Wickedly Wild Strawberries

July 9, 2009December 27, 2013Margaret Lear Berries, Cordial, Dishes/Comestibles, Fruit, Hedgerow, Jam, Pudding, Smoothies, Summer, Vegetables, Wild Food & Wild Things Tags: alpines, bilberries, Bistort, blaeberries, burdock, Cordial, elderflower champagne, elderflowers, Fragaria vesca, muffins, rock gardens, Smoothies, variegated ground elder, whortleberries, wild strawberries Leave a comment

With so much fresh food coming out of the vegetable and fruit garden just now, there’s hardly time, let alone need, to forage for anything wild. It’s been hot and dry, so I’m not expecting much in the way of more fungi, but this week we’ve had a couple of downpours, so I must go and check out the woods soon.

I don’t have to wander far for one wild food mainstay, the wild strawberry, which starts in June and continues right through to the autumn. Andrew had one plant – one! – in his latest abortive attempt at a rock garden by the front door and from there it has smothered the alpines, flowed freely along the cracks in the paving, inserted itself at the base of the wall and marched off down the path towards the gate.

(I digress, but, much as we love alpine plants and admire them, people like us shouldn’t be allowed to own them. Any plant so lacking in thuggish attributes doesn’t stand a prayer in our garden, given our predilection for rampant weeds like variegated ground elder and croppable monsters like Burdock and Bistort. And after all, there are some excellent botanic gardens and plant collections around here where we can visit happy alpines that are cared for as they deserve.)

So the wild strawberries hold sway, and we share them with a number of birds, for there are enough for us all. (Although I have to say the sheer greed of our resident blackbird is awe-inspiring. He pigs so many of our raspberries and blackcurrants sometimes he is seriously challenged when it comes to flying off and just squats still all day in a feathery-bothered heap under the bushes.) I sprinkle them liberally over my breakfast cereal, make wild strawberry smoothies, muffins and any number of desserts. Gathering enough for a decent batch of jam or wine would be possible, but so far I haven’t had the patience! The fruits are small, but packed with flavour. We’re also gathering wild bilberries, or blaeberries, now – these are incomparable, messy and tasy, and make excellent jam. Maybe I’ll try a mix of the two.

I gathered the last of the elderflowers today and made another batch of cordial. Maybe it’s the recession making me act like there’s rationing and making me horde food, but, well, we gave one bottle of cordial away and there are only two more in the freezer…. Three weeks till the elderflower champagne is ready – I’m looking forward to that!

First Fungi appear!

June 25, 2009Margaret Lear Broadleaved Woods, Cordial, Flora, Fungi, Hedgerow, Pickle, Summer Tags: ash key pickle, Bonnie Dundee, carrots, chanterelles, chicken-of-the-woods, Claverhouse, dryads saddle, elderflower cordial, Fungi, Jacobites, Killiecrankie, polyporus squamosus, polyporus sulphureus, potatoes, self-sufficiency, spinach, sulphur polypore 2 Comments

Alternating heavy rain and warm sunny days have prodded the first fungi of the season into appearing. We have a pretty ring of nondescript brown mushrooms on the lawn, but I don’t eat nondescript, because of the risk of misidentification. No such risk with the Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) which has appeared very conveniently on the end of a log I’m using to edge the soft fruit plot. This large bracket fungus with its distinctive beige scaly top and white flesh is very good when young, meaty and substantial. We had it for breakfast; being greedy I didn’t want to waste the stem part but that was a mistake, as it’s far too tough and chewy to bother with. I’m hoping this tree fungus will continue to crop through the summer.

Dryad's Saddle

Another edible tree fungus I found last week was Sulphur Polypore (aka Chicken of the Woods), in Latin Polyporus sulphureus. I found it in the woods at Killiecrankie-oh, when my mind was more on the Jacobite trail of John Graham of Claverhouse, Bonne Dundee, than wild food. It was just starting to grow, was beautiful, and of course, I didn’t remove it. That would NOT have been sustainable foraging! But I clocked its location for future reference…

And this weekend we came upon – and ate – our first chanterelles of the year, near Dunkeld. They were at a very young stage, but plentiful and delicious. I am still using last year’s dried chanterelles and Boletus, so that’s availability 12 months of the year. Just like my spinach beet. If I could live on fungi and spinach, I’d never have to go near another shop! Well, let’s be honest, I probably could, but having gone through the Lent thing, I’m glad I can find and/or grow plenty of other things too! The Lent challenge has left me with distinct squirrel tendencies…. I am worrying myself silly that I’m growing enough beans and peas for drying, have tucked two big bottles of elderflower cordial in the freezer already for winter use, and have potatoes growing everywhere, including the compost heap. It’s a bad year for carrots though, and also we’ve noted it’s an off-year for the ash trees of Perthshire. Normally I’d have made ash-key pickle by now, but there are none…..

July 2008 – Week 1

December 22, 2008Margaret Lear Broadleaved Woods, Cordial, Firewood, Fritters, Fungi, Hedgerow, Jam, Salad, Smoothies, Summer Tags: Birnam Wood, foraging, hunter gathering, plants with purpose Leave a comment

Discovered the first Tawny Grisettes (Amanita fulva) in a local wood – rather dry and battered but fingers crossed for rain and more. It dropped spores on the kitchen counter overnight but didn’t get et. Andrew reports Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella) now a bit tough, but still lemony-sharp. Elderflowers have been picked and processed into wine, cordial and fritters so far. Gooseberry and elderflower jam in process of being made. Dryad’s Saddle (Polyporus squamosus) growing high up on the Birnam Oak – the last of the trees of Birnam Wood that DIDN’T make it to Dunsinane. Jack-by-the-Hedge leaves still good in salads (Alliara petiolaris). Wild strawberries mixed with garden raspberries and blended with home-made blackcurrant cordial make the most astounding smoothies. Tried some Brooklime (Veronica beccabunga) in salad – alright I suppose if you like a bitter taste. Gathered firewood from fallen branches.

Tawny Grisette