Cropping up

Still waiting for the BBC news feature to happen- it’s been trundling on for a few weeks now, with me having to cancel one week, them the next. In terms of foraging though, the further we get into spring the better as I’ll have lots more camera-worthy stuff to show them.  Should happen this week, fingers crossed.

It’s been a great week for foraging. I’ve found enough three-edged leek to feed hundreds down an unkept path near my parents’ house. It’s the most fantastic ingredient in potato salads and chinese-inspired dishes, and the flowers- delicate, white bells that you’d expect to smell perfumed and pretty- have an intense spring onion flavour and are fantastic in a mixed leaf salad. Also lots of Wood Sorrel out at the moment. The leaves are like big, cartoony clovers and the taste is very special, like dry apples.  Cleavers (stickyweed) are edible at the moment too, though they’re about to reach the stage when they get tough and stringy and not worth bothering with at all.

Most exiting of all though has been the discovery of hundreds of violets which have sprung up on the lawn of my block of flats. They’re escapees from a flower bed I think, but that’s wild enough for me (they do occur wild too, just rarely in London). I’m going to gather some this week (so long as I don’t get shouted at by the residents’ association president) and make them into an ice-cream. 

Anyway, as soon as Easter passes I’ll be picking, pickling and preserving in earnest. I’m going to be making a series of Youtube short films as well, so I’ll be nice and busy. The first one I’ve got planned is of a foraged Indian Thali , as follows:

Dandelion poori

Borage raita

Gorse Biryani

Sag Paneer (with nettles and hedge mustard)

Exciting times

The blossoms are out at the moment, and Blackheath looks beautiful. Little dabs of white and powder pink are dotted all over the increasingly green landscape.  Spring has definitely sprung.

Blossoms are more than visual treats though- they show the forager where his fruit is going to come from later in the year, like marker pins on a map. If you’re after plums, damsons or  sloes (blackthorn), then take a walk and make a note of where the blossoms are. It’s ten times easier to locate fruit trees at this time of year than later on when they’re thick with leaves.  

Hawthorn blossoms are worthwhile picking early though-  they make lovely wine and cordial. The hawthorn berry makes a nice (ish) jelly, but it’s such an abundant plant that you’re not going to compromise your crop by taking the flowers early. I actually think the flowers are more worthwhile, and the young leaves are a pleasant addition to a salad, too.

Aside from that, get out there and pick nettles. There’s no excuse to spend money on any other green leaf at this time of year- nettles are delicious, easy to find, full of iron and folic acid, and incredibly versatile.

Try an omelette- a couple of handfuls of nettles, 3 good eggs ansd some parmesan. rinse the nettles and wilt them, saving the desertspoon or so of broth left in the pan. Roughly whisk together the eggs with the broth (and a grate of nutmeg if you wish). Heat a knob of salted butter in a small frying pan, and when it’s bubbling, tip the egg mix in. Immediately start pulling the sides in. After 15 seconds, add the nettles and parmesan to the centre, leave it for another 20 seconds or so, roll the omelette to one side of the pan and tip it straight onto a plate, oozing and baveuse.  Fast healthy food for about a pound.

Things have been going well for the forager this year. We’ve been asked to take part in a Camden borough art project/exhibition, giving workshops and guided walks. We’re also doing a piece with BBC in the next couple of weeks- I’ll post the link when it’s online.

I should be posting more regularly from now on- sorry for being so sporadic.