Picking Free Fruit - What To Do With It

notenoughcash

Sorry if this is already ongoing somewhere else. I know there is the blackberry picking thread which I have been looking at but I could do with some ideas on other things we can pick and use.

I have been with the children today and picked another 2lb of blackberries but there are dozens and dozens of other fruit(?) on trees and bushes that I'm not sure about collecting.

There are definately rosehips and seen some red berries on hawthorn bushes. Also seen a few apple trees which I assume are crab apples but don't know whether they can be picked or used.

Any tips, ideas, recipes would be great.

Farway

Crab apples can be used, but they will be much sharper than ordinary ones, so will need a lot more sugar

Rosehips an hawtorn berries can be used, but I guess a time versus gain would be useful before googling away

morganlefay

As kids during the war (1940s) we were fed rosehip syrup because it was full of Vit. C. I notice that good old Lakeland now sell it v expensively. No idea how to make it - beware as the hips are full of nasty scratchy stuff that we used to use as itching powder on our friends - but it was DELICIOUS !

Gigervamp

There are lots of things to forage if you know what to look for, and when you do know, you'll be seeing them all over the place!

All the things you've mentioned can be used, as well as elderberries, hazelnuts, fungi (but you need to be really sure of the identification of fungi as there are poisonous ones that look very similar to edible ones).

The river cottage forum http://forum.rivercottage.net/ is a good place to start for info, and get hold of some foraging books. Richard Mabley's Food For Free is a classic, but there are lots more.

Have fun!