A week on foraged wild food.
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Don't forget before and after body weight.
Talking of food, I've just boned and stuffed some chicken thighs (foraged from Tesco ) with stilton/coriander for slow cooking served with buttered baked spuds, a green salad and warm bread; but you will be in my thoughts as we tuck in later, good luck.
Talking of food, I've just boned and stuffed some chicken thighs (foraged from Tesco ) with stilton/coriander for slow cooking served with buttered baked spuds, a green salad and warm bread; but you will be in my thoughts as we tuck in later, good luck.
The plan today was to cycle to burry port. The weather decided otherwise. I got as far as Llanelli beach, and the cross wind was bitter with sleet. By this stage I had realised I am nowhere near as fit as was in summer. The wind was right into my face and painfully cold, i felt like was I going up hill on the flat. I decided I was wasting energy. llanelli beach has a uncertain amount of shell fish rather than burry port where I know the good safe spots and can collect several kilos easily.
I have collected about 2kg of shellfish, mostly winkles. I good wad of wrack and a little laver. I also collected from the cycle route, enough charlock for a week, oddly quite few mixed mushrooms, watercress, and hawthorn fruit. I am about to start making mushroom pate and the roast the bulrush roots from yesterday. It is enough food for a day or two, but not with amount of calories I spent today. Tomorrow will be an easier day, if woodlice and worms decided to hide I will catch the bus to burry port later on in the week.
I will put up pictures later.
I ate mostly hazelnuts and fruit leather today, I had raw wrack on the beach which is quite filling. I have eaten just had watercress soup with wrack and load of bulrush. I had a cheating hot choclate in llanelli, i have done the ride before but I must been much fitter or the cold stole the energy. Faced with 10 mile cycle back i found feel myself crashing. Fitter or on finer day I would of be fine.
I have collected about 2kg of shellfish, mostly winkles. I good wad of wrack and a little laver. I also collected from the cycle route, enough charlock for a week, oddly quite few mixed mushrooms, watercress, and hawthorn fruit. I am about to start making mushroom pate and the roast the bulrush roots from yesterday. It is enough food for a day or two, but not with amount of calories I spent today. Tomorrow will be an easier day, if woodlice and worms decided to hide I will catch the bus to burry port later on in the week.
I will put up pictures later.
I ate mostly hazelnuts and fruit leather today, I had raw wrack on the beach which is quite filling. I have eaten just had watercress soup with wrack and load of bulrush. I had a cheating hot choclate in llanelli, i have done the ride before but I must been much fitter or the cold stole the energy. Faced with 10 mile cycle back i found feel myself crashing. Fitter or on finer day I would of be fine.
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Good start, and an impressive day's foraging - well done! Given the weather the hot chocolate can be ignored. Keep going and keep posting - this is fascinating. Best, most interesting, thread for ages. Thanks for sharing.
i think there a lot of " context " here,.... let's have a look.......
1. is it possible to forage for food for a week at this time of year........interesting
2. what will the body's reaction be to the "natural" intake ( bad breath, constipation etc ).............interesting
3. what financial cost to living / eating like this................interesting
4. any "emotional" side affects to eating like this for a week ( mood swings etc ) ............interesting
5. calories in V calories out...is it worth it ( as a person on their own ).......... interesting
6. prep and recipies for foraged food........interesting
7. mental ability to maintain diet without giving in..........interesting
8. if Fiona succeeds with this, could it be done with out the comforts of home / warmth etc......interesting
so.......we have a lot of interesting questions here which answers the "why" and puts it firmly into the "context" of knowledge and experience.......wouldn't you say. ( not withstanding the "context " of "bushcraft " self sufficiency )
context......."the circumstance relevant to an event" ( collins concise dictionary ).....the circumstance is foraging food, the event is bushcrafting
1. is it possible to forage for food for a week at this time of year........interesting
2. what will the body's reaction be to the "natural" intake ( bad breath, constipation etc ).............interesting
3. what financial cost to living / eating like this................interesting
4. any "emotional" side affects to eating like this for a week ( mood swings etc ) ............interesting
5. calories in V calories out...is it worth it ( as a person on their own ).......... interesting
6. prep and recipies for foraged food........interesting
7. mental ability to maintain diet without giving in..........interesting
8. if Fiona succeeds with this, could it be done with out the comforts of home / warmth etc......interesting
so.......we have a lot of interesting questions here which answers the "why" and puts it firmly into the "context" of knowledge and experience.......wouldn't you say. ( not withstanding the "context " of "bushcraft " self sufficiency )
context......."the circumstance relevant to an event" ( collins concise dictionary ).....the circumstance is foraging food, the event is bushcrafting
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Very interesting. Love the idea of expanding my foraging knowledge but time and confidence fail me at the moment!
Watching with great interest.
Leo
Watching with great interest.
Leo
I'm struggling to give this context, because Fiona said in her OP that....
It leads on from the threads about the man that died tryng to live off the land in the scotish highlands. I am doing it mainly to help those that wish to go to the wilds and live off the land. It is to show it is not easy to live off the land, it is very hard work.
To my mind, things like building and maintaining a shelter, hunting for and processing a firewood, looking for potable water, trying to stay warm and dry, lack of good sleep etc, make a huge difference to how much time and energy you have available to forage in the woods for wild food. What I'm saying, and I think it's a fair observation - is that foraging on the sea shore is very different to foraging in the woods. Having transport, either a bycicle or bus, to travel from base to foraging location also doesnt reflect the reality of living in the woods. If you were living wild under a tarp and you wanted to travel a 16 mile round trip for food, you'd have to walk. It'd take you all day at least and by the time you got back, you'd have to then start thinking about getting dry, making a fire, looking for firewood and water etc. That's very different in terms of the impact to a person, than going home into a warm house with hot and cold running water, a roof, a soft bed, a kitchen with a kettle and a cooker. That's aside from cheats like hot chocolate, bovril, oxo, stored chestnuts and acorn flour. What Fiona is doing, is experimenting with a wild food diet at home, which is definitely fascinating in it's own right, no question. But I'm struggling to to give it context for someone living in the woods trying to survive of the wild food they find there, on a moment to moment basis like the lad who died on Rannoch Moor. I think that's a fair observation, dont you?
Or to put it another way, If Fiona manages some amazing and varied concoctions, with mussels and welks, herbs and plants, washed down with hot bovril, does that mean a bushcrafter could expect to achieve the same living off the woods? My concern is that it might actually present an unrealistically optimistic view of wild food availability, which might actually encourage the notion that wonderful things are possible, which is the opposite of the risks Fiona was trying to highlight. See?
It leads on from the threads about the man that died tryng to live off the land in the scotish highlands. I am doing it mainly to help those that wish to go to the wilds and live off the land. It is to show it is not easy to live off the land, it is very hard work.
To my mind, things like building and maintaining a shelter, hunting for and processing a firewood, looking for potable water, trying to stay warm and dry, lack of good sleep etc, make a huge difference to how much time and energy you have available to forage in the woods for wild food. What I'm saying, and I think it's a fair observation - is that foraging on the sea shore is very different to foraging in the woods. Having transport, either a bycicle or bus, to travel from base to foraging location also doesnt reflect the reality of living in the woods. If you were living wild under a tarp and you wanted to travel a 16 mile round trip for food, you'd have to walk. It'd take you all day at least and by the time you got back, you'd have to then start thinking about getting dry, making a fire, looking for firewood and water etc. That's very different in terms of the impact to a person, than going home into a warm house with hot and cold running water, a roof, a soft bed, a kitchen with a kettle and a cooker. That's aside from cheats like hot chocolate, bovril, oxo, stored chestnuts and acorn flour. What Fiona is doing, is experimenting with a wild food diet at home, which is definitely fascinating in it's own right, no question. But I'm struggling to to give it context for someone living in the woods trying to survive of the wild food they find there, on a moment to moment basis like the lad who died on Rannoch Moor. I think that's a fair observation, dont you?
Or to put it another way, If Fiona manages some amazing and varied concoctions, with mussels and welks, herbs and plants, washed down with hot bovril, does that mean a bushcrafter could expect to achieve the same living off the woods? My concern is that it might actually present an unrealistically optimistic view of wild food availability, which might actually encourage the notion that wonderful things are possible, which is the opposite of the risks Fiona was trying to highlight. See?
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Fiona - what kind of balance between protien/greens/starch do hope to get and what plants are you hoping to find (it will be interesting to compare with what you do actually find!) ... it is a hard time to get much of anything around here ... I would be lucky to feed myself for a day at the present!
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I think it's more likely that Fiona will show just what's available to someone who really does know what she's looking for, and finding, and at the same time showing just how hard it is, even for someone with that kind of knowledge, to thrive. That Fi has upfront said she has a stash of hazelnuts is a big hint right off that this isn't something anyone ought to think easy to do in the middle of Winter in an area of good, diverse, foraging potential.
My only caveat would be that I suspect that the foraging would be easier if there were a family group involved as was the case in the past.
There night be more mouths to feed, but more folks to wander, recognise, plan and gather can greatly increase the results.
cheers,
M
My only caveat would be that I suspect that the foraging would be easier if there were a family group involved as was the case in the past.
There night be more mouths to feed, but more folks to wander, recognise, plan and gather can greatly increase the results.
cheers,
M
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I'd like to see the aim of this experience reframed to "what can be foraged out and about in Britain in the month of January?"
It can't be an exercise in living off foraged foods if the subject is travelling miles across diverse habitats such as verges, fields, beaches and coffee shops by bike and bus
It can't be an exercise in living off foraged foods if the subject is travelling miles across diverse habitats such as verges, fields, beaches and coffee shops by bike and bus
Fi would just have walked, but she still has to feed her family, run her business, get the washing done, get the kids to and from school...... basically she has taken an element and made it still feasible within the constraints of modern life.
Foraging for sufficient wild food for a healthy adult for a week is still a valuable exercise.
Would you like to try it too ? Let us know how you get on ?
I know my area, and I know what I can eat, and where to find it, but without prior gathering and storage I'd be damned hungry and pretty exhausted I reckon.
Toddy
Foraging for sufficient wild food for a healthy adult for a week is still a valuable exercise.
Would you like to try it too ? Let us know how you get on ?
I know my area, and I know what I can eat, and where to find it, but without prior gathering and storage I'd be damned hungry and pretty exhausted I reckon.
Toddy
Today was an easier day. this morning after a not inspiring breakfast of apple pulp and sprouted roasted wheat. I found the wheat last week growing on wasteland outside some houses, I know what ergot looks like, but generally wild cereals should collected with care because of this. I spent the morning in the kitchen making a mess. I stewed up the half the bladderwrack in the pressure cooker, with some leftover veg stock and the "stogy hairballs" leftover processing the bulrushes. The resultant soup was very filling. there was that much of it, that is basically what I have eaten today. The bulrushes where split open and the inner scraped out, they were then crushed in basin of hot water. This results in a grey goo. when i have done this in the past after a few days of drying the grey goo become a hard grey cake. In an attempt to improve this i added the haws i picked yesterday in a deseeded pulp. This gave a pale brown goo. well after much reducing and oven cooking this is now a pretty tasteless paste.
In the afternoon we collected thistle roots, sorrel and crab apples. We did hunt for woodlice as well but didnt get very many. I have just baked off the last of the bladderwrack into crisps.
In the afternoon we collected thistle roots, sorrel and crab apples. We did hunt for woodlice as well but didnt get very many. I have just baked off the last of the bladderwrack into crisps.
Not critical of the prior storage, but I'm not sure the experiment will provide any more than "food for free" will as it's moved from living on "foraged foods" including that previously gathered, to catching the bus to known high density areas and having a couple of hundred calories at the cafe.
I could drive to the beach and collect an awful lot of seaweed, shrimps, crabs, mussels and limpet, continue to munch on what's left of the 10kg of walnuts, sweet chestnut and Hazels I collected last year and top up with a medium soya latte with extra shot too
All it demonstrates is that I am able to recall the locations of high density food sources that are only "foragable" through the use of vehicles and that I have some credits on my Costa's card.
Only asking that the objective of the exercise describes the actual exercise, I would say it doesn't any more
I could drive to the beach and collect an awful lot of seaweed, shrimps, crabs, mussels and limpet, continue to munch on what's left of the 10kg of walnuts, sweet chestnut and Hazels I collected last year and top up with a medium soya latte with extra shot too
All it demonstrates is that I am able to recall the locations of high density food sources that are only "foragable" through the use of vehicles and that I have some credits on my Costa's card.
Only asking that the objective of the exercise describes the actual exercise, I would say it doesn't any more
I did join in todays forage we did'nt find much but it was enough to supplement what she already has mainly thistle roots ,sorrel,and gorse flowers, woodlice were very hard to find and the ones we did find seemed to be in a state of hibernation
To my mind, things like building and maintaining a shelter, hunting for and processing a firewood, looking for potable water, trying to stay warm and dry, lack of good sleep etc, make a huge difference to how much time and energy you have available to forage in the woods for wild food. Quote
I lived exactly like that for a while in a tipi you do things in rotation one day you spend logging which sometimes it was a 14 mile round trip dragging large logs through all sorts of terrain bloody hard graft on returning to your lodge you then have to start cutting and storing it, fresh water for drinking was taken directly from the stream the same one we had our daily wash in no soap or chemicals allowed near the stream this was a daily thing, we still managed to hunt and forage to supplement our diet which consisted of mainly what people grew or raised we did go to the local village for some things which was a walk of around 6 mile round trip by foot nearest town was about 12 miles and was a long hike in the cold and wet
I lived exactly like that for a while in a tipi you do things in rotation one day you spend logging which sometimes it was a 14 mile round trip dragging large logs through all sorts of terrain bloody hard graft on returning to your lodge you then have to start cutting and storing it, fresh water for drinking was taken directly from the stream the same one we had our daily wash in no soap or chemicals allowed near the stream this was a daily thing, we still managed to hunt and forage to supplement our diet which consisted of mainly what people grew or raised we did go to the local village for some things which was a walk of around 6 mile round trip by foot nearest town was about 12 miles and was a long hike in the cold and wet
I wondered how it would go. The short daylight hours in Winter can really pinch when trying to get things done outdoors, and searching when cold and wet and dispirited must have been a real effort in the past. Live food hides, and plants are mostly gone to roots and seeds and woody stems. Makes the greenery that is available, and the first sweet flowers, all the tastier and welcome though
Lots of folks watching the thread with interest
cheers,
M
Lots of folks watching the thread with interest
cheers,
M
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