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A weekend of wild food

You are here: Home / Food / A weekend of wild food
wild food weekend

Updated on May 14, 2012 By //  by Amanda Cook 4 Comments

wild food weekend

 “Anyone who spends a little time learning to find and use wild food will soon understand what I mean:

this is not an aspirational lifestyle choice, but a return to an ancient way of life that is part of who we are.”

~Miles Irving

Donning gloves to pick nettles I can do.  But battling through a forest of Japanese Knotweed, and pulling rushes out of a little swampy lake?  I was a little hesitant about what we’d be eating (and wondering if I should have brought an emergency supply of ‘normal’ food!)  But I was with Britian’s foraging expert, so I decided to stop thinking and just enjoy the journey.

A few weeks ago I went on a wild food weekend in Kent (when I stopped off at The Goods Shed.)

What is wild food?  Wild food is food that you forage from the natural environment – eating wild plants that grow around you.  Although you might imagine this resulting in lots of grassy-tasting salads, in reality, you can cook with wild food just like any storebought vegetable – with delicious results.

Why would you want to eat wild food?  Wild food is organic, seasonal and local.  Our ancestors ate a huge variety of plants because they ate what grew around them… in our modern diets, we eat a much smaller range of foods (do you find yourself buying the same produce every week?  Iceberg lettuce, carrots and tomatoes, anyone?)  Eating wild foods introduces a wide range of nutrients into your diet. 

I also love foraging for wild food because it’s a forgotten skill.  Foraging for food is something that humans were designed to do – our ancestors found food all around them instinctively.  But today, we’re never taught how to identify the edible plants around us, or what to do with them.

And so, when I learned about a wild food weekend with the UK’s foraging expert, Miles Irving, I just had to sign up.

Over the past two years, I’ve written a bit about foraging for food and herbs.  I tend to stick to really common, well-known plants so I can feel confident in identification.  I’ve made nettle soup, nettle tea and nettle pesto.  I’ve also made a cleansing cleavers detox infusion and a big batch of bright pink sloe gin.

This weekend, we got a bit more adventerous.

Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica) – Japanese Knotweed is an invasive species here in the UK – there is a whole industry dedicated to destroying this plant!  Miles quipped that if we could just convince everyone to eat it instead, we’d take care of the invasion problem and save money on our grocery bills!

Japanese Knotweed Forest

This weekend we cooked down the knotweed shoots with some sugar (like rhubarb), poured it into pastry shells, and had little knotweed tarts with ice cream for dessert.  Yum.

Japanese Knotweed Shoots

Here’s a little lizard we found along the path.  Much to my relief (and yours…and his!), we did not eat him.A little lizard

Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) – According to Wikipedia, Alexanders was brought North by the Romans to use as food on their travels.  This plant was along every roadside in Kent!  Huge amounts of it.  We steamed it to eat as a vegetable.  Apparently you can also lacto-ferment it (like super veg!) into an Alexander Pickle.

Fresh Picked Alexanders

And of course we picked my very favorite foraged food, nettles.  Here’s a big bag of them waiting to be chopped up.

big bag of nettles

And a picture of a small part of the feast.  There was So Much Food.  Venison, Alexanders, wild salad, beets & ground ivy (which is this big bowl), shredded carrots with nettles and chopped up rushes, a few more things I’m forgetting, and knotweed tart with ice cream for dessert.

And a lovely jug of sloe blossom cordial to wash it down with.  Yum.

Wild Food Feast

Stay tuned for my report on the second day of the wild food weekend, which was all about the seashore.

If you’re interested in foraging, I definitely recommend Miles’ book The Forager Handbook and his company Forager, who supplies wild food to restaurants across the UK.

And finally, if you want to try wild food yourself, remember these four rules for foraging.

So – do you want to try wild food?  I’m sure half of you are out the door, and half of you are thinking …um… what?!  So what are your questions & concerns about foraging wild food? I’ll answer them in a future post.

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Filed Under: Food, Places Tagged With: foraging, wild food

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sherry Duffy

    May 22, 2012 at 10:27 pm

    I love your site. This post has inspired me to begin my own foraging adventures. Right after reading this, I bought a kindle book on foraging by Dr. John Kallas. I quickly learned that he lives in my new neighborhood and offers tons of foraging classes throughout the summer. Thanks for sharing your story. Doing so has opened up doors to a new passion of mine.

    Reply
  2. Brittany

    May 15, 2012 at 5:21 pm

    Thanks! I never knew this existed. He has a walk that is just one town over from me, too. 😮

    By the way, I tried the no-bake brownies and they are amazing. The freezer does something magical to the avocado frosting.

    Reply
  3. Brittany

    May 14, 2012 at 6:19 pm

    I need to find one of these workshops in my area. I would love to try foraging, but there are probably very few good places in the NYC area…

    Reply
    • Amanda

      May 14, 2012 at 9:09 pm

      Hi Brittany … actually if you’re around NYC you’re in luck! There’s one of the most well-known wild food experts there: “wild man” Steve Brill. Check it out. I’m sure he has walks and courses you can get involved with, or at least point you in the right direction! http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/

      Reply

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