Special mentions

December evenings are best when spent cracking walnuts and hacking at a wedge of cheese, considering the last twelve months and making non-committal plans for the next.  This inevitably results in list-making, and here is my list of special mentions for 2008. Bear in mind that they may or may not have done anything in 2008, but I’ve found them or their books to be helpful or inspiring this year.

 

First up is Frances Bissell.  The scented Kitchen, her collection of recipes using wild and garden flowers, is right up my street. I love food writers whose general enthusiasm for food is focused around a very specific obsession.  I’ve consulted this book a lot this year and found her instructions to be clear and precise, but not at all bossy.  

 

Next up is Oded Schwartz, pickling guru. His books should be essential reference materials for anyone interested in preserving. I have used his recipes directly, and more generally consulted his books for troubleshooting advice this year.

 

Next up is Richard Harden, of Harden’s food guides, for singing our praises.

 

Fergus Drennan, Britain’s foremost forager, has been attempting to eat nothing but wild food all year. That’s NOTHING BUT- no eggs, no pasta, no bread, unless they’re made from wild ingredients.  A big cheer and rattle of the clacker for Fergus as he approaches Winter.

 

Marcus at the Wild Food School has created a free, downloadable urban foraging guide this year. It’s available here- http://www.wildfoodschool.co.uk/ug001.htm  Good on him for doing that.

 

Judy of the Woods has also created a downloadable foraging guide -  http://www.judyofthewoods.net/forage_uk.html   It’s not free but it’s only 4 pounds, so good on her too.

 

I’m off to France next week for a Family Christmas. For reasons of ease and economy I’m flying this year (50 quid to Geneva from London city), which means I’ll miss out on the long drive down to the Alps, which I love.

We normally break the journey with a stop in the Jura.  We stay at a dilapidated hotel near Dole and eat a  4-course set menu that costs slightly more than a meal at Pizza Express.   Wild foods appear regularly on these menus, and rod-caught fish from the river often features as the plat du jour- not just trout but perch and pike as well.  Coarse fish are quite often good to eat and we should give them more of a chance over here.  

Anyway, I’ll be taking some pear chutney, bird cherry schnapps and walnut Nocino, all from trees in E17, to the Christmas table this year.  My mum’s found some wild raspberry liqueur in the cupboard, and her handwritten sticker says 1978! We’ll have to see if it’s stood the test of time.

www.londonforager.com

Tis the season to be planning

Sorry for the delay in getting this up.  

 

I went down to Hampshire this week for some fishing. I’ve fished far less this year than last- I’ve just been too busy. I only went once during the brown trout season and I caught nothing, so it was nice to be in a quiet valley for a few hours on a crisp Winter morning, stalking rainbow trout at Dever Springs.

 

Rainbows aren’t wild, of course. They’re American imports, and Dever Springs is a tightly run trout fishery with two lakes stocked daily with large, sterile, trophy fish. There’s a beat of the river Dever there too with a run of indigenous wild brown trout, but it’s only open during the game fish season.

 

This sort of fishing might be too artificial for some purists, but for people like myself who can’t afford to fish on the Test or the Tweed every week, it’s a great way to practice casting, spend some time in pleasant surroundings and catch some fish.

Farmed trout can be muddy and unpleasant, but the water at Dever is gin clear and the fish, whilst nowhere near as good to eat as wild ones, are tasty enough. The fishery runs a smoking service too, and I now have 7lbs of smoked trout to eat and give away this Christmas.  Not wild, but wilder than Sainsbury’s version and with some personal significance.

 

On the way down in the car I noticed a few frost-bitten apples still hanging onto the trees (why are motorway embankments so full of apple trees?), and there were some wrinkly rosehips by the edge of the lake, but otherwise very little left in terms of edible plant life. Jack Frost has landed and it’s time for the squirrels, snails and foragers to retire indoors.  So I’ve got a couple of months now to get on with my writing, and to formulate my market plan for 2009.

 

I’m very proud of the liqueurs we’ve made this year, and I’d like to get them on sale in 2009 if possible. This means getting an occasional off-licence, so I’m going to have to think carefully about the economics of it.  Christmas hampers for 2009 are another consideration; liqueurs, sweets, jams, pickles, preserves, teas and wines are all giftworthy things after all.

 

Anyway, we’re two months away from the first shoots and blossoms. that’s when the work begins and the fun starts.

www.londonforager.com