So finally we are home and back to familiar foraging territory. We landed on Tuesday morning of last week after three hours sleep. We collected Agnes from Reading then drove down to Brighton to do a swap over of stuff in preparation for the final leg of the adventure.
It's a bit odd going in your house when someone else is living in it so we kept the time to a minimum. However due to the lack of sleep and planning on my part I forgot lots of things like checking the post, my foraging bag and a couple of books. To be fair I often take a small library on holiday with me and then wonder why when I remove the books from the bag when I get home never having touched them since they were in there. So we got that organised which was a lot easier than we had expected as after several calls to the Isles of Scilly we established that we were not camping and also that the time we were there would be shortened. We decided that we wouldn't camp due to the amount of stuff you have to take and seen as we didn't have to camp at theB&B,which had always been the original plan, then we decided to get a cottage for a few days after having a longer visit with Krista, Nigel and Zinzan.
So we stayed Tuesday night with the lovely McAulays and also collected Finny and then headed off early on Wednesday to Suffolk to visit my Mother. After the usual delays on the M25 we had our fish and chip lunch and headed off about 6 after some face time with my Brother.
As you will no doubt have noticed by now there has not been a lot of foraging going on. After deciding that having meals with multiple wild foods in would be easier I was having a few days off as it was difficult to cook while all the travelling was going on. However on Saturday I got back into it. Having had a wonder round some woodland with Zinzan and collected all sorts of completely inedible things there were plenty of edible weeds in the fields so had pineapple mayweed and dandelion leaves in my salad. Not realising until recently that you could eat the mayweed but remembering the smell of it was so familiar from childhood days on the farm walking through great clumps of it and that familiar smell coming off. It still surprises me how much it smells of pineapple.
The dandelion is a familiar plant to us all and one I have eaten for years. Not a huge fan of bitterness unless it is watered down but sweeter salad leaves both this combination were quite nice in a bigger salad and. It was good to finally have some wild food after quite a long break.
I was hoping to have had some more fish to add to the protein list and we took Zinzan on his first fishing trip. However Bude breakwater is a difficult place to fish from unless you are fond of dragging mackerel feathers over lots of rocks and constantly having to untangle them. The fishing blogs said you could fish from half tide but no doubt you need to be a better fisherwoman than I to prevent lots of tackle ending up in the sea. No fish supper for me then!
Sunday I had honeysuckle flowers. I had tried them much earlier in the season and found them quite bitter but by this time of the summer, or Autumn for those who follow the meteorological definition of the start of this season, they taste much nicer. I have seem a picture on Ferguson Drennan's website where he is collecting large numbers of honeysuckle but I am not sure what he has used them for so will look that up for next year.
Monday we relocated to what felt like yet another holiday within a holiday,to Helston, where we have rented a small converted barn for 4 nights. We are in a place called Lower Boscadjack in a small yard with two other rental properties and the owners house. We are both very glad we are not under canvas as the weather has been less than kind. However we have so far had time on some lovely beaches and I have now been to St Ives, which is very busy but we are already planning a winter break when it is less hectic with tourists.
I took the dogs down the lane for a wander yesterday and was delighted at the large amount of sorrel that is here. When we stayed down here a couple of years ago I remember then how easy it was to collect. Alas I have had that so it is off the list.
We spent Tuesday in Truro and I got myself a pair of Keen walking boots in a sale which was very fortuitous. After a wonder round and the obligatory coffee (chai latte for me) we headed to Skinners Brewery so Dulcie could stock up on new beers and then decided to head up to Penhale sands with the dogs. Well of course they loved it and went nuts so two tired dogs was the result. We then headed back toward home and stopped off at the local for a swift one before getting home. No wild food today and knave some catching up to do!
Wednesday we went to St Ives as I had never been. Great place and would love to go back for a week in the winter when it's a bit quieter as it was slightly busier than we had anticipated. We were lucky with the weather and the beaches and narrow streets were very hectic. I finally did some foraging in Hayle on the way back as there is an estuary there. So along with my cold chicken I had Marsh Samphire and some Spear Leaved Orache. I also did the foragers emergency stop, which Dulcie always loves, on the way back home and got some newly grown Comfrey so did that with some onions and peanuts (a recipe courtesy of Roger Phillips in his Wild Food book). I think there is some debate about eating comfrey and whether doing so is safe but to be honest the small amount I have didn't concern me much.
So that wraps up the foraging in Cornwall and the next leg is the Isles of Scilly.
Showing posts with label Wild food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild food. Show all posts
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Thursday, 8 September 2011
Finishing off in America
Ok so it's been a while since the last blog entry. Have had a hectic time since we got back but before i get to that let me finish off the trip.
The hurricane was causing lots of problems while we were there and purchasing of lots of hurricane preparation equipment was going on while we of course were buying shoes!! Having not experienced a hurricane since the one that hit the UK in 1987 which as some of you will remember was not predicted and therefore not something anyone prepared for ( and which I slept through I seem to recall) we didn't know what all the fuss was about. It is difficult to know how much of the hype was just that and how much was paranoia after Katrina. Anyway as it turns out we were under prepared as we ran of of beer which wasn't a problem for me but was a near disaster for my companion! As far as I was conceded the worse thing was that the generator only powered certain essentials like lights but not the cooker which meant I could boil the kettle but had to do it in the microwave. Well quite frankly getting a rolling boil in the microwave is difficult enough and then you end up with fizzy water when you put the teabag in. Not good.
So to the foraging and wild food. Well I picked the foxtail on the Wednesday and left it to dry out for a few days. I then just rubbed it and most of the sees dropped out but if I rubbed it too hard I ended yo with some of the spiky hairs as well which I figured would go too well in the biscuits. After a little sorting I managed to find a coffee grinder in a box that should have had a cafeteire in it. Anyway the green powder was ready and I found a basic recipe for butter thins and just substituted some of the flour with the foxtail flour. I have to say I thought they were lovely biscuits and had a nice nuttiness about them. Obviously in the interests of research and to check that the product was up to scratch I had to consume most of them though I think Dulcie got one or two of the dozen that I made!
I finally got to try the Asiatic day flower which was also lovely. A great salad vegetable and tasted a bit like runner bean but without the stringy-ness. Shame I only tried them on the last day but definitely one I would add to the regular list.
Well foraging in a hurricane was a bit difficult - I did find two small puffballs but when I opened them they were already spore like and about to puff! So that was it for my foraging in America. After I got the app it got a lot easier and I have enjoyed finding new plants that I had never heard of and i am obviously still here to tell the tale which is good. Back to the UK and more familiar ground but I will try to find and cook a few things I have not tired before.
The hurricane was causing lots of problems while we were there and purchasing of lots of hurricane preparation equipment was going on while we of course were buying shoes!! Having not experienced a hurricane since the one that hit the UK in 1987 which as some of you will remember was not predicted and therefore not something anyone prepared for ( and which I slept through I seem to recall) we didn't know what all the fuss was about. It is difficult to know how much of the hype was just that and how much was paranoia after Katrina. Anyway as it turns out we were under prepared as we ran of of beer which wasn't a problem for me but was a near disaster for my companion! As far as I was conceded the worse thing was that the generator only powered certain essentials like lights but not the cooker which meant I could boil the kettle but had to do it in the microwave. Well quite frankly getting a rolling boil in the microwave is difficult enough and then you end up with fizzy water when you put the teabag in. Not good.
So to the foraging and wild food. Well I picked the foxtail on the Wednesday and left it to dry out for a few days. I then just rubbed it and most of the sees dropped out but if I rubbed it too hard I ended yo with some of the spiky hairs as well which I figured would go too well in the biscuits. After a little sorting I managed to find a coffee grinder in a box that should have had a cafeteire in it. Anyway the green powder was ready and I found a basic recipe for butter thins and just substituted some of the flour with the foxtail flour. I have to say I thought they were lovely biscuits and had a nice nuttiness about them. Obviously in the interests of research and to check that the product was up to scratch I had to consume most of them though I think Dulcie got one or two of the dozen that I made!
I finally got to try the Asiatic day flower which was also lovely. A great salad vegetable and tasted a bit like runner bean but without the stringy-ness. Shame I only tried them on the last day but definitely one I would add to the regular list.
Well foraging in a hurricane was a bit difficult - I did find two small puffballs but when I opened them they were already spore like and about to puff! So that was it for my foraging in America. After I got the app it got a lot easier and I have enjoyed finding new plants that I had never heard of and i am obviously still here to tell the tale which is good. Back to the UK and more familiar ground but I will try to find and cook a few things I have not tired before.
Friday, 26 August 2011
Keeping it American!
So I have, to use a nautical expression, changed tact slightly. Rather than perhaps trying the different wild food every day I thought that perhaps a bit like Dulcie i could have several wild foods on any given day that would cover several days, especially if aim having salad for example. That said Saturday i was still on the hunt for the days food. We had been told that we should find something called sassafras in the garden and that it could be used to make tea or root beer. The plant has three distinct leaf shapes so is quite easy to spot,one is just an oval shaped leaf, one looks like a mitten and the third has three sections (clearly I haven't read the botany book that I brought with me as yet!) anyway you get the gist of it. We saw some of these at the top of the drive so removed several of them. However the lemony smell of damaged leaves or the root beer smell of the root wasn't there but I took them anyway.
I made a simple tea with the leaves and tried it but it wasn't all that so after reading on my app about trying to get the caduim of the plant out I was a bit stumped as I didn't know what that was. Apparently it's the gooey bit just under the bark that transports nutrients around so I dug that out and put it on to boil with some of the bark. It was at that point that Jory arrived as we we're having a proper Maryland crab feast that evening. She looked at my concoction and told me it wasn't sassafras and we went into the back garden and found the proper stuff which instantly smelt of root beer and the leaves smelled lemony. The tea from both was lovely but I am still stumped as to what the other was as it had the three different leaves on the same plant. Still I know now what to look for. Oddly enough the day after I was first told about sassafras it was mentioned in Gone with the Wind which Dulcie is currently reading - how odd!
The new app is proving very useful as I would never have found Sunday's plant without it. Asiatic day flower which as it's name suggests only flowers for a day. There are lots of them at the top of the drive so I am having them in a salad today (Friday) and will report on the flavour later.
Monday was more fishing. I hadn't been up early enough for a few days with some spare time to go and have a go but this morning Dulcie was still snoozing and showing no signs of rousing so I thought a spot of fishing would be a good plan. I set up the night line but that wasn't attracting any attention so got on with some casting with the lure. The first cast brought me a baby striped bass which went straight back. Then a few minutes later when I was fiddling about with the lure just under the jetty something bit and we had an interesting little struggle before I brought it up on the jetty. Well it wasn't a bass or a perch it was longer than they were with a long head. It was on later inspection that i confirmed it as a chain pickerel. I knew it belonged to the pike family and must admit was a little wary of it due to the number of very sharp teeth it had and the reputation that pike have for being viscious. Even if I couldn't eat it I was going to have to kill it to get the hook out that it had swallowed. Well I also vaguely remember that they are difficult to dispatch and that was true enough. At this point Dulcie arrived and we both donked it on the head in order to speed up the procedure but it still kept twitching more than other fish that l have previously dispatched. The teeth were also putting me off. Anyway obviously it eventually stopped moving and removed the hook and carried on. Not long after I caught another perch so was happy with my morning catch.
Tuesday we went to Washington DC to be tourists. For the capital city of such a big country its not that big a city but very different to NY which is the only major US city I have to compare it to (I fell asleep on the drive around LA!!). We took an open top bus tour and saw some of the famous memorials. Unfortunately the long reflection pool you see in Forest Gump that runs from the Washington memorial up to the obelisk was being dug up so no reflecting going on there. We then went to the White House and got some of those great at arms length photos of both of us outside.
I saw some wild spinach - that is what they call fat hen over here but with the heat it would have been a little buggered by the time I got it home. There were a few other common edible weeds along the National Mall but today was not a foraging day.
The big news though is that while we were sitting having lunch we experienced what I initially thought was the guy sitting next to me being annoying and tapping his feet rather heavily but turned out to be a 5.8 scale earthquake!!! OMG. Well obviously this was big news so suddenly the calm background music that had been playing in the restaurant disappeared and a very loud CNN came on which then continued to play through the rest of our lunch and until we left.
Washington went into pandemonium and buildings were being closed left right and centre so of course by about 3 pm a very premature rush hour had started. We wandered back to pick up our sightseeing bus as we wanted to go to George town but basically the place was in grid lock. Most of the normal buses that came by were out of service and our sightseeing bus was no where to be seen. We then walked alot, found out the underground was still running but very slowly and eventually got home a little later than we had planned.
Wednesday we took Charley (the dog we are looking after) to Greenbury point with lots of foraging opportunities. I gathered mile-a-minute which is a creeper that had almost symmetrical triangular leaves and amazing barbs on the stalks but had a lemony almost sorrel type flavour. I also got some red clover for my salad and some young Greater Plantain. Finally as a bit of an experiment I got some foxtail which is a grass with this funnily enough foxtail like seed thing at the top (really should read my botany book it would make me sound so much more knowledgeable). Anyway the idea is you grind the seeds and can mix them with flour to add a nutty flavour.
I mixed the mile a minute with onions and flaked pickerel ( which is a labour of love bearing in mind how many small annoying bones they have ) and that was lovely, and then had the clover in with my salad. The foxtail seeds are drying in a bowl on the window and I will attempt to do something with them today.
Finally we get to Thursday and it was time for more seafood. We drove toSalisbury to see a friend of mine who has lived out here for about 11 years. Charley came with us for the trip and we sat outside in 85 degrees and had lunch! I had clams which I was bit dubious about but actually covered in a bucket of butter and several buckets of garlic tasted lovely. I would quite like to try clam chowder but Dulcie reckons it's more of an autumnal thing so that may have to be another time.
So we are pretty much up to date now. I will report on the Asiatic dayflower and the foxtail biscuit experiment in due course but will leave you for now and hope to return after surviving hurricane Irene which is making it's way up the east coast of the US!
I made a simple tea with the leaves and tried it but it wasn't all that so after reading on my app about trying to get the caduim of the plant out I was a bit stumped as I didn't know what that was. Apparently it's the gooey bit just under the bark that transports nutrients around so I dug that out and put it on to boil with some of the bark. It was at that point that Jory arrived as we we're having a proper Maryland crab feast that evening. She looked at my concoction and told me it wasn't sassafras and we went into the back garden and found the proper stuff which instantly smelt of root beer and the leaves smelled lemony. The tea from both was lovely but I am still stumped as to what the other was as it had the three different leaves on the same plant. Still I know now what to look for. Oddly enough the day after I was first told about sassafras it was mentioned in Gone with the Wind which Dulcie is currently reading - how odd!
The new app is proving very useful as I would never have found Sunday's plant without it. Asiatic day flower which as it's name suggests only flowers for a day. There are lots of them at the top of the drive so I am having them in a salad today (Friday) and will report on the flavour later.
Monday was more fishing. I hadn't been up early enough for a few days with some spare time to go and have a go but this morning Dulcie was still snoozing and showing no signs of rousing so I thought a spot of fishing would be a good plan. I set up the night line but that wasn't attracting any attention so got on with some casting with the lure. The first cast brought me a baby striped bass which went straight back. Then a few minutes later when I was fiddling about with the lure just under the jetty something bit and we had an interesting little struggle before I brought it up on the jetty. Well it wasn't a bass or a perch it was longer than they were with a long head. It was on later inspection that i confirmed it as a chain pickerel. I knew it belonged to the pike family and must admit was a little wary of it due to the number of very sharp teeth it had and the reputation that pike have for being viscious. Even if I couldn't eat it I was going to have to kill it to get the hook out that it had swallowed. Well I also vaguely remember that they are difficult to dispatch and that was true enough. At this point Dulcie arrived and we both donked it on the head in order to speed up the procedure but it still kept twitching more than other fish that l have previously dispatched. The teeth were also putting me off. Anyway obviously it eventually stopped moving and removed the hook and carried on. Not long after I caught another perch so was happy with my morning catch.
Tuesday we went to Washington DC to be tourists. For the capital city of such a big country its not that big a city but very different to NY which is the only major US city I have to compare it to (I fell asleep on the drive around LA!!). We took an open top bus tour and saw some of the famous memorials. Unfortunately the long reflection pool you see in Forest Gump that runs from the Washington memorial up to the obelisk was being dug up so no reflecting going on there. We then went to the White House and got some of those great at arms length photos of both of us outside.
I saw some wild spinach - that is what they call fat hen over here but with the heat it would have been a little buggered by the time I got it home. There were a few other common edible weeds along the National Mall but today was not a foraging day.
The big news though is that while we were sitting having lunch we experienced what I initially thought was the guy sitting next to me being annoying and tapping his feet rather heavily but turned out to be a 5.8 scale earthquake!!! OMG. Well obviously this was big news so suddenly the calm background music that had been playing in the restaurant disappeared and a very loud CNN came on which then continued to play through the rest of our lunch and until we left.
Washington went into pandemonium and buildings were being closed left right and centre so of course by about 3 pm a very premature rush hour had started. We wandered back to pick up our sightseeing bus as we wanted to go to George town but basically the place was in grid lock. Most of the normal buses that came by were out of service and our sightseeing bus was no where to be seen. We then walked alot, found out the underground was still running but very slowly and eventually got home a little later than we had planned.
Wednesday we took Charley (the dog we are looking after) to Greenbury point with lots of foraging opportunities. I gathered mile-a-minute which is a creeper that had almost symmetrical triangular leaves and amazing barbs on the stalks but had a lemony almost sorrel type flavour. I also got some red clover for my salad and some young Greater Plantain. Finally as a bit of an experiment I got some foxtail which is a grass with this funnily enough foxtail like seed thing at the top (really should read my botany book it would make me sound so much more knowledgeable). Anyway the idea is you grind the seeds and can mix them with flour to add a nutty flavour.
I mixed the mile a minute with onions and flaked pickerel ( which is a labour of love bearing in mind how many small annoying bones they have ) and that was lovely, and then had the clover in with my salad. The foxtail seeds are drying in a bowl on the window and I will attempt to do something with them today.
Finally we get to Thursday and it was time for more seafood. We drove toSalisbury to see a friend of mine who has lived out here for about 11 years. Charley came with us for the trip and we sat outside in 85 degrees and had lunch! I had clams which I was bit dubious about but actually covered in a bucket of butter and several buckets of garlic tasted lovely. I would quite like to try clam chowder but Dulcie reckons it's more of an autumnal thing so that may have to be another time.
So we are pretty much up to date now. I will report on the Asiatic dayflower and the foxtail biscuit experiment in due course but will leave you for now and hope to return after surviving hurricane Irene which is making it's way up the east coast of the US!
Saturday, 20 August 2011
Oyster shooters and catching fish
Ok before I forget I left out Sundays wild food and had skipped to the excitement of mint juleps while forgetting that on Sunday found wood sorrel but not the same species as we get at home but a yellow wood sorrel which grows in the same habitat but rather than just being individual stems it grows in a branched manner so you get several leaflets on any one plant. Still the same taste so I had this on top of my salad.
So Monday was mint juleps which were great and Tuesday was the first wild protein day. Admittedly it wasn't very hard in terms of having to use my foraging cunning but crabs are wild food and being in Maryland it would be impossible not to eat them. On our first trip into Annapolis on Sunday we had seen a big queue outside this deli on the high street. It looked quite cheap but there were just loads of people waiting outside for a seat so we decided on Tuesday we would investigate and it's here we had 'the best crab cakes anywhere - better than the best' in Chick and Ruth's Delly (their spelling not mine!). They were good i have to say but then haven't eaten many to compare them to. Easy foraging and some no doubt would suggest a cop out but then I do intend to catch my own at some point while i am here. We went out sailing on Tuesday evening which was fabulous and a great way to spend an evening. We were talking about fishing and asking what people use for bait and basically it sounds like anything will go.
So on Wednesday I decided it was time to try out all the fishing gear that is lying around here. I took two rods down to the little jetty at the bottom of the garden along with some left over fried chicken bits and loaded up one of the rods that had a very interesting rig on it with two arms that stuck out at right angles and various beads and stuff on it ( you can tell I get very technical when it comes to fishing). Anyway several casts of that didn't bring very much so I had a go with the simpler looking rig on the other rod. Unfortunately got that stuck on the bottom and it came off so that was the end of that. Luckily a small boat came past with a couple in it who were having considerable success and I managed to ask what they were catching, whether it was edible and what rig and bait they were using. They were just using lures and not bait and we're generally catching White perch which according to them were some of the best eating out of the bay ( Chesapeake Bay that is). I tried another type of rig but had no luck and we decided we needed to go out but thought would also try a trick I was shown on the course I did with hunter gather cook Nick Weston when he showed me about night lines. On the course we made a simple rod from a straight bit of hazel and tied a line and hook on. After throwing out some bait we tied a worm on, cast it into the lake and sunk the pole into the bank and left it. We came back and found a large carp attached to it so thought would try that here. Hazel is not in abundance here but luckily bamboo is, so I found a suitable piece and set up the line over the water and off we went to The Internet cafe for a few hours.
We got back from the cafe and I needed to find something for my days wild food. The one thing I have found about the states is it's difficult to find areas that aren't someone's property. There aren't often pavements so the edge of land where some weeds may be found are often the edge of someone's garden so a tad difficult to forage from. I drove round for about half an hour looking for somewhere to stop and have a wander round but as I say everywhere seems to belong to someone so poking around in the weedy bits looks a bit odd. Also foraging at 35 mph when you are in an unfamiliar car on the wrong side of the road can also be a challenge so I went home empty handed and a little grumpy as it was also very hot and sticky.
I checked the nightline when i got back but the bait had gone, I think because i had let it sit on the bottom I am sure crabs were eating it so no joy there as yet. I was getting a little desperate by this time as we were now off out for the evening to listen to some Appalachian music and then to meet a friend of Dulcie's. We did stop at a car park on the way into Annapolis that I had spotted the day before and it looked like a car park for a wooded walk area. We pulled in and looked at the map. You had to walk down the busy road and round the corner before you reached the trail but we thought oh it can't be far if the car park is just here but no we were wrong. After about 10 minutes walking and no sign of any trail we abandoned the idea and went back to the car. I did find what I thought was a member of the goosefoot family so picked some but thought I had better check at home first.
I didn't think there was going to be any further opportunity for my wild food for the day and had just accepted that it was more difficult over here and that i may have to have the odd day when I just didn't find anything. However we met with this friend of Dulcie's and off we went to a bar in Annapolis for some beers. The people sitting next to me ordered what I later found out were oyster shooters! Who knew you could even get such a thing. Basically it's an oyster in a small shot glass with cocktail sauce, you then get another small shot glass full of beer which you down after the oyster. Well I have never eaten oysters and have always been a little worried about my gag reflex coming into play in a public place so I have to say i was a little dubious about the whole idea but it was a wild food and I hadn't had it before so decided to go for it. The question was though to chew or not to chew. Well due to the concern about gagging and the fact I was in the middle of a bar I thought the safest thing was just to swallow so I did. I can't honestly say I know what oysters taste like apart from the briny flavour in the middle of the cocktail sauce but hey that was my wild food for Wednesday.
Thursday i was up early - the morning was glorious and went and sat on the jetty as it's in the shade until about 10 am so just perfect for a bit of quiet contemplation. I thought I should rethink my night line and also the rig on the rod and got myself a smaller hook for the bamboo pole and a lure for the rod. I set up the bamboo pole so that the line was dangling rather than sitting on the bottom and loaded it with some turkey we found in the fridge. Almost immediately you could see things were biting and as it wasn't on the river bed I assumed it must be fish. I put the lure on the other rod and started casting out to see what was out there. Fairly soon after that the bamboo pole had a taker and after some scrabbling for the net Dulcie and I managed to land a small fish of unknown type. We thought it may be a perch but then looking at the book it looked more like a small striped bass which have a minimum landing size. After all this and the fact that I was struggling to get the hook out I decided it was probably kinder to dispatch it so a swift clink on the head sorted that out. Not long after I also had a taker on the rod and reeled myself in a decent sized white perch so gutted and descaled both and was quite happy with my fishing for the day. That covered two days of wild food so we a bang up to date now and on schedule.
The other thing that I am hoping will increase my likelihood of success is an app I found while playing in the apple shop the other day and looking for some info on another plant that may appear in this blog quite soon. A guy called Steve Brill has written many books on the whole wild food topic and has developed this great app so I have the lite version at present but think I will invest in the more weighty version today as I think it is only right to have the full fat version while i am here!
So Monday was mint juleps which were great and Tuesday was the first wild protein day. Admittedly it wasn't very hard in terms of having to use my foraging cunning but crabs are wild food and being in Maryland it would be impossible not to eat them. On our first trip into Annapolis on Sunday we had seen a big queue outside this deli on the high street. It looked quite cheap but there were just loads of people waiting outside for a seat so we decided on Tuesday we would investigate and it's here we had 'the best crab cakes anywhere - better than the best' in Chick and Ruth's Delly (their spelling not mine!). They were good i have to say but then haven't eaten many to compare them to. Easy foraging and some no doubt would suggest a cop out but then I do intend to catch my own at some point while i am here. We went out sailing on Tuesday evening which was fabulous and a great way to spend an evening. We were talking about fishing and asking what people use for bait and basically it sounds like anything will go.
So on Wednesday I decided it was time to try out all the fishing gear that is lying around here. I took two rods down to the little jetty at the bottom of the garden along with some left over fried chicken bits and loaded up one of the rods that had a very interesting rig on it with two arms that stuck out at right angles and various beads and stuff on it ( you can tell I get very technical when it comes to fishing). Anyway several casts of that didn't bring very much so I had a go with the simpler looking rig on the other rod. Unfortunately got that stuck on the bottom and it came off so that was the end of that. Luckily a small boat came past with a couple in it who were having considerable success and I managed to ask what they were catching, whether it was edible and what rig and bait they were using. They were just using lures and not bait and we're generally catching White perch which according to them were some of the best eating out of the bay ( Chesapeake Bay that is). I tried another type of rig but had no luck and we decided we needed to go out but thought would also try a trick I was shown on the course I did with hunter gather cook Nick Weston when he showed me about night lines. On the course we made a simple rod from a straight bit of hazel and tied a line and hook on. After throwing out some bait we tied a worm on, cast it into the lake and sunk the pole into the bank and left it. We came back and found a large carp attached to it so thought would try that here. Hazel is not in abundance here but luckily bamboo is, so I found a suitable piece and set up the line over the water and off we went to The Internet cafe for a few hours.
We got back from the cafe and I needed to find something for my days wild food. The one thing I have found about the states is it's difficult to find areas that aren't someone's property. There aren't often pavements so the edge of land where some weeds may be found are often the edge of someone's garden so a tad difficult to forage from. I drove round for about half an hour looking for somewhere to stop and have a wander round but as I say everywhere seems to belong to someone so poking around in the weedy bits looks a bit odd. Also foraging at 35 mph when you are in an unfamiliar car on the wrong side of the road can also be a challenge so I went home empty handed and a little grumpy as it was also very hot and sticky.
I checked the nightline when i got back but the bait had gone, I think because i had let it sit on the bottom I am sure crabs were eating it so no joy there as yet. I was getting a little desperate by this time as we were now off out for the evening to listen to some Appalachian music and then to meet a friend of Dulcie's. We did stop at a car park on the way into Annapolis that I had spotted the day before and it looked like a car park for a wooded walk area. We pulled in and looked at the map. You had to walk down the busy road and round the corner before you reached the trail but we thought oh it can't be far if the car park is just here but no we were wrong. After about 10 minutes walking and no sign of any trail we abandoned the idea and went back to the car. I did find what I thought was a member of the goosefoot family so picked some but thought I had better check at home first.
I didn't think there was going to be any further opportunity for my wild food for the day and had just accepted that it was more difficult over here and that i may have to have the odd day when I just didn't find anything. However we met with this friend of Dulcie's and off we went to a bar in Annapolis for some beers. The people sitting next to me ordered what I later found out were oyster shooters! Who knew you could even get such a thing. Basically it's an oyster in a small shot glass with cocktail sauce, you then get another small shot glass full of beer which you down after the oyster. Well I have never eaten oysters and have always been a little worried about my gag reflex coming into play in a public place so I have to say i was a little dubious about the whole idea but it was a wild food and I hadn't had it before so decided to go for it. The question was though to chew or not to chew. Well due to the concern about gagging and the fact I was in the middle of a bar I thought the safest thing was just to swallow so I did. I can't honestly say I know what oysters taste like apart from the briny flavour in the middle of the cocktail sauce but hey that was my wild food for Wednesday.
Thursday i was up early - the morning was glorious and went and sat on the jetty as it's in the shade until about 10 am so just perfect for a bit of quiet contemplation. I thought I should rethink my night line and also the rig on the rod and got myself a smaller hook for the bamboo pole and a lure for the rod. I set up the bamboo pole so that the line was dangling rather than sitting on the bottom and loaded it with some turkey we found in the fridge. Almost immediately you could see things were biting and as it wasn't on the river bed I assumed it must be fish. I put the lure on the other rod and started casting out to see what was out there. Fairly soon after that the bamboo pole had a taker and after some scrabbling for the net Dulcie and I managed to land a small fish of unknown type. We thought it may be a perch but then looking at the book it looked more like a small striped bass which have a minimum landing size. After all this and the fact that I was struggling to get the hook out I decided it was probably kinder to dispatch it so a swift clink on the head sorted that out. Not long after I also had a taker on the rod and reeled myself in a decent sized white perch so gutted and descaled both and was quite happy with my fishing for the day. That covered two days of wild food so we a bang up to date now and on schedule.
The other thing that I am hoping will increase my likelihood of success is an app I found while playing in the apple shop the other day and looking for some info on another plant that may appear in this blog quite soon. A guy called Steve Brill has written many books on the whole wild food topic and has developed this great app so I have the lite version at present but think I will invest in the more weighty version today as I think it is only right to have the full fat version while i am here!
Tuesday, 16 August 2011
Pine needle tea and mint juleps
Pine needle tea and Mint Julep
Ok so as i was saying Friday was a travelling day and I had thoughts of getting to our woodland hideout and finding something to consume before we went to bed. However by the time we got here my body knew it was really 3 am so defeated I went to bed.
Saturday we got up and decided to go to a farmers Market that was on up the road to load up with local provisions. It was great so much fresh and lovely produce under one roof and not in a supermarket. We got okra, aubergine, massive tomatoes and white corn. Then there was a trip into Whole Foods Market to get nearly everything else except the alcohol. They are not allowed to sell alcohol in supermarkets in this state which I think is a great idea.
So on our return I asked Dulcie to drop me half way down the long drive so I could see what was about. We are in the middle of a pine forest which borders a creek so lots of open space. However not much obvious foraging as I don't seem to recognise many of the plants. I am aware I need to keep an eye out for poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac but of course there are so many other unrecognisable plants as well. Well I decided to go a little off track to see what I could see and followed the waters edge round to end up back at the house. Nothing was leaping out - I saw some small bushes that I thought may have had some berries on them at some point possibly blue berries but there was definitely nothing edible there now. I was also hoping that with all these pine trees perhaps a cauliflower fungus might show up. Anyway nothing was showing up so I was nearly back to the house when I felt a sharp needling pain on my ankle so as I scrabbled back under the fence I rubbed at my ankle and rushed in and then felt another sharp pain. Once in the house I went into the bedroom where Dulcie was to tell her of my adventures when she brushed something off my arm, I looked down and saw something else on my tshirt and frantically ended up waving my arms about and before we knew it there were several wasps flying around our heads so 5 minutes of rushing around waving rolled up newspapers ensued before we were satisfied that we had killed them all.
Not the best start to my foraging experiences in the US but there you go. I ended the day with pine needle tea which is delicate and I am sure I have read somewhere that it is high in vitamin c so that was my first foraged food of the US leg.
Yesterday we went to Annapolis as there was another farmers Market on where they were selling bison and I was keen to try this. We now have some new York style steaks and some burgers so will let you know what they are like.
On the way back from Annapolis I was as ever on the look out for somewhere to collect something. Disturbed ground is often a good start so an uncared for lot of land that looked like one day a house may be built on it looked good to me. After a swift turn into the next street we parked up. Dulcie is more concerned about the law of foraging than I am so came as look out while I potentially stole some weeds. The sky was quite dark and a storm was once again brewing but luckily the rain held off. I wandered all the way to the back of the lot and saw something that resembled fat hen or wild spinach as they call it over here but I wasn't convinced so carried on and then it jumped out, the lovely little lilac flowers of mint. It was a really strong scented variety as well. So rather than do the usual and think of putting the kettle on my mixologist partner immediately suggested a mint julep so that was my wild food of the day yesterday a slug or two of bourbon mixed with muddled sugar and mint and stacks of ice. Never let it be said that my wild food uses are boring!
Ok so as i was saying Friday was a travelling day and I had thoughts of getting to our woodland hideout and finding something to consume before we went to bed. However by the time we got here my body knew it was really 3 am so defeated I went to bed.
Saturday we got up and decided to go to a farmers Market that was on up the road to load up with local provisions. It was great so much fresh and lovely produce under one roof and not in a supermarket. We got okra, aubergine, massive tomatoes and white corn. Then there was a trip into Whole Foods Market to get nearly everything else except the alcohol. They are not allowed to sell alcohol in supermarkets in this state which I think is a great idea.
So on our return I asked Dulcie to drop me half way down the long drive so I could see what was about. We are in the middle of a pine forest which borders a creek so lots of open space. However not much obvious foraging as I don't seem to recognise many of the plants. I am aware I need to keep an eye out for poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac but of course there are so many other unrecognisable plants as well. Well I decided to go a little off track to see what I could see and followed the waters edge round to end up back at the house. Nothing was leaping out - I saw some small bushes that I thought may have had some berries on them at some point possibly blue berries but there was definitely nothing edible there now. I was also hoping that with all these pine trees perhaps a cauliflower fungus might show up. Anyway nothing was showing up so I was nearly back to the house when I felt a sharp needling pain on my ankle so as I scrabbled back under the fence I rubbed at my ankle and rushed in and then felt another sharp pain. Once in the house I went into the bedroom where Dulcie was to tell her of my adventures when she brushed something off my arm, I looked down and saw something else on my tshirt and frantically ended up waving my arms about and before we knew it there were several wasps flying around our heads so 5 minutes of rushing around waving rolled up newspapers ensued before we were satisfied that we had killed them all.
Not the best start to my foraging experiences in the US but there you go. I ended the day with pine needle tea which is delicate and I am sure I have read somewhere that it is high in vitamin c so that was my first foraged food of the US leg.
Yesterday we went to Annapolis as there was another farmers Market on where they were selling bison and I was keen to try this. We now have some new York style steaks and some burgers so will let you know what they are like.
On the way back from Annapolis I was as ever on the look out for somewhere to collect something. Disturbed ground is often a good start so an uncared for lot of land that looked like one day a house may be built on it looked good to me. After a swift turn into the next street we parked up. Dulcie is more concerned about the law of foraging than I am so came as look out while I potentially stole some weeds. The sky was quite dark and a storm was once again brewing but luckily the rain held off. I wandered all the way to the back of the lot and saw something that resembled fat hen or wild spinach as they call it over here but I wasn't convinced so carried on and then it jumped out, the lovely little lilac flowers of mint. It was a really strong scented variety as well. So rather than do the usual and think of putting the kettle on my mixologist partner immediately suggested a mint julep so that was my wild food of the day yesterday a slug or two of bourbon mixed with muddled sugar and mint and stacks of ice. Never let it be said that my wild food uses are boring!
Sunday, 14 August 2011
A few days catch up before the US leg starts!
Got behind again, days 6-11
Ok so I am now sitting at terminal 5 in Heathrow waiting for the bag drop to open. Have dropped Finny off at his Shoreham holiday home with the McAulays and Agnes Bassett has just been left charging about with a young boxer with Toni near Reading. I think perhaps she will have an exhausting time playing non-stop so that is good. I am not sure Dulcie is feeling so happy about the situation not having gotten used to leaving her dogs. However having had years of convincing owners that there dogs would survive without them and watched them happily trot through to the hospital ward for the day I am under no illusion that we will miss her more than she misses us.
So what have we been up to, well I guess if you read the beer blog you will know that we finished in the New Forest on Friday and head for Dartmoor. My last wild food was an unsuccessful Jack in the Hedge so I was hoping for better things on Saturday. Having arrived at our friends house in daylight. Had a quick tour of the garden and I soon spotted Saturdays food - burdock was happily growing in Barry's garden so I thought as I have the landowners permission to dig it up this would be Saturdays food. The first one I dug up was quite small but as there were several I dug up three. Being in a bit of a rush I cleaned them of a fashion and shoved them in the oven to roast. The japanese cultivate a lot of burdock and eat it generally finely chopped and cooked in teriyaki sauce and in fact I have eaten it that way and thought it was lovely. However clearly I hadn't taken enough care of my preparation or in fact my research I think as when I got them out of the oven they resembled dried twigs and although the flavour was ok they were very woody and of very little substance. I had seen one of the Ray Mears wild food episodes recently where he cooked burdock root in an underground over with a couple of legs of venison and they looked really good. However I feel it was possibly the wrong time of year - I think I need to get them in the autumn when the foliage has died down or in the spring just before they sprout in order to get most of the goodness in the root and not in the plant itself. So another less than great day but then also good to try and learn about these things first hand. I always believe you are much more likely to remember what to do when you have yourself learnt what not to do.
On to Sunday, the weather was looking decidedly busy and went from hot sunshine to grey looming cloud. We set out for a walk up to Kestor with Agnes, Finny and Reuben under a cloudy but blue and sunny sky. We reached Kestor quite quickly and saw the volcanic bowl that the Tor is known for and from which Finny and Agnes had a drink. The weather had been slowly changing and now it began to pour and pour like it does when you forget your waterproof pants or have not got water proof shoes on. Obviously I am on the look out the whole time for some free food but the weather made that a little more difficult. I handed Finny over to Liz and disappeared over a stone wall to wander around under some beech trees in the hope of finding some exciting fungi but alas nothing popped up apart from a couple of chewed brittle gills so I returned to the pack where we walked down this fabulous path that felt like it had been there forever. I love these old droves and can almost feel the hundreds of past lives that have wandered down them in haste, in busyness and in aimless wandering. I am still at present having to keep half an eye on the young hound as I had let her off the lead. She is quite good but I am still not confident on switching off to her completely and focusing fully on the hunt for food so although there were things cropping up to pick I was still mindful of saving things for the Scillies and on the look out for something different and currently more seasonal.
Not too far along my patience was rewarded and as I had heard speak of today's food I was glad I waited. In the pouring rain there they all stood - easily missed by the speedy walker - wild raspberries many canes of them so I gorged on as many as I could collect in a time frame that was acceptable to my soggy non- forager companions. A great delight to find and a whole load better than burnt to buggery burdock root I can tell you!!!
We returned to Brighton late on Sunday evening and the next few days we had to get the house ready for our guests and wash and pack for the states. I spent much of Monday morning sorting out the garden and then after a trip to the dump and a coffee and cake in Hudson and Bridges ( they do very good hot chocolate ) it was back to the packing. I did take the dogs out today but my wild food had already been organized by Dulcie's attempt to get us to eat the contents of the freezer before we left. I had sorrel soup which I had made for the first ever wild food course I ran back in May. The sorrel was common sorrel and collected from a field on the way to Ditchling Beacon that I know. The place is full of the stuff but then so is most of Devon it seems as I saw a lot of it while out walking on Sunday. I have to say it wasn't my best sorrel soup but then you can't always make fabulous soup, sometimes it has to be mediocre to make the other stuff stand out!
Tuesday I was in Suffolk having driven up Monday night. I took my mothers carer out for a walk with me on my circular walk that I like to do from my Mothers house. The woods are lovely and i have found many things in there before but again nothing was leaping out. Anyway we then also ended up wandering into town and it was there in a hedge on the edge of town that I saw Tuesday's food. Hops!! I was a little dubious as again they are better eaten earlier on but then I had read in the Tree House Diaries that Nick Weston ate a lot of them throughout the season so i picked the young looking tops and took a good handful home. I am not sure what my Mothers carer thought of my free food but i steamed them when I got back to Brighton and had them with butter and pepper along with some pressed tongue that I bought in a farmers market in Devon. A very good meal though I say so myself. Since returning to the life of an omnivore I have embraced the nose to tail eating philosophy - if you are going to ask something to give up it's life to feed you at least have the respect to make the most of the whole thing.
Wednesday was more packing and an informal chat with the partners of a vet group in Eastbourne. The pub was lovely and the company very good. Dog walking was a trip to the the racecourse and I thought a tisane may be nice today so picked some chamomile and at the end of the day I mixed it with ground ivy for my last drink of the day. Chamomile is very soothing and a great tea to have before bed. It is best collected when the petals start to face backwards and it can be dried and stored for quite some time.
That brings me toThursday and I have to say a slight disappointment and confirmation that many greens are best eaten in spring. I was once again up on the racecourse this time in the rain with three dogs as Monsieur La Courge (Marrow to his English friends) was with us for doggy day care. Again I wanted something less common and found wild marjoram but also knew of a patch of golden marjoram so thought it would go well in the salad I had planned for lunch. Well it smelled lovely and the flowers were pretty but I have to say the bitterness was not adding to the overall enjoyment of the salad. I will try the other variety when I get home but in the spirit of the challenge I did eat it.
That brings us to Friday and a slight dilemma. I have now progressed onto the plane and am currently somewhere near Greenland many thousands of feet in the air. We land 7.50pm local time but I am reliably informed it will be dark when we get there. Of course I should have factored this in to the short morning walk we had with Paggles this morning but alas I did not grab any of the hundreds of blackberries I could have scoffed as I have been saving those for Scilly. Anyway we shall see and I will report accordingly and hopefully on a slightly more regular basis.
Finally my physical challenge is not doing well. I exercised with Dulcie and Barry on Sunday and the punishing regime ensured I did many press ups but I have been inexcusably crap at following the programme so will rectify this tomorrow and get my act together.
Ok so I am now sitting at terminal 5 in Heathrow waiting for the bag drop to open. Have dropped Finny off at his Shoreham holiday home with the McAulays and Agnes Bassett has just been left charging about with a young boxer with Toni near Reading. I think perhaps she will have an exhausting time playing non-stop so that is good. I am not sure Dulcie is feeling so happy about the situation not having gotten used to leaving her dogs. However having had years of convincing owners that there dogs would survive without them and watched them happily trot through to the hospital ward for the day I am under no illusion that we will miss her more than she misses us.
So what have we been up to, well I guess if you read the beer blog you will know that we finished in the New Forest on Friday and head for Dartmoor. My last wild food was an unsuccessful Jack in the Hedge so I was hoping for better things on Saturday. Having arrived at our friends house in daylight. Had a quick tour of the garden and I soon spotted Saturdays food - burdock was happily growing in Barry's garden so I thought as I have the landowners permission to dig it up this would be Saturdays food. The first one I dug up was quite small but as there were several I dug up three. Being in a bit of a rush I cleaned them of a fashion and shoved them in the oven to roast. The japanese cultivate a lot of burdock and eat it generally finely chopped and cooked in teriyaki sauce and in fact I have eaten it that way and thought it was lovely. However clearly I hadn't taken enough care of my preparation or in fact my research I think as when I got them out of the oven they resembled dried twigs and although the flavour was ok they were very woody and of very little substance. I had seen one of the Ray Mears wild food episodes recently where he cooked burdock root in an underground over with a couple of legs of venison and they looked really good. However I feel it was possibly the wrong time of year - I think I need to get them in the autumn when the foliage has died down or in the spring just before they sprout in order to get most of the goodness in the root and not in the plant itself. So another less than great day but then also good to try and learn about these things first hand. I always believe you are much more likely to remember what to do when you have yourself learnt what not to do.
On to Sunday, the weather was looking decidedly busy and went from hot sunshine to grey looming cloud. We set out for a walk up to Kestor with Agnes, Finny and Reuben under a cloudy but blue and sunny sky. We reached Kestor quite quickly and saw the volcanic bowl that the Tor is known for and from which Finny and Agnes had a drink. The weather had been slowly changing and now it began to pour and pour like it does when you forget your waterproof pants or have not got water proof shoes on. Obviously I am on the look out the whole time for some free food but the weather made that a little more difficult. I handed Finny over to Liz and disappeared over a stone wall to wander around under some beech trees in the hope of finding some exciting fungi but alas nothing popped up apart from a couple of chewed brittle gills so I returned to the pack where we walked down this fabulous path that felt like it had been there forever. I love these old droves and can almost feel the hundreds of past lives that have wandered down them in haste, in busyness and in aimless wandering. I am still at present having to keep half an eye on the young hound as I had let her off the lead. She is quite good but I am still not confident on switching off to her completely and focusing fully on the hunt for food so although there were things cropping up to pick I was still mindful of saving things for the Scillies and on the look out for something different and currently more seasonal.
Not too far along my patience was rewarded and as I had heard speak of today's food I was glad I waited. In the pouring rain there they all stood - easily missed by the speedy walker - wild raspberries many canes of them so I gorged on as many as I could collect in a time frame that was acceptable to my soggy non- forager companions. A great delight to find and a whole load better than burnt to buggery burdock root I can tell you!!!
We returned to Brighton late on Sunday evening and the next few days we had to get the house ready for our guests and wash and pack for the states. I spent much of Monday morning sorting out the garden and then after a trip to the dump and a coffee and cake in Hudson and Bridges ( they do very good hot chocolate ) it was back to the packing. I did take the dogs out today but my wild food had already been organized by Dulcie's attempt to get us to eat the contents of the freezer before we left. I had sorrel soup which I had made for the first ever wild food course I ran back in May. The sorrel was common sorrel and collected from a field on the way to Ditchling Beacon that I know. The place is full of the stuff but then so is most of Devon it seems as I saw a lot of it while out walking on Sunday. I have to say it wasn't my best sorrel soup but then you can't always make fabulous soup, sometimes it has to be mediocre to make the other stuff stand out!
Tuesday I was in Suffolk having driven up Monday night. I took my mothers carer out for a walk with me on my circular walk that I like to do from my Mothers house. The woods are lovely and i have found many things in there before but again nothing was leaping out. Anyway we then also ended up wandering into town and it was there in a hedge on the edge of town that I saw Tuesday's food. Hops!! I was a little dubious as again they are better eaten earlier on but then I had read in the Tree House Diaries that Nick Weston ate a lot of them throughout the season so i picked the young looking tops and took a good handful home. I am not sure what my Mothers carer thought of my free food but i steamed them when I got back to Brighton and had them with butter and pepper along with some pressed tongue that I bought in a farmers market in Devon. A very good meal though I say so myself. Since returning to the life of an omnivore I have embraced the nose to tail eating philosophy - if you are going to ask something to give up it's life to feed you at least have the respect to make the most of the whole thing.
Wednesday was more packing and an informal chat with the partners of a vet group in Eastbourne. The pub was lovely and the company very good. Dog walking was a trip to the the racecourse and I thought a tisane may be nice today so picked some chamomile and at the end of the day I mixed it with ground ivy for my last drink of the day. Chamomile is very soothing and a great tea to have before bed. It is best collected when the petals start to face backwards and it can be dried and stored for quite some time.
That brings me toThursday and I have to say a slight disappointment and confirmation that many greens are best eaten in spring. I was once again up on the racecourse this time in the rain with three dogs as Monsieur La Courge (Marrow to his English friends) was with us for doggy day care. Again I wanted something less common and found wild marjoram but also knew of a patch of golden marjoram so thought it would go well in the salad I had planned for lunch. Well it smelled lovely and the flowers were pretty but I have to say the bitterness was not adding to the overall enjoyment of the salad. I will try the other variety when I get home but in the spirit of the challenge I did eat it.
That brings us to Friday and a slight dilemma. I have now progressed onto the plane and am currently somewhere near Greenland many thousands of feet in the air. We land 7.50pm local time but I am reliably informed it will be dark when we get there. Of course I should have factored this in to the short morning walk we had with Paggles this morning but alas I did not grab any of the hundreds of blackberries I could have scoffed as I have been saving those for Scilly. Anyway we shall see and I will report accordingly and hopefully on a slightly more regular basis.
Finally my physical challenge is not doing well. I exercised with Dulcie and Barry on Sunday and the punishing regime ensured I did many press ups but I have been inexcusably crap at following the programme so will rectify this tomorrow and get my act together.
Saturday, 6 August 2011
Three days catch up
Days 3,4 &5
Well got a bit behind with the blogging limited time around wifi and general lack of organisation on my part!
Beginning to realise this is definitely going to be a challenge especially as we get to America and also while we are in the Scilly's so I am trying to keep some more obvious and easy to find stuff for then.
So while in the new forest thought i would do some mushrooming. I certainly found some interesting specimens. On wednesday it was incredibly hot so after a short trip to a very crowded beach we headed back to the coolness of Ringwood forest so the dogs could have a charge about. It was there I found my first mushroom which I thought was going to be the choice of the day. It was a brown birch bolete and although edible it is not the greatest of edible mushrooms. However the day was speeding along and nothing other than the obvious apples and blackberries were appearing. Anyway we went on another walk over the forest to the pub and this is where I found Wednesday's wild food. To my delight I found sheepskin sorrel a plant I had never found before but very distinctive due to the "ears" at the bottom of the leaf. Not as potent in the lemony, sharpness stakes as common sorrel but lovely never the less. Funnily enough we have just arrived on Dartmoor and I have found a massive patch in a friends garden - odd how you never see a plant then once you find it you seem to find it everywhere.
So Thursday was a challenge in that we were still camping and having been so incredibly hot the day before we were somewhat surprised to be kept awake half the night by torrential rain which just kept on to eventually take up the whole morning. We barely left the tent except for the obvious so never actually made it out until 3pm - the joys of not working! Anyway we were on our way back to town when I decided to stop by a river just to see what I could find and thinking that I would need to resort to nettles, suddenly there they were - a small patch of red currants over hanging the river. So of course I clung precariously to the edge and picked them all to eat for tea. They were lovely and i was very pleased with my find - two days and two foods I wasn't expecting to find.
Yesterday was a travelling day from the New Forest to Dartmoor via Exeter to see a school friend I hadn't seed for over two years. Anyway that meant not much foraging time so it was on the drive from Exeter to Frenchbeer in the middle of Dartmoor that I found todays food. I was trying to navigate via the small map on my iPhone, listen to music, avoid hitting another vehicle or drive into the hedge while foraging so not too busy then. Anyway I rounded a bend and was looking at the hedge and thought I saw a familiar leaf shape. The foragers emergency stop and a handy passing place meant could check if my eyes were deceiving me but they weren't. It was Jack in the Hedge or Garlic Mustard but it looked in it's early stages rather than the blown seed burdened plant that is normal for this time of year. I wasn't sure whether there had been some hedge cutting going on and this was new growth. Disappointingly it was not great, the garlic smell was there but as one would expect of a plant that is best eaten in spring it was by now rather bitter so I ate it but it wasn't one of my better finds.
That is the problem I am finding in that all the spring greens are past there best and many of the summer fruits are not out yet hence the challenge that I referred to earlier. I think Dulcie's is much easier personally!!
Well got a bit behind with the blogging limited time around wifi and general lack of organisation on my part!
Beginning to realise this is definitely going to be a challenge especially as we get to America and also while we are in the Scilly's so I am trying to keep some more obvious and easy to find stuff for then.
So while in the new forest thought i would do some mushrooming. I certainly found some interesting specimens. On wednesday it was incredibly hot so after a short trip to a very crowded beach we headed back to the coolness of Ringwood forest so the dogs could have a charge about. It was there I found my first mushroom which I thought was going to be the choice of the day. It was a brown birch bolete and although edible it is not the greatest of edible mushrooms. However the day was speeding along and nothing other than the obvious apples and blackberries were appearing. Anyway we went on another walk over the forest to the pub and this is where I found Wednesday's wild food. To my delight I found sheepskin sorrel a plant I had never found before but very distinctive due to the "ears" at the bottom of the leaf. Not as potent in the lemony, sharpness stakes as common sorrel but lovely never the less. Funnily enough we have just arrived on Dartmoor and I have found a massive patch in a friends garden - odd how you never see a plant then once you find it you seem to find it everywhere.
So Thursday was a challenge in that we were still camping and having been so incredibly hot the day before we were somewhat surprised to be kept awake half the night by torrential rain which just kept on to eventually take up the whole morning. We barely left the tent except for the obvious so never actually made it out until 3pm - the joys of not working! Anyway we were on our way back to town when I decided to stop by a river just to see what I could find and thinking that I would need to resort to nettles, suddenly there they were - a small patch of red currants over hanging the river. So of course I clung precariously to the edge and picked them all to eat for tea. They were lovely and i was very pleased with my find - two days and two foods I wasn't expecting to find.
Yesterday was a travelling day from the New Forest to Dartmoor via Exeter to see a school friend I hadn't seed for over two years. Anyway that meant not much foraging time so it was on the drive from Exeter to Frenchbeer in the middle of Dartmoor that I found todays food. I was trying to navigate via the small map on my iPhone, listen to music, avoid hitting another vehicle or drive into the hedge while foraging so not too busy then. Anyway I rounded a bend and was looking at the hedge and thought I saw a familiar leaf shape. The foragers emergency stop and a handy passing place meant could check if my eyes were deceiving me but they weren't. It was Jack in the Hedge or Garlic Mustard but it looked in it's early stages rather than the blown seed burdened plant that is normal for this time of year. I wasn't sure whether there had been some hedge cutting going on and this was new growth. Disappointingly it was not great, the garlic smell was there but as one would expect of a plant that is best eaten in spring it was by now rather bitter so I ate it but it wasn't one of my better finds.
That is the problem I am finding in that all the spring greens are past there best and many of the summer fruits are not out yet hence the challenge that I referred to earlier. I think Dulcie's is much easier personally!!
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Day 2 - meadowsweet beer
Day 2
Well today I had to use my get out of jail card free as I have realised that leaving my foraging until 7.30pm will not be a good plan with which to go forward.
Today's plant was meadowsweet. A plant formerly used to sweeten mead which is where it's name comes from - rather than anything to do with meadows. It does like to grow in meadows though and prefers damp edges near water. I found the batch I used on the roadside on the edge of a ditch.
It flowers after elder in July so having found a recipe in the The Tree House Diaries by Nick Weston I thought I would have a shot at this brew having been successful this year with the very easy to make elderflower champagne. I have to say it's a great drink. Not entirely sure how high the alcohol content was and it is on my list to buy a hydrometer so I can start working all this out, but fizzy and cold it went down very easily.
Currently being in the New Forest I am aware of the mushroom possibilities and am constantly gazing up at oak trees in the hope of discovering some chicken of the woods but we will have to wait and see tomorrow is another day and another wild food so we will see what appears.
Well today I had to use my get out of jail card free as I have realised that leaving my foraging until 7.30pm will not be a good plan with which to go forward.
Today's plant was meadowsweet. A plant formerly used to sweeten mead which is where it's name comes from - rather than anything to do with meadows. It does like to grow in meadows though and prefers damp edges near water. I found the batch I used on the roadside on the edge of a ditch.
It flowers after elder in July so having found a recipe in the The Tree House Diaries by Nick Weston I thought I would have a shot at this brew having been successful this year with the very easy to make elderflower champagne. I have to say it's a great drink. Not entirely sure how high the alcohol content was and it is on my list to buy a hydrometer so I can start working all this out, but fizzy and cold it went down very easily.
Currently being in the New Forest I am aware of the mushroom possibilities and am constantly gazing up at oak trees in the hope of discovering some chicken of the woods but we will have to wait and see tomorrow is another day and another wild food so we will see what appears.
Monday, 1 August 2011
Day 1
Ok so finally we get back from the festival and the challenge starts in earnest.
However before I tell you what today's wild food isI must just mention about something amazing that happened over the weekend - not to me but my dog.
Anyone who knows anything about terriers will know they are tenacious by nature and are not generally to be trusted around chickens. Well when I am a more experienced blogger I will post a couple of pictures but to get to the point my terrier has been trained to leave chickens alone and can now be left to mingle freely with them and not do them any harm. So how was this achieved. Well after hearing this story form a friend I told my mate Gav who took custody of the aforementioned terrier Finley, last Wednesday. Finley then found himself subjected to having a chicken placed on his head each day ( picture to follow when I work out how to do it) and then on Sunday I receive a photo of Finley in his bed with a chicken sitting beside him - no restraint of the dog and no stress or panic on his face just acceptance that there happens to be a chicken in his bed!! How amazing, and then I get reports that he has been left to wander round with them in the garden unsupervised so there you have it Gav is now the chicken whisperer as far as I am concerned!!
Ok slight digression - today I have had ground ivy tea. This small plant that is actually a member of the mint family and not related to ivy is also called ales hoof as it was
Used in place of hops for brewing. It was also sold on the streets of London as a form of tea Called gill tea ( not be able to establish whether that's gill as in the things fish breathe with or the girls name) Anyway it is one of the nicest herbals teas if you ask me and goes very well mixed with nettle or mint. Once
You find some you will usually find a lot but it can look very different if you find it in the shade as opposed to having been exposed to full sunshine. However
I would encourage you to try it if you never have - dried or fresh. I dry a lot to use over winter and as I say if you find some you can usually find in in profusion.
I also started the journey toward shot putters shoulders and did my 12 press ups with various intervals in between but we will see how that goes. I have no desire to have muscular shoulders but it would be good to actually do a press up without feeling like a dweeb!!
Kathryn
However before I tell you what today's wild food isI must just mention about something amazing that happened over the weekend - not to me but my dog.
Anyone who knows anything about terriers will know they are tenacious by nature and are not generally to be trusted around chickens. Well when I am a more experienced blogger I will post a couple of pictures but to get to the point my terrier has been trained to leave chickens alone and can now be left to mingle freely with them and not do them any harm. So how was this achieved. Well after hearing this story form a friend I told my mate Gav who took custody of the aforementioned terrier Finley, last Wednesday. Finley then found himself subjected to having a chicken placed on his head each day ( picture to follow when I work out how to do it) and then on Sunday I receive a photo of Finley in his bed with a chicken sitting beside him - no restraint of the dog and no stress or panic on his face just acceptance that there happens to be a chicken in his bed!! How amazing, and then I get reports that he has been left to wander round with them in the garden unsupervised so there you have it Gav is now the chicken whisperer as far as I am concerned!!
Ok slight digression - today I have had ground ivy tea. This small plant that is actually a member of the mint family and not related to ivy is also called ales hoof as it was
Used in place of hops for brewing. It was also sold on the streets of London as a form of tea Called gill tea ( not be able to establish whether that's gill as in the things fish breathe with or the girls name) Anyway it is one of the nicest herbals teas if you ask me and goes very well mixed with nettle or mint. Once
You find some you will usually find a lot but it can look very different if you find it in the shade as opposed to having been exposed to full sunshine. However
I would encourage you to try it if you never have - dried or fresh. I dry a lot to use over winter and as I say if you find some you can usually find in in profusion.
I also started the journey toward shot putters shoulders and did my 12 press ups with various intervals in between but we will see how that goes. I have no desire to have muscular shoulders but it would be good to actually do a press up without feeling like a dweeb!!
Kathryn
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