Foraged / Unusual food recipes

What about including not only gathering, but also growing that wild stuff yourself? I'm thinking Wildlife & Countryside Act, etc. and all those old recipes that needed a whole one gallon of (now) rare wild flower heads to make just one gallon of wine.

 

Advice taken on board

Will still be interested in reading what others will suggest for foraging/recipe ideas. Great Thread!

 

Luke,
My dad lives in nottm, is a total woodsman. He'd take me down the woods and we'd eat loads.
My little brother got in bother on a school trip for handing our berries to his class mates. The teachers panicked and took them all to A&E. They were all fine.
If you fancy a trip out with the hairy madman I'm sure he could show you a few things. He lives in bulwell.

Cheers
D

 

http://www.wildmanwildfood.com/

Just fixing the broken link for you there Marley.

Not seen that before, looks like a man after my own heart (or intestines for sausages)

"What is the most unusual thing you've ever seen in the forest?
That would have to have been about 10 years ago when I discovered an unconscious forager lying on the ground in the middle of the thickest bramble forested depths of nowhere, having almost just stabbed himself to death with his own knife! Unbelievably, this stupid shaven headed forager had taken it upon himself to carry out an impromptu experiment with an Amanita muscaria (Fly Agaric) mushroom. He had wanted to see if rubbing a small amount of the peeled red cap onto the back of his head would lead to any psychoactive compounds present being absorbed directly into his blood stream, and was curious to know if this would have an immediate influence upon perception. His insight: never ever to do such a stupid thing again! He collapsed immediately, almost falling on his own knife, and didn’t know whether or not he had lost consciousness for 2 seconds or 2 hours."

Now how come I ate a whole one & didn't stab meself, that not fairoops

 

most unusual thing ive ever seen in the forest was a man in his car wearing a latex suit and doing explicit things to himself

 

ok - has anyone eaten ground elder? I'm thinking of steaming some to go with our meal tonight. What does it taste like? Spinach? Cabbage? If we like the taste of it, it could be my most successful vegetable grown to date!! :DOH:

 

ground Elder update

OK, we had some steamed ground elder with our Ardennes smoked pork yesterday evening, so I thought I'd report back!

The recipe I found said steam the leaves for just one minute, to warm it, and then toss butter through it.

We like our veg "al dente", but I still steamed it for 2 mins, before taking off the water, and adding the butter.

The verdict:
if you are cooking the v young leaves (those that have still not un-furled), then this might be the way to cook them. But as soon as they have filled out to their "adult" shape, they would need about 5 mins steaming.

The taste:
the v young leaves were sweet and tender, a little like asparagus :-)
the rest tasted - well - how ground elder smells when you bruise it. A cross between spinach, and meadowsweet.

Would we have it again? Probably (esp if I can find enough of the young shoots) Definitely no stems of the "normal" leaves though...

 

Hi Sian,

I've tried it, was a bit tough and aniseedy, probably should have gone for the more tender bits like you say:DOH:

 

Tried to find an old thread about the remains of a Giant Puffball I found last year but couldn't. Came across this thread again though & thought i'd move it into our fishy forraging section

Anyway, been checking the spot for the past few weeks & finally found this



I know I mentioned it in an earlier thread, but had computer crashy problems so here is the pic.

 

good thread ....

here's something different .... it's called biltong (beef jerky)

you need to wait till it's cold and wait till the start of winter before making it

buy some steaks ... the best to use is ribeye steak and have them cut approx 1 inch thick ... 2nd best is rump (you need beef steaks with a bit of fat)

heat a pan on the stove and add some dried corriander seeds .... shake the pan for a short while on heat

crush the seeds with a pestle/mortar

get a pastry brush and brush modena balsamic vinegar on the raw steaks ...

season with course ground pepper, ground rock salt (or ground coarse) sea salt and the ground corriander

place the meat in a glass dish and place in the fridge for a day, but turn the meat occasionaly and brush with more vinegar

get an empty cardboard box and place a wire through the sides near the top so as to hang the steaks ....

place a paper clip (dont use copper, use the galvanised ones, or make little hooks with galv wire) through each piece of steak (near the top), and hang the meat on the wire in the box

get some lace curtain and cover the front open part of the cardboard box

leave the meat to hang .. takes a few days to mature .... if you want to speed up the process, place a fan in front of the box so as to blow air onto the meat ...

start enjoying from the 3rd day ... slice the meat in thin strips and enjoy with a good beer ..

after the 3rd day (if you use a fan) , the biltong will still be moist in the middle and perfect .... the longer it hangs, the dryer it becomes, but is just as good when very dry or moist

this biltong costs over £45 per kilo in the UK and is a south african favourite (all butchers in south africa have strips hanging in their shops)

the above recipe is the real deal .... some stuff here in the UK is sold as beef jerkey and is made in the USA ... if you read the label on the pack, they make it in a pressure cooker? .... does not even taste like biltong

I will be making my 1st batch in a month or so

 

The Really Wild Food Guide - ISBN 0 9544158 0 9 - Edible Wild Plant Foods

and this book:
Ray Mears Wild Food - Hardback, Books

 

Your biltong recipy is very very very interesting, *dim*, and I definitely will try it (although just with a small piece of meat to start with...)

 

I'd almost given up hope of finding any this year with the lack of rain here, but as there's been a couple of showers recently and I don't give up until the end of October I went for a walk to where they grow this afternoon and found two, one that was probably about 150mm dia but had been beaten with a stick by mindless morons, and this much smaller one I'll have for breakfast tomorrow with some scambled eggs:

 

It does not count if it is in a car.
Or arranged....