Adventure 16: A Hodge Podge of Shizzle

So today's post is a hodge podge of shizzle, photos and updates from the last week.

Firstly, foraging news. Had a very busy week at work but have had the time to work on my existing projects. Have added cinnamon now to my cherry liqueur which now smells fearsome! You can really smell the alcohol on it now. Cant wait till January! The pear one sadly just smells like pear... But the sloe and bullace gin is going well. I am considering what to do with the other 1kg of sloes. Wanna find out what else I can do... Sloe wine perhaps? My only casualty was my 2l kilner jar full of homebrew which exploded all over my carpet! What the hell! This is the second 2l jar from kilner which has done this. Normally, I think their products are great but I would seriously avoid these big jars. They really dont make the cut and I will be writing to them this week to complain.

As for the weekend, Levi and I went to Dawlish yesterday. A cute little seaside town near Exeter it has a gorgeous little river with ducks, a very welcoming community pub called the Swan (https://www.facebook.com/swaninn.dawlish) which is always worth a visit (with a warm range and hunters beers) and our newest find is Gay's Creamery (http://www.gayscreamery.co.uk/)! A really awesome family run shop full of local jams, ale, toffee and cake. Christmas presents here we come (good excuse to go back anyroad)!

Then today we went to the Christmas Market by Exeter Cathedral. Levs and I had an opportunity to browse the local produce (We were particularly enamoured with the nettle cheese, chorizo and mead). The amaretto Gluhwein was a delicious plus!



Next weekend, I will be off to Ireland and will be having a good look round to see what I can find in my field. Til then...!

Adventure 15: Londoners visit deepest darkest Devon - how brave of them! (15-17.11.13)

This Friday. my lovely friends Iona and Sarah came to visit for the weekend. I haven't seen them since my wedding back in August so it was lovely to catch up. We had a lovely walk between Topsham, Lympstone and Exmouth with drinks at the Swan and the Bridge Inn (I think the Bridge Inn is going to be a firm favourite for visiting guests). We had the opportunity to sit in the back room of the Bridge Inn, the 'malthouse', which is not often open with its big squishy arm chairs, warm stove and picture of Queen Victoria and have cider from Clyst St George nearby (http://www.greenvalleycyder.co.uk/). 

Foraging-wise, I did the same walk a couple of days ago. It was a beautiful, sunny day in Exeter and I thought, 'what the hell am I doing marking inside looking at the sunshine and wishing I was out there?' so I hopped on a train and had a very pleasant couple of hours walking down the country path and on the beach. I managed to collect two types of sea weed (sea lettuce and laver) and had a sea weed afternoon when I got back. With the shiny, slithery sea lettuce I tried to make soup using this recipe - http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/studland-beach/eating-and-shopping/article-1355778825535/

It tastes nice, but the sea lettuce gets stuck in the back of your throat and in your teeth (attractive!) so if I were to make it again I think I will invest in a strainer to get rid of this problem. 

With the laver I had much more luck - I decided to make these fritters without the sea crab (alas I couldn't find any and probably would prefer not to have little crab deaths on my conscience) http://wildernessguide.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/spider-crab-laver-and-oat-patties/ and Levs and I had them fried up with bacon for tea. This sea weed is known as welsh man's caviar and believe me, it is DELICIOUS! And even hubby was complimentary about his din dins. 

Lastly, I found a big patch of wild fennel on the path and took some of the yummy sprigs and with some peppercorns, garlic and lemon have made me some homemade infused olive oil. I used it for my monster cooked breakfast this morning and it was soooo good!

Anyhow, have a busy week this week but hopefully should be able to take another walk soon. Enjoy the photos! 

 

  

 

Why am I poor? Why don't I have a car? Cathy's dream of foraging courses...

I got very excited yesterday afternoon before my history class. Was just checking my emails and amongst the admin the email shone there, like a shiny piece of gold - an email from Robin Harford, the author of the blog, 'Eat Weeds', one of the gods of foraging.

 

Robin Harford

"Levi..." I said sweetly this morning on the way to work (its a nice sunny day here in Exeter, albeit a little nippy), "I wish I could go on a foraging course. I mean there's one this weekend at Exeter Race course..."

"For what?" asked Levs

"For Mushrooms!" I replied

"How much?" he asked

"Forty Quid."

Well, poor hubby nearly choked and when I said that I would love to go on a mushroom course as I am too scared to pick them, he said "but I don't even like mushrooms!"

I said, "That's fine. More for me."

He said, "Well thats just nice of you. Love you too."

But its true, I would LOVE to go on a mushroom course.  I realise the dangers of trying this you don't know what they are and am normally really good about this (like the time I dumped my elderberries and the time I made ghostberry jam, tried it, thought it repulsive and stuck it down the sink). And thus, there is no way on earth I am ever going mushroom hunting on my own ever. I read about all these poisonings in the paper (though I have found out that only twenty of Britain's three thousand mushroom species could actually kill you but I refuse to take that 0.006% chance). Even as a child I never trusted Grandad's mushrooms that he picked whilst out walking and he actually knew what he was doing. Alas, I have no money. What I wouldn't give for forty quid. Anyway, it clearly wasn't to be and besides I have two lovely school friends coming up to see me from London this weekend (Devon is the happening place it seems). Iona is a tax accountant and Sarah is a primary teacher. And I am the slightly quirky associate lecturer friend with purple hair, a bunch of home brew under the living room table and a tray of rotting *sorry* bletting medlars in my laundry room.

  

"Fergus Fungus" the Mushroom Man

Speaking of which, despite my initial enthusiasm I'm rather going off my medlars. Now they are starting to blet they are creeping me out. Interestingly, they don't smell but a number of them have gone brown and soft. Its weird you know, that as a society we have this automatic response to be repulsed by this but I am still going to give this medlar thing a go later in the week. Om nom nom. Will post plenty of photos of their lovely rotteness! Don't you worry!

So back to my fantasies about foraging courses. Not only was there this one about mushrooms, but another one on winter trees! Only £30! Bargain! Oh no, wait its in Beer Wood, near Aller, near Bridgewater.... somewhere in Somerset... Yup, I can't get there via public transport. And there goes another crushed dream.

 

(http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/)

Maybe one day I'll have money and a car and a husband who eats mushrooms, but for now my sturdy hiking boots, bucket and train pass are going to be my best friends.

For those of you with some money in your pocket and your own transport, links to the courses can be found here:

Devon Wild Edible Mushroom Courses & Forays - Saturday, 16th November 2013
http://www.foragingcourses.com/fergus

Tree Talk: Our Ancient Woodlands in Winter - Saturday, 30th November 2013
http://www.foragingcourses.com/treetalk

Adventure 14 cont.: Meddling with Medlars (10.11.13)

Okay, so I promised to tell you a bit more about the curious fruit, the medlar, aptly nicknamed in the Middle Ages as the Cat's Arse. Supposedly brought over to England by the Romans, they are originally native to the Middle East and are commonly found in Turkey as well. You can find this unusual fruit in medieval and early modern English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare.

This white top writeth myne olde yeris;
Myn herte is mowled also as myne heris - 
But if I fare as dooth an open-ers.
That ilke fruyt is ever lenger the wers.
Til it be roten in mullok or in stree.
We olde men, I drede, so fare we:
Til we be roten. Kan we nat be rype.

- Geoffrey Chaucer 'The Reeve's Tale'

So will he sit under a medlar tree
And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit
As maids call medlars when they laugh alone
O Romeo that she were that she were
An open-arse and thou a pop-rin pear

- Shakespeare 'Romeo and Juliet'

As you can see their odd shape (reminiscent of a certain part of the anatomy which made them a popular feature of bawdy early modern literature) and the need to rot is well documented!

They tend to like warm climates and when found in the UK, tend to be found in this part of the country as we have our own little micro climate which makes it a few degrees warmer than the rest of the country. However, this is still not warm enough for the average medlar so they very rarely ripen here and so you have to finish the process off yourself. This is done by bletting, whereby you leave the fruit to semi rot. People often assume rotten fruit is bad for you and disgusting, but it is this bletting process which will make these fruit ready to eat. They contain tannic acid (you might remember that acorns have this too) which is not great for the liver, and this bletting process gets rid of it and makes the fruit sweet to eat.

I have big plans for my medlar collection (they are already changing from green to brown) - including eating them the traditional English way with cream and sugar and also making a small jar of medlar cheese which is a spicy winter chutney eaten at Christmas.

I will share the recipes and keep you informed of how I get on.

Adventure 14: Cats' arses - please pardon my French (09.11.13)

After recovering from a gin filled evening with our dear friend, Alex, down from Cheltenham, we headed off on the train to Totnes. Totnes is frankly my favourite town in the UK and where I want to live when I am grown up and have a mortgage. It has music shops, craft shops, book shops,  good pubs and a castle. What's not to like? We had lunch  at The Albert  (http://www.albertinntotnes.com/) where I  had suet pudding with steak and kidney and we ended up at the welcoming Bay Horse Inn (http://bayhorsetotnes.com/) and had a big chat about compulsory voting (Alex is Australian...). We saw a cool fakir man, some steam punks and a scary woman selling chocolate brownies for four quid and thus had to hide in Oxfam. I finally managed to get my medlars in the graveyard here! Hooray!!!! These are unusual weird fruit from Turkey and the Middle East and were known in medieval times as cats' arses ( which should give you an idea of their appearance!) Will tell you more about them tomorrow when I have more time! I also managed to get hold of another classic 'Eat the Weeds' from the second hand book shop - building my library up slowly! :P