5 Fantastic Recipes For Spring

Last year, I unfortunately missed out on an opportunity to contribute a recipe for the Forage London site, hosted and run by the very passionate wild food enthusiast and all round lovely guy, John Renston. John kindly emailed me earlier this year asking would I like to contribute a recipe this time round - absolutely I would! John has put together a super blog this month featuring 5 stunning recipes, by John, fellow foragers, Mark Williams, Peter Studzinski and myself. To view the recipes just click on the link: http://www.foragelondon.co.uk/5-wonderful-wild-spring-recipes/. While there check out the rest of Johns site, some great stuff to peruse.

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Chicken of the Woods

Wild mushrooms have a special place in my heart. My wild food and foraging journey stemmed from an interest in them before branching out into plants and seaweeds. The 'silent hunt', as Antonio Carluccio so beautifully and aptly put it, is one of my favourite things. To find yourself at ease, wandering and treading gently, on the fringes of or deep within and beneath, the multi-layered, multi-coloured patchwork of woodland canopies, or in ancient meadows, in anticipation of the sometimes elusive, yet always magical and mysterious organisms that comprise the 5th kingdom is a pure delight. Fungi are truly fascinating, yet the great majority of the uk population have yet to discover just how awesome, intriguing, fascinating and tasty they can be. Most people think the best time of year for finding wild mushrooms is in the 'autumn' and, although there is some truth in this, it's not the whole truth. Spring, summer and winter can prove very fruitful (fung-ful) when it ...

Unripe Figs in Syrup

Preserved Unripe Figs. Batch #1 I recently acquired a copy of 'The New Wildcrafted Cuisine' by, Pascal Baudar (many thanks to Dominick Tekos for sending it me). Despite the fact that he resides in California, much of the books content is applicable with regards to techniques, philosophies, creativity and inspiration, and some of the wild plants, regardless of where in the world you reside. Understanding our native floras & faunas is the same the world over I guess. Climates, habitats, techniques, cultures etc do differ but I firmly believe we all have innate and transferable knowledge and practices, whether they be ancient or contemporary (some yet to be rekindled/discovered/attained even), and we can adapt them to our own wild plants, landscapes, seasons, resources and requirements. Now, moving swiftly on to the main them...

Sea Kale

If you are lucky and live close to the sea, especially in striking distance of a shingle beach, then you may just find Sea Kale... As far as coastal edibles go, Sea Kale rocks: it's a true delight! Throughout the winter you will detect very little in the way of signs indicating if Sea Kale is present as it spends the winter tucked up, snugly, beneath the shingle awaiting the Spring. The first signs of life generally begin in early spring (in mild winters it may appear earlier), when the tiniest of shoots, wake from their wintry slumber and start to force their way up through the shingle and, as the season progresses, more and more shoots appear. The leaves, whether new or mature, come in an assortment of varied and magnificent colours (see image top right): greens, purples, reds, greys and lilacs. They are crinkly edged and become more open and rounded edged with age. Eventually, the flowering shoots appear on thick, tender, circular stalks and look remarkably similar to pu...

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