Edible Leeds - Wild Food Foraging Courses and 4 Wild Seasons Pop Up Dining Events

I have very fond memories of gathering Dandelion leaves as a child in order to feed them to my pet rabbits, of picking the full flowers and racing around the local park, arms outstretched, imagining myself an airplane and using my thumbs to flick the flowerhead missiles clasped tightly in my hands. I remember picking the furry looking, globe-shaped seed heads, taking a deep breath and then exhaling fiercely in an attempt to magically synchronise the number of exhales with the time of day and of peeling the hollow stems, to see how many thin strips I could reduce it to while occasionally touching the very tip of my tongue to the white sap and then recoiling in humour-fuelled-horror at the extremely bitter flavour: happy days! I hope those of you reading this remember your early memories with dandelion?   As I grew older, my attention turned to more pressing, age-related activities, mischief and social norms and I slowly began to forget those days of simple, innocent play and wo...

Japanese Quince is one of my autumn favourites and one I make a beeline for every year. You can read more about these delightfully scented,  mouth-puckering and fabulously versatile little fruits here:  https://edible-leeds.blogspot.com/2017/11/quince-quince-glorious-quince.html   Japanese Quince Jelly   This beautifully sharp, sweet and dreamily aromatic jelly is one of the creations that go into my JQ Knickerbocker Glory, it also works well spread on to warm toast or served alongside game meats, particularly wildfowl and is great added to sauces to provide an edge of acidity, sweetness and aromatic attitude. There are many other applications for this jelly, so get busy gathering, creating and playing... 1kg Japanese Quince 750g Golden Granulated Sugar Water Wash the fruits to remove any dirt and then place them whole in a large pan. Add water to cover, (approximately 800ml) and bring to the boil, once boiling, reduce heat and simmer until all the fruits split. Po...

Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat... I'm not having goose for Yule, among various things me and my guests will  be eating... Potted Pheasant 500g Pheasant Meat - Breast & Upper Thigh  150g Streaky Bacon 1 Onion 4 Garlic Cloves 500ml Crab Apple Wine or Medium Cider 500ml Game Stock 50g Wild Duck Fat or Goose Fat 4 Sprigs of Thyme 5 Points of Star Anise 30 Peppeercorns 1/2 Tsp Ground Mace 1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves 4 Bay Leaves Sea Salt Preheat oven to 120 degrees C. Finely chop the onion, grate the garlic and put into a pan with the wine, stock, sprigs of thyme & two bay leaves. Bring to boil and boil hard for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and leave to cool. Remove skin from pheasant and chop meat into very small pieces, do the same with the bacon and combine the two meats together in a bowl.  Using a pestle & mortar, grind the star anise & peppercorns. Add the ground mace, clove & 1/2 a tsp of sea salt, m...

My first encounter with Japanese Quince was as a child. There was a particular house, with a low-down brick wall bordering its garden and each year it would produce these small green fruits (as you will soon learn, I never actually saw them ripen!), I thought they were a strange species of lime and they were great for random acts of  mischief;  if only I'd known and if only I'd cared! Japanese Quince - Chaenomeles japonica - are one of several species of ornamental quince in the family, Rosaceae. They're much smaller than the pear shaped quince - Cydonia oblonga - that  grow on trees.   They're generally found randomly tucked away in suburban gardens or as border and screen plantings in and around municipal buildings and their grounds; though not solely and exclusively at these aforementioned locations. Regardless of where they reside, providing there is no risk of contamination, to stumble upon a decent crop of ripe n ready quince, is in my opinion an absolute...