Here’s how to get started on finding delicious food in the wild places all around us…
WORDS: LAURA MENENDEZ IMAGES: SHUTTERSTOCK
Walking in the woods between now and April, you may notice a strong garlic smell around you. Maybe you even picked the wild garlic emitting it and cooked with it.
Like the tasty wild garlic – the leaves are delicious in salads – our surroundings are full of other offerings that are not only edible but full of important nutrients.
Interest in foraging has grown exponentially in recent years, but the practice is as old as human nature. In fact, before imported foods came into society, our ancestors based their diet on what was available throughout the seasons.
Despite this natural disposition, foraging still requires sharp identifying skills and patience. There is an abundance of wild native species out there that are good for us, but others could be harmful or even deadly.
Jemima Hall is a Glasgow-based artist, forager and educator in ancestral skills. She runs foraging walks in Scotland and sees foraging as a way of connecting to the nature that surrounds us.
Jemima’s foraging journey started picking berries to make jam when she was younger. Years later, while walking through areas well-known to her, she realised that she didn’t know the names or uses of any of the plants she was surrounded by.
Eventually she signed up to a foraging course.
“It was four hours long and she [the instructor] taught in complete silence,” Jemima says. “It might sound weird, but that made us pay close attention to the nature around us.
No one was chatting so we were all concentrated on shape, colour and texture.”
This sharp focus is something which Jemima took on as she progressed to foraging by herself.
“When I started foraging, I could barely recognise any plants, but I started closely observing the plants I came across,” she explains.
“I asked myself, what’s the bark like, what’s the shape of the leaf like? I took them home and found information in books and online.”
Ultimately, foraging for wild foods is not like shopping in a supermarket and without taking the right care, there could be serious consequences.
This is why, as she did herself at the start, Jemima recommends that anyone looking to get into foraging should start by paying close attention to what plants are around them.
Go on
