Whether you’re a specialist in identifying thousands
of different fungi or just collect blackberries with your Grandma, most of
us love the fact that there is food growing all around us. With a few tips
on how to identify and then prepare wild food we can make use of many
common fruit, nuts, herbs and mushrooms for free all the year round.
Blackberries are the most
plentiful wild fruit in the British Isles. Crab apples are also widely
available this time of year, and make superb jelly. Crab apples can
be added to fruit jellies that need extra pectin in order to set, such as rowan
berries best picked in October, or haws from hawthorn trees and
the ever present elderberries. Jelly-making is the best way to
preserve and use these tart fruits
To make wild fruit jelly:
Add a little water to fruit and boil until mushy.
If necessary add a few crab apples or the juice of one
lemon for every kilo of fruit.
Strain through a muslin or fine sieve over night.
Add 500g of course sugar to every half litre of juice.
Boil vigorously, stirring well.
Test every 5 minutes with a drop on a saucer - the jelly
has reached setting point when the drop forms a skin.
Pour into clean jam jars and screw on lids.
Serve with meat or on buttered toast!
Autumn walks in the chestnut coppice woods of Kent can
be made all the more interesting by collecting the fallen sweet
chestnuts before the squirrels do. Remove the husks and roast in a
holey frying pan (called a castanera in Spain) or in the oven, or
boil and pulp for stuffing with the Sunday roast. Other nuts you might
come across in hedgerows are clusters of hazels or the rarer English
walnut Juglans regia.
Fennel Foeniculum vulgare
growing widely on banks and beaches (NOT hogs fennel on Tankerton slopes!)
is recognised by the aniseed smell as you crush the leaves. The seeds make
the most refreshing tea. Pick them before they go brown, dry them or use
fresh.
1 teaspoon for a cup.
Steep in boiling water for 10 mins.
Other easily recognised plants are nutritious nettles
Urtica diotica for soup, and comfrey Symphitum
officionale for tea.
Look out for a fungus foray in your area this autumn.
Use a good wild flower field guide to help identify
plants. Happy foraging!
Further reading:
Food for Free, Richard Mabey.
Britain’s Wild Harvest, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.
Permaculture magazine has regular articles through the
year. www.permaculture.co.uk
Becky Richards, Canterbury Greenspace Officer &
Fergus the Forager
