Foraging - Natures Food

elantan

TravellingAbuela wrote: »

Our summers are spent foraging! Among the free foods we pick are bilberries from the moors (for pies and jam & crumbles), elderflowers (for "champagne"), elderberries (for cordial or chutney), blackberries (for jam, pies & crumbles), apples (to supplement aforementioned fruits) and wild pears (to make Pear & Lemon jam) In the autumn we brave the blackthorn bushes (beware the spikes!!) to gather sloes for our Xmas supply of sloe gin! I have a spare freezer which is full of berries to last us 12 months, until the next supply is available for picking!

I have a little book which identifies all the fruits/herbs/fungi you can pick and their uses. I have, however, never been brave enough to pick mushrooms!! I'll stick to Sainsbury's for those!

can you let me know the name of the book please?

thanks

sandraroffey

we pick tons during the autumn!!! my daughter has several cherry trees near her on open ground, so me and the grandkids (and mum) picked 15 pounds of cherries. a few jars of jam, gallons of cherry brandy liqueur and more cherries in the freezer to make up this month, with brandy again. we also picked tons of blackberries and rosehips. used lots for liqueurs, jellies and ice cream, and again, more in the freezer to start making more.

on freecycle, a lady in my town was asking people to come and empty her apple tree!!!! used lots in jams, pies and stuff. also more frozen to use with the rosehips, for rosehip and apple jelly.

the alcohol-laden fruit from the christmas liqueurs is also in the freezer, awaiting the next batch of vanilla ice cream!!

would love to go looking for mushrooms, but im not very sure about those.

i really need to get myself another chest freezer!!!! would gladly swap a decent size one for my upright freezer. need more room evry year!!!! dont waste a thing!!!!

bearcub

We have blackberries and raspberries growing in our tiny garden, and friends give us apples, but we pick damsons from trees in a field where a friend (same one as gives us apples) keeps her horses in summer. She won't use them (she only ever cooks things that come in packs from M&S where she works!), so we take some and freeze them. We also pick sloes from the edges of the paddocks where our horses are kept, and my OH makes sloe vodka for Christmas. We pick field mushrooms from the paddocks, but only OH eats them, as I don't like mushrooms much. Every year, an elder tree in the grounds of our church is covered in blossom, then berries, and for the last 6 years, I've been saying I'll pick some. Never thought of using them for chutney. Maybe this year! :cool:

As well as the 'above dog height' maxim, it's best not to pick next to a busy road, either, and always well above exhaust height, if the road's not so busy.

thriftwizard

Celyn90, intrigued by your mushrooms; I'd love to pick more mushrooms but I'm really not confident I know what's safe & what isn't. I can tell a giant puffball - delicious! - but I'm scared of just about everything else. How did you learn what's safe?

hayley11

I'd love to start foraging, we have picked blackberries in the past but that's about it. We go on a lot of countryside walks with the dogs and i'm always seeing things and wondering what they are, I need a book!

cash4me

hi
does anyone know of any foraging courses in cumbria. i already make wine, chutney and jams from wild fruit. but would like to learn about mushrooms, fungi and edible plants,;)

Ken68

Something in Cockermouth, cash4me. Would be in Google. Foragaing in Cumbria.

level200

I have just returned from a lovely few days staying in the very north Highlands of scotland. One day we went out and foraged for local shellfish and edible seaweed and ended up with a feast

For one meal we had mussels, lava (Seaweed) and eggs, limpet pate and home made bread. Was bloody lovely

Afterwards we sat around the fire with a few drams of the local whisky picking at a huge mound of golfball sized winkles

Heaven

Lazy_Liz

lucky you to be able to forage in a place that is so clean. I love seafood but worry about shellfish from areas near habitiation which can be contaminated.

Ezek

That sounds amazing, the kind of nosh-up that would set you back a fair bit at a trendily rustic London restaurant! Jealous