Hello, I had a small fire in the garden yesterday. As I decided at pretty short notice I couldn't forage for any food. So I would like to know as Autumn is pretty much upon us what ingredients/foods does nature provide for us and what are the best dishes to incorporate them into. i.e cattail, blackberries, hawthorn, beech leaves, nettles etc etc.
Eating from Natures larder
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skip the hawthorn and beech leaves as they are best in spring when new and not so tough
this time of year ya should be able to find fruit and nuts ( haws are edible and so are beech nuts)
one of my favourites are sweet chestnuts which sadly dont seem to thrive up here
mushrooms and various fungi should be easy to find this year with the warm damp weather
look around places where wild garlic grew in the spring you should find little white garlic bulbs just lying on the ground, (scrape em with a nail and ya will know they are garlic
)
one thing i always find hard to get in the wild are starches and edible roots tho i guess farm / garden crops are all ripe too now
doesnt feel right pinching turnips tho even if it is my dads farm :roll:
would appreciate any suggestions for good "fillers"
Tant
this time of year ya should be able to find fruit and nuts ( haws are edible and so are beech nuts)
one of my favourites are sweet chestnuts which sadly dont seem to thrive up here
mushrooms and various fungi should be easy to find this year with the warm damp weather
look around places where wild garlic grew in the spring you should find little white garlic bulbs just lying on the ground, (scrape em with a nail and ya will know they are garlic
)one thing i always find hard to get in the wild are starches and edible roots tho i guess farm / garden crops are all ripe too now
doesnt feel right pinching turnips tho even if it is my dads farm :roll:
would appreciate any suggestions for good "fillers"
Tant
Thanks TantTantalus said:skip the hawthorn and beech leaves as they are best in spring when new and not so tough
this time of year ya should be able to find fruit and nuts ( haws are edible and so are beech nuts)
one of my favourites are sweet chestnuts which sadly dont seem to thrive up here
mushrooms and various fungi should be easy to find this year with the warm damp weather
look around places where wild garlic grew in the spring you should find little white garlic bulbs just lying on the ground, (scrape em with a nail and ya will know they are garlic
one thing i always find hard to get in the wild are starches and edible roots tho i guess farm / garden crops are all ripe too now
doesnt feel right pinching turnips tho even if it is my dads farm :roll:
would appreciate any suggestions for good "fillers"
Tant
I'm abit wary about mushrooms and fungi as I have no experience with them and would rather go out for a walk with someone in the know who can point them out to me.
When I was up in epping forest the other day I was walking round the lake and saw lots of cattail, the roots of which are very starchy apparently. I think you can also eat the white parts at the base of the stem at any part of the year. Unfortunately I couldn't take one as I was with my uncle and he thinks I'm mad already.
Anything else? Any dishes I can incorpate the dishes into? What about greens and tubers?
yeah best to go with someone who knows their way around the shrooms
even books can be confusing especially if you are not sure what you are looking at
mushrooming does not seem to be as popular in the uk as other parts of europe and sadly much local knowledge may have disappeared
perhaps because our woodlands are generally smaller?
even variations between the mushrooms i ate quite happily in germany and the ones i find here in the uk make me a little wary
but hey i'm still alive
doesnt the forrestry comission do fungus foraging days?
as for cattail i am not sure i would recognise it, maybe it doesnt grow so well up here? like all these things ya get to know the names of the stuff ya find, perhaps i never found it yet?
Tant
even books can be confusing especially if you are not sure what you are looking at
mushrooming does not seem to be as popular in the uk as other parts of europe and sadly much local knowledge may have disappeared
perhaps because our woodlands are generally smaller?
even variations between the mushrooms i ate quite happily in germany and the ones i find here in the uk make me a little wary
but hey i'm still alive
doesnt the forrestry comission do fungus foraging days?
as for cattail i am not sure i would recognise it, maybe it doesnt grow so well up here? like all these things ya get to know the names of the stuff ya find, perhaps i never found it yet?
Tant
Thanks Tant, I'll have to look into that. I thought I saw somthing about some kind of foraging days when I went to an information centre in the forest, Gary do you know anything about that?
Cattail are tall plants with a distinctive flower head. During the spring months the flower head is a down that is great for use with charcloth and steel or a firesteel.They are found close to water usually in boggy areas I think
here is a picture
Cattail are tall plants with a distinctive flower head. During the spring months the flower head is a down that is great for use with charcloth and steel or a firesteel.They are found close to water usually in boggy areas I think
here is a picture
oooh i always called em bullrushes
not too many of them up here tho , guess i will have to stick with turnip greens for now
Tant
not too many of them up here tho , guess i will have to stick with turnip greens for now
Tant
Paganwolf
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
I can probably arrange one, what do you think? :?: Get your self Mushrooms by Roger Phillips pukka book bit big but very very good 
Paganwolf said:I can probably arrange one, what do you think? :?: Get your self Mushrooms by Roger Phillips pukka book bit big but very very good
FUNGI - MUSHROOMS:
They produced a handy pocket size version of the Roger Phillips book called:
Mushrooms: The Photographic Guide to Identify Common & Important Mushrooms
By Roger Phillips, Jaqui Hurst
Paperback, December 1986
ISBN: 0241117569
Like the big version the fungi named have gone though a fair amount of renaming but the photograph of each species and details help identify both edible and non and toxic.It is a very good ident book. Glad you are being cautious to start
Good place to go to find updated botanical and comon names is the British Mycological Society web page.
They have a list available as a .PDF file download called 'List of Recommended English Names For Fungi in the UK'
They have quite a good site including details of regional and Local groups. For you in Essex it is the aptely named:
Essex Fungus Group
they in termlink to the:
Esex Field Club
£5 annum for under 18. They organise fungi group meetings. In October they have the following:
It says they welcome beginners. I would suggest calling them and seing if it is for you. They would be a reliable contact for starting out.
The BMS do forages but they are weekend long and quite expensive including accomodation etc.
here is another link with some other suggestions for groups that organise forages:
http://www.mycologue.co.uk/resources.html
Finally a very good fungi web site with good photos and reasonable descriptions:
First Nature-Fungi
PLANT FORAGING:
A good place to start is a book that lists edible wild plants by season. One of the best ( in any sense) and certainly one of the best known is:
Food for Free
Richard Mabey
Paperback 256 pages (July 7, 2003)
Publisher: Collins (Gem Series)
ISBN: 0007151721
For the princely sum of £4.99 (amazon.co.uk. you can get it second hand or from a library) you get a great pocket size version of the original book (still available)
. This is great value and great size for carrying in the field. Here is the official blurb to give you and idea:So it's over 30 years old (OMG I feel really old now having got an original copy for xmas :shock: ) but it is still inspirational and very useful including recipes etc.
The other 'classic' which I would thoroughly recommend is:
Wild Food
Roger Phillips
Paperback 160 pages (September 9, 1983)
Publisher: Pan
ISBN: 0330280694
Slightly different in style to his other ident books books by. He produced a range of books all using large format (A4) photographic illustrations back in the early 80's which are still used widely for plant, tree, fungi identification.
This is a little different from these in that he talks a lot more about the plants and provides recipes with each description. It covers plants (including seaweeds) and fungi. Advice on collecting mushrooms, drying and wine making. It covers species found both in Britain and Europe.
Great photos, a lot of descriptive text and lore about the plants and of course loads of recipes! Fairly old now but still very useful. £11.89 at Amazon and easy to find secondhand. I know they do smaller pocket size versions of some of the others but not sure on this one.
Another book you should at least try to look at is:
Poisonous Plants and Fungi: An Illustrated Guide**
Marion R. Cooper
Paperback 185 pages (September 11, 2003)
Publisher: The Stationery Office Books
ISBN: 0117028614
WHY? Because it gives a recent and well illustrated guide, with examples of poisoning both in humans and annimals, from an official government source. You will be suprised what is included! Fungi being included is useful. I truely think that we need to consider (as with fungi) the baddies first, then move into the field better prepared and safer to tackle the goodies :biggthump. £14.95 is not cheap but then nor is your life! I would imagine most main libraries would stock it or if asked would do so. Maybe other people can provide links to more suitable or freely available (online?) sources of this.
Finally I must include the VAST Plants For A Future resource with a superb database of plants, both British and worldwide. Really great resource and worth spending some time trying out the search options. Just start off with any you know and work up! It includes Edible, Medicinal or Other Uses.
Thee are LOADS of mushie/ fungi books and wild food books and web sites out there. These are just some tried and tested oldies but very goodies.
So Happy (and safe!) foraging
Simon
ps We are fortunate in France in that, if you have any doubts about any fungi you have picked, you simply take it/them to your local parmacy where the parmacist will identify them for you (not 100% infallible but pretty close ;-) as it is part of their training and a free service here. Really there should be a similar scheme in the UK.
When it comes to mushrooms make sure that you know what you are eating. Like the old saying goes "when in dobut, throw it out". Cattail can also be used for a handdrill spindle.Use the flowering stalk,after clearing off the fluff.Find the first segment, cut about 3/4 in.or 2cm. before that. Works good with willow hearthboard. A hand full of pine needles seeped in almost boiling water provides more vitamen C than orange juice.
i just collected a big old bag of hazelnuts tonight... good starting point for your foraging.. ok so by now those bloody tree rats have had a lot of them.. but the ones which are still about are just right.. easy to identify and taste good ):
):
Mushroom forays in Epping Forest ?, see http://www.fungitobewith.org/ look under the walks section .I think they have 3 or 4 forays organised this year.
Sorry for the delay in answering but I dont usually check out these threads.
Fungi forages - the field study council run the ones in Epping forest, cost is £25 (last time I went on one) and this is a really good day out.
Usually starts with a class room lecture or two followed by a forage - pub lunch - forage again - then back to the class room to I.D all the fungi collected.
The mycology experts who taught me didnt show any interest in edibilty so you might want to take a few books on edible species with you to cross reference with.
Overall I would say this type of course is good value for money.
Fungi forages - the field study council run the ones in Epping forest, cost is £25 (last time I went on one) and this is a really good day out.
Usually starts with a class room lecture or two followed by a forage - pub lunch - forage again - then back to the class room to I.D all the fungi collected.
The mycology experts who taught me didnt show any interest in edibilty so you might want to take a few books on edible species with you to cross reference with.
Overall I would say this type of course is good value for money.
Paganwolf
Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Paganwolf: 
Not sure if that's a threat or an honour
Gary: those look interesting forages. Shame they don't have a heads up for edibility though. But identification is all important. The frying pan comes later
Not sure if that's a threat or an honour Gary: those look interesting forages. Shame they don't have a heads up for edibility though. But identification is all important. The frying pan comes later
