Adventure 48: Rub of the Green

First proper outing of 2015 and a foraging adventure beheld me. Trusty hoody? Check. Bags to collect thing in? Check. Some gardening gloves and secateurs? Check. What was I looking for? I was not entirely sure. Six months have gone by since I have been out and about. I was eager to smell the damp spring earth, feel the sun on my face and enjoy the abundance of growing things all around. Never do I feel more alive than when I have the wind in my hair and a mind for foraging.

Being late in the afternoon, I headed to my favourite foraging spot by the river near my house. It's so peaceful there with the river rushing over the weir and the sea gulls soaring above. It's usually pretty quiet there save the odd dog walker. I didn't have a particular plan as such. Mindful of the fact that I won't be round much over Easter, I thought my time would be best spent playing a kind of game: seeing how many plants I could identify (taking a few leaves from each plant home to check) and seeing which new ones I could find.

Ones I could identify (ignoring the many dandelions):

1) White Dead Nettles

Looks like real nettles but doesn't sting. Related to mint, thyme and majoram. Mabey suggests cooking with a little butter and spring onions. Else I've read somewhere you can make it into a soup with onions and garlic.

2) Dock leaves

These particular ones are curled dock, very common and a bit bitter (you should boil them a few times to remove the astringency) and can be eaten as greens. Mabey* suggests eating with bacon and a dash of vinegar.

3) Nettles

I've written and done stuff with these before. It's a bit like spinach and boiling them removes the sting. Spring is a good time to pick them while they're young and not past-it.

4) Hawthorn

The glistening red haws come in the autumn, but the young leaves can be eaten straight off the tree - known traditionally as "bread and cheese". I have tried these before and though cheese does not spring to mind, they're not bad. Certainly what I plan on living off during the apocalypse.

5) Goose Grass

We always used to call this one sticky weed for obvious reasons. Boiling removes the stickiness. According to my new book by David Squire**, it's high in vitamin C and was used to keep scurvy away in days gone by. Who knew?

New things I've learned:

1) Ground Ivy

Now I've seen loads of it about for years but always assumed it was Common Mallow (apparently they can be easily mistaken for one another). This pretty little plant has cute little purple flowers and Mabey has some interesting things to say about it. For example, it can be used as a herbal tea and in the past it was used to flavour and clarify ale before hops, hence its nickname 'alehoof'. It's apparently rich in vitamin C and Galen used it in preparations to aid 'inflammation of the eyes'. My favourite forager, Robin Harwood, has a recipe for Ground Ivy Tempura which I'm dying to try.

2) Yarrow

I've found two types (I always assumed one type was fever few... oops) both wild and fern-leaf types. It's an old plant found in the Iliad, where Achilles uses it to staunch bleeding (hence its Latin name Achillea, the English name comes from the OE gearwe). Mabey recommends stripping it from its tough stems and boiling it for 20 minutes before simmering in butter.

3) American Burnweed

Also known as fire weed (it appears after fires) this plant is related to dandelions and chicory. It is also found in ancient Greek traditions when Athena sought out Hephaestus, the lame forger, when seeking some new weaponry. He was so overcome by her beauty he tried it on with her. She struggled but nonetheless, some of his man stuff (ahem, pardon) got on her thigh. She scraped it off and it fell on the Earth, the goddess Gaia.  Gaia gave birth to a son, Erichthonius, whom she presented to Athena. Erichthonius is apparently in Ancient Greek from erextho (trouble), combined with xthon (the ground) and so this weed was sprung. Cooking allegedly makes it smell less bad. I think I might give it a miss.

AND FINALLY...

I hit the jackpot. Wild garlic - flipping tons of it all over the river bank. And I wasn't even the only person sniffing about it. I met a charming couple and their terrier armed with carrier bags. "What are you going to do with yours?" I asked the small brunette (I'm always looking for new ideas). "I'm blending mine and sticking it in ice cube trays", she replied. And so, I'm going to try this out in a couple of weeks (in the meantime  it's safely in sandwich bags in the freezer). In the meantime, I plan on dreaming of all the garlic butter, oil and pesto I plan on making with it. I must say, I've really had the rub of the green today. 

* Richard Mabey, Food for Free (Glasgow, 1972)
** David Squire, Foraging: Self sufficiency (London, 2011)

Adventure 47: Friends, Foragey Types and Countrymen, lend me your ears...

Friends, foraging types and countrymen, lend me your ears...

Its been a mad, hectic start in my new job. Absolutely smashing school, with great girls - but I've found zero time to do anything for myself (save reading the occasional novel) let alone indulge my favourite foraging hobby. I've been trying hard to work out recently what has been missing in my life. Things are going well: I've got a nice job, lovely husband, cute but needy cat - but its the hobby I miss. Going for walks to clear my head, looking up recipes on the i pad whilst watching TV in the evenings, reading round the subject and making a mess (and hopefully some nice things too, in our kitchen)....

So, I've made a belated new year's resolution: to make the time. Because, frankly, you only live once, and what's the point of not enjoying the things you love? As one very experienced colleague and friend from my first school I worked at (nearly four years ago now - blimey) said: You work to live, not live to work. And frankly, she was right.

So, Western Weeds is back. The sun is not shining as such, but it is a fine day here in Devon despite the gales that have been causing rail chaos down this neck of the woods. And before I head out to see what I can find this afternoon, I thought I would launch Western Weeds 2.0 with a big hello to you all and to give you a brief update on what I've been up to since I last posted six months ago.


1) I've been spoiled with some rather awesome foragey gifts over Christmas and my birthday. 

Firstly, over Christmas I received this rather gorgeous collection of stuff from my parents (sorry, I mean Father Christmas... lol). Some gorgeous Kilner jars and bottles for making stuff up in and a couple of books: one on foraging (not much new in there, but an interesting section on greens, which is something I'd really like to expand onto) and one on natural remedies which is quite engaging. Christmas seems a long time ago now, but was all in all very enjoyable catching up with my family including my two grandfathers. I even taught one what a selfie was - he seemed vaguely impressed...

Had a very enjoyable afternoon with my parents and Levi wandering around the Botanical Gardens at Kew (http://www.kew.org/), looking at all the plants, many of which I enjoyed back last summer whilst in Zanzibar.

My second awesome foraging gift was a joint effort from a couple of friends of ours - Owain and Helen for my birthday back in January.

I was honestly so touched by their thoughtfulness - I got a foraging bag, gloves, clippers and some little bags to put stuff in - and if you're reading this guys, it is one of the BEST set of presents I've ever got. We had a wonderful day out on Dartmoor, near Ivybridge. It was a bitterly cold day (we even got a little bit sleeted on) but the views were fantastic and we enjoyed an excellent pint by a fire in one of the local pubs (http://www.dukeofcornwallpub.co.uk/).

2) I've done a few trips since I last posted:

In October we went Looe in Cornwall: cold and foggy, but with some nice cliff walks to Polperro and some nice warm pubs.

In February we did a short city break to Berlin. Fantastic place: lots of great breweries (we particularly recommend Brauhaus Georgbraeu and Pfefferbraeu), Currywurst and great sites like the Brandenburg Gate and the Fernsehturm.

My parents came to visit me a month ago and we did some nice walking on the moors near Postbridge and walked up Leather Tor which boasts some stunning views and made friends with some Dartmoor Ponies.

And most recently (it sort of gave me the idea of getting back to doing Western Weeds) we've just come back from a couple of days in Dartmoor, walking from Okehampton to Tavistock as part of the West Devon Way. The weather was quite rainy, but it is so beautiful round there - moody skies, endless moor, rocky tors, Lydford Gorge, castles, etc. We both really recommend the following pubs on the route, namely The Castle Inn and The Whitchurch Inn for ambiance, food and beer.

We spotted lots of wild garlic on our travels (my lord, is it that time of year again!) and so I thought, the blog needs to come back to soothe this niggling foraging itch that I have now that Spring is finally here.

3)  Sloe Gin

I have been finishing my first batch of sloe gin (from late September) and starting up a second (cos its so scrumptious, you need to stagger these things you know, otherwise you will be sobbing mid summer, crying "why is there no frigging gin left?" THANK GOD you can freeze the little buggers (and this saves you having to spent hours with a needle pricking them to make the sloe gin work its magic... sloe gin recipe here)

And whilst I was cleaning through the cupboards I found my pickled helicopter tree things from two years ago. They're still fine - the vinegar has preserved them - but they're a bit chewy - not sure I'll repeat that particular foraging experiment (otherwise, surely everyone would be making them... )

4) My little herb garden

And finally, lamenting the lack of a garden I recently decided to set up a window herb garden in my kitchen. I rescued some bedraggled looking orgeano and rosemary from Wilkos (50p each a bargain) and have been trying to grow from scratch parsely, sage and chives.

And I've also become somewhat interested in gardening folklore having picked up a couple of interesting looking books. In particular I have found Margaret Baker's book very interesting as it discusses growing things according to the moon cycles and other such archaic practices.

So that's it folks - off to London tomorrow (quite excited) but the blog is definitely back. Won't updating it as much as I used to (so much marking, so little time) - but with exam season upon us, some good long walks, communing with nature and some kitchen magic will be surely welcome.