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Hello Forumites! However well-intentioned, for the safety of other users we ask that you refrain from seeking or offering medical advice. This includes recommendations for medicines, procedures or over-the-counter remedies. Posts or threads found to be in breach of this rule will be removed.The Great Hunt: What's the best thing you've foraged?
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Former_MSE_Rebecca
Posts: 173 Forumite
Autumn's here and the fields are bursting with harvest goods from blackberries and sloe berries to courgettes, squash and beans. We're tapping into your collective knowledge on the best things you've foraged and what you've made with them.
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Foraged cherries, no doubt and Mirabelles and blackberries and elderberries. Take care not to take from roadside with heavy traffic. The fumes will have gotten into the fruit.
Never seen courgettes, squashes or beans growing wild, but easy to grow and beans in particular can be left to dry off, then re-soaked and cooked, ideal stews etc.0 -
£84 of blackberries so far this year at today's prices - £13.34 / kg :eek: - averaging 1 lb every 3rd day, right outside my house. Possibility of free apples if I wander up the lane, plus yearly nutting trip to local park for chestnuts.0
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During the last week in the Isle of Skye: caught mackerel, picked mussels, clams and huge scallops. The biggest, sweetest blackberries and 3 baskets of delicious chanterellles. Fed 5 of us well. Yum.:D0
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Walnuts - bags & bags full! There's a tree not too far away overhanging a field with a footpath. Nearby there's a lovely cooking apple tree; round the corner is a golden crab apple and about quarter of a mile of hazelnut hedge, too, interspersed with blackberries & sloes. The one thing with walnuts is, wear gloves; the hulls contain a very effective dark dyestuff which takes weeks to wash off your skin. Which for those of us who indulge in a little light spinning & weaving, is a second crop from the same plant!Angie - GC May 24 £156.41/£450: 2024 Fashion on the Ration Challenge: 10/68: (Money's just a substitute for time & talent...)0
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Elderflowers. All over the place and elderflower cordial is really expensive in the shops and a doddle to make yourself.0
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In Dorset I have found a place awash with Rock Samphire, which is always expensive in the supermarket! Great with any seafood, but especially in a pasta or on a Risotto.0
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Wild Garlic - lovely delicate flavour in salads or a light soup
Elderberries - wine (with addition of runner beans), and elderberry and apple jelly
Sweet Chestnuts - with sprouts for Christmas and just to roast as they are.
Quince - two bushes in the cemetary - jelly goes well with meats, Cordial and membrillo (quince cheese) which is lovely with cheese.
Apples - lots around - crab apples make verjus (lemon juice substitute). Others I use for puree, crumbles, chutney etc.
Blackberries - make a very good wine plus jelly and jam. Blackberry vinegar is really nice, up north here we traditionally had it on Yorkshire Pudding but it's great as a sald dressing or even on ice-cream, it's very versatile.
Hazelnuts - lovely as they are with my breakfast cereal
Cherries - lots of trees in the local park. I just ate these raw. There weren't many this year though.
Sloes - sloe gin and sloe vodka then use the soaked fruit to make liquer flavour chocolates.
Damasenes - The man who planted these by the side of a field 50 years ago says that is what these trees are. I thought they were bullaces. Anyway bigger than sloes, smaller than damsons. Used instead of sloes for gin and vodka and have used for crumbles.
Hawthorn berries - Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall has a recipe for a sweet and sour sauce using these which is nice.
Rosehips - have used for wine but wasn't very nice. Now just use to make rosehip syrup and use it as a cordial.
Nettles - have used to make wine. Wasn't nice after 1 year. I'm hoping it will improve with a few more years.
Dandelions - makes a nice wine.
Vine prunings - if you know anyone who has a grapevine the prunings (leaves and tendrils) make an excellent wine.
Elderflowers to me smelt like cat's wee when I got them home so I didn't use them. Perhaps I'll try again next year. Was going to use them for cordial and wine.
Damsons - loads of these in our local park but even when very careful about which ones I picked, they were always wormy. I soak blackberries in water & any worms come out - doesn't happen with these damsons, they look okay but then you find a worm right in the centre near the shell so I'm not picking those again.
We have a walnut tree nearby but all the nuts disappeared overnight. I'm sure they weren't even ripe.
Still looking for a juniper bush, there must be one somewhere. We walked past the sweet chestnut tree by the river for about 7 years before realising what it was as it's away from the path.
Foraging is great but you need to have a plan of what you're going to do with the produce if you're taking any quantity.0 -
Made some excellent elderflower cordial this year. Used it at our wedding.
Just recently went out and got a load of rosehips, made 2 litres of rosehip syrup, and a load of sloes which went into two bottles of gin. MMM
we're big fans of John at forage london (google it)School is important, but Rugby is importanter.0 -
We bought a house last year that had been empty for 2 years and neglected for some time before that. Having hacked back the weeds and grass in the garden we came across some currant bushes - black, red and white. We harvested as much of them as we could, simply because they were there, without knowing what to do with the fruit. It eventually got commingled and became a lovely Three Berry Jam.
It sort of felt like foraging as it was a surprise and the garden was 'new' to us.0 -
My husband has picked over 50Kgs of blackberries this year from around our allotment. This is now bubbling away making 17 gallons (ie 100 bottles) of wine. At a previous person's estimated cost of blackberries at £13.34 per Kg makes £667 worth of blackberries picked!! Not bad...as long as the wine tastes good!0
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