Adventure 2: Hawthorns, sloes and rosehips (11.09.13)

My appetite wetted, I said to my hubby, "and where can I go now to find sloes? I mean, have you seen any?" He looked perplexed, "er, I'm not sure what one is?" "They're purple and small and grow in bushes."
Still, a blank look.

I remember my first sloe, well. Walking between East Runton and Cromer with Grandad Peter and my English cousins, he plucked some from a hedge. "Ay, ducks," he cried, "come try these!" The three of us tried them trustingly and spat them out sharpish. Bitter is the word, like your mouth has been turned inside out. "Them's sloes - you make gin with 'em, damsons are bigger, and tastier."

And I've never forgotten the walk and since growing up, sloe gin has been a favourite of mine and my friends Jo and Ed make the tastiest I've known. Desperate to follow in their footsteps, I tried hubby again: "anywhere that might be promising?"

He suggested the island in the middle of the Exe near our home with its shrubbery where he likes to go running. So on Wednesday, I bought a bucket and some gloves from the 99p shop on the way back from the job centre and took a stroll.

Indeed, there were many shrubs and bushes as promised and armed with some suggestions off a foraging website (http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/) I identified and started picking haws, elderberries and some rosehips I found near the station. I also, to my delight found sloes! Not lots of them, but a plentiful haul enough and got scratched to pieces. I talked to many nice dog walkers clearly curious to know what I was doing in the hedges and finally rewarded myself by sorting out my haul with a diet coke, watching a pair of cormorants frollicking in the Exe.

I decided to discard the Elderberries - I wasn't 100% that's what they were - and the first rule of thumb apparently for foraging, is if you don't competely know what it is - don't eat it. Second rule, is to respect the environment and know that it is wrong to decimate an areas supply of nuts and berries - they are after all the food of the wildlife in the area. So, I have made sure just to take a little from each tree.

When I got home, I realised that the elderberries had been what I thought they were, but I figure its better to be safe than sorry. I froze the sloes in the freezer (first on a tray and then in a box) and dried the rose hips for tea. The haws, I decided to make into jam using the recipe I found here: http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/hawthorn-jelly-recipe

Not having a jelly strainer I used a clean pillow case which worked well and produced the most amazing hawthorn jelly ever. And so, adventure 2 came to a close.