I learned to reliably identify. I've known for many years that they are edible, but never quite got around to trying them, until now.
We spent a day by the side of the River Meon - a fast-flowing, crystal-clear chalk stream. - I scouted around a bit and discovered large patches of watercress in the shallow margins.
Out picking blackberries, I also returned home with some goosefoot that I picked from a weedy, recently-ploughed corner of a field.
We tried walking the Strawberry Trail from Hamble Point up to Manor Farm, but kept getting lost. Fortunately, our random detours took us past some great wild food resources - including a planted rose hedge bearing lots of ripe rose hips
It's generally not been a good year for plums here - or so everybody tells me. However, there's always an exception - and I found it - a few wild plum trees in a hedgerow near my house, groaning under the weight of their own fruit.
Rock Samphire is a common coastal plant in Southern Britain - occurring on shingle beaches and rocky cliffs - it was once so sought-after that people would undergo serious risk to obtain it.
Time to get a bit more adventurous with this wild food thing - I'm going to try eating snails
Nothing to do with crustaceans - Crab Apples are small, sour, wild apples and they have many uses.
A trip out to the New Forest in hope of finding wild mushrooms or bilberries - we found neither, but found instead some nice, ripe, plump Rowan berries.
Isn't it interesting? - Marshmallow (the confection) is so familiar, yet the origin of the name is quite obscure - to the extent that a mention of Marsh Mallow (the plant) often raises eyebrows or is met with laughter.
Lime flowers are reputed to have calming and soporific properties. I have no idea if this claim is true, but they're deliciously fragrant anyway - and useful.
An outing to The Devil's Punchbowl at Hindhead, Surrey, for a picnic lunch and a spot of berry picking. Bilberries are found in abundance here.
A trip out to Crab Wood, near Winchester to enjoy a walk in the woods, and to pick wild strawberries
Also near Keyhaven, we found Crow Garlic - a kind of wild onion with rather interesting potential.
We went for a walk around Keyhaven harbour and out beside the salt marsh toward Lymington. There, we found Marsh Samphire in great abundance.
I've heard so many people speak positively of stinging nettles as a food, but for some reason that I cannot properly explain, I remained very wary of the idea but not any more
I've always known they could be eaten, just never really quite got around to trying them. Until now.
It would be enough of a treat just to be picking any mushrooms in spring (most other wild mushrooms appear in autumn), but on top of that, it happens to be the case that St George's Mushrooms are really excellent eating.
Another adventure with wild greens. Sadly, not exactly everything I hoped for, this time.
There are several species of wild onion or garlic that are common in the UK - This one is called Ramsons.
Introduced to Britain from Europe either by the Romans, or during the Norman Conquest - depending on who you ask. Either way - Ground Elder was a common and popular vegetable in days gone by.
It's a very common coastal plant all over the UK and Europe. In the kitchen, Sea Beet has all of the good attributes of spinach, with none of the bad ones.
Sloes - also known as Blackthorn - are very small, bitter plums (although they are a distinct species: Prunus spinosa) that grow on spiny bushes in hedgerows and on heaths and wood edges.
Although there are such things as true crab apples, many of the 'wild' apple trees we see are the naturalised offspring of cultivated varieties - either chance seedlings from a discarded core, or perhaps remnants of derelict and forgotten orchards.
Wild blackberries have it - that intense fragrant fruity aroma that just can't adequately be described in words.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, just go and pick a cupful (or more!) of fresh, ripe wild blackberries on a sunny day, then stick your nose in the cup and inhale. The scratches, barbs and stings melt away into insignificance when you smell that smell.
"Isn't it terribly dangerous?" is the question people most often ask me when I talk about eating wild mushrooms...
The truth is, it needn't be. Especially if you familiarise yourself with some of the more easily recognised ones, such as Chanterelles.
We went crabbing down at the pontoon at Manor Farm Country Park and brought back a bucket of shore crabs to make soup.
Kids had a day off school, so we piled into the car and drove up to Oxford, where the river Thames is suffering from an invasion of foreign crayfish - the American Signal Crayfish
Camping (in the rain) on Exmoor, during the wet summer of 2007, we found a nice assortment of wild berries along the hedgerows, so I made Camping Cake
