I love foraging, especially this time of the year, when the hedges are bursting with fruit: blackberries, elderberries, sloes and hazelnuts. Apples drop from unowned trees, even from trees that belong to people who forget to pick them. I'm out with my containers, collecting glistening piles of blackberries, bagfuls of bruised apples to make into blackberry and apple pies, puddings and tarts: sacks of elderberries to add to my blackberries and apples to make hedgerow puddings, or to stew down to make elderberry juice for its healing properties. Elderberry juice (well cooked) will prevent you getting colds, coughs and flu and help to alleviate stress.
Earlier in the year I was collecting fallen plums and stewing them to make jam, carefully sieving out the stones and skins. Later in the year I will collect rose hips when they are soft and ripe and gently sweat them in a pan on a low heat, then sieve out the hairy pips through muslin and make a syrup for the winter when we need all the vitamin C we can get. Rosehips also have healing properties, helping arthritic joints become more flexible.
When we lived in Italy we went foraging for mushrooms: the yellow finferli, the wonderful porcini that the professional mushroom hunters almost always found first, getting up before dawn to climb the mountain slopes through the forests to the places where they knew they would find them. But we found many others that we knew were edible, carrying them home to clean off the pine needles and earth carefully with a soft cloth, before cooking them, each different type in a different way, some dipped in batter and fried, some fried in butter with parsley and garlic, some stewed slowly in olive oil and salt. But here in England I don't find them so often. Maybe I don't live near to the best places to find them and my foraging is all strictly within walking distance of my house. It's something I do almost on a daily basis this time of the year. There is something infinitely satisfying about finding and cooking wild food and sharing it with appreciative guests and neighbours.
Earlier in the year I was collecting fallen plums and stewing them to make jam, carefully sieving out the stones and skins. Later in the year I will collect rose hips when they are soft and ripe and gently sweat them in a pan on a low heat, then sieve out the hairy pips through muslin and make a syrup for the winter when we need all the vitamin C we can get. Rosehips also have healing properties, helping arthritic joints become more flexible.
When we lived in Italy we went foraging for mushrooms: the yellow finferli, the wonderful porcini that the professional mushroom hunters almost always found first, getting up before dawn to climb the mountain slopes through the forests to the places where they knew they would find them. But we found many others that we knew were edible, carrying them home to clean off the pine needles and earth carefully with a soft cloth, before cooking them, each different type in a different way, some dipped in batter and fried, some fried in butter with parsley and garlic, some stewed slowly in olive oil and salt. But here in England I don't find them so often. Maybe I don't live near to the best places to find them and my foraging is all strictly within walking distance of my house. It's something I do almost on a daily basis this time of the year. There is something infinitely satisfying about finding and cooking wild food and sharing it with appreciative guests and neighbours.
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