Cooking outdoors over fire makes food taste amazing, boosts wellbeing and connects you to nature. Helen Renshaw looks at the wild cooking trend sweeping the nation
Close your eyes and imagine the scene. A hidden cove at sunset or a forest glade on a summer’s night, the warm air replete with delicious, smoky aromas of food cooked over an open fire. You lay on your back and gaze at the sky where you spot a meteor shower – nature has laid on a spectacular display, stamping the moment as a memory. Feeling tranquil yet?
If so, give thanks to Chris Bax, a man with the passion of a chef, skills of a boy scout and aura of being entirely at peace with life. The moment we just shared is borrowed from his memory bank of magical wild cooking experiences, and he’s committed to sharing fire-cooked feasts deep in nature to deliver a sense of enormous wellbeing.
Chris and his wife Rose run ‘Taste the Wild’, where they teach the gentle arts of foraging and wild cooking from their Yorkshire home (tastethewild.co.uk). ‘Wild cooking feeds my soul as much as my belly,’ says Chris. ‘It harks back to something deep within us and connects us to nature. Each season, the sights, sounds, tastes and smells are completely different.
‘In summer we see wildlife – deer, rabbits, stoat – and hear sounds of bees buzzing, a cacophony of birdsong. The tastes and smells are crisp and fresh. One August night we’d eaten a feast of fish nailed to boards, air-cooked by the fire and flavoured with foraged herbs, when suddenly the sky was filled with streaks of light – the Perseid meteor shower. It was like our own after-dinner fireworks display.
‘Every season is exciting in a different way – in spring there’s wild garlic, fresh young leaves and a sense of nature bursting into life. In autumn, gorgeous colours and the earthy taste of amazing wild mushrooms. But many of my favourite memories are of open fires in deepest winter.
‘Last Christmas was particularly special. We gathered with friends we hadn’t seen for a long time because of the pandemic. It was a cold, clear day; our breath hung in the air. We were completely surrounded by trees, and all we could hear was the crackling of the fire and occasional rustle of deer moving through the woods. We cooked up a rib of beef, Carabinero prawns charred on the fire, charred and caramelised vegetables, smoky tomato salsa.
‘We talked and shared stories. Sometimes we fell quiet and experienced a profound stillness. When you eat together around a table, a pause in conversation feels awkward. Around a fire it’s a different experience. The fire becomes the focus, the need to talk falls away. Everything together – the elements, the fire, the food, people you love – it’s all part of the package.’
FOODIE PHENOMENON
There’s something about wild cooking that unleashes our inner cave-dweller like noth
