Dishes/Comestibles

Cry God for Mushrooms, Scotland and St. George….

Margaret Lear Fungi, Pasture, Spring, Vegetables Tags: , , 1 Comment

… apologies to W. Shakespeare, Henry V part something. Andrew found a good harvest of St George’s Mushrooms (Tricholoma gambosum) at work on 27th April and judging from the size and age of them I think they must have emerged on the dot of 23rd April, St. George’s Day, for which they are of course named. They are white, meaty mushrooms, with a delicious smell, and because so few other fungi come up in spring, are unlikely to be mistaken for anything poisonous. I will add a photo to this post when I find it. They were growing in amenity grassland – and the next day one of A’s colleagues mowed them – what a shame! This is what I did with them:

St. Georges Mushroom and Cannelini Bean Savoury

2 leeks, finely sliced
As many St Georges Mushrooms, sliced as poss – we had a bit over a pound

Fry these in oil or margarine until tender, add seasoning and a few herbs if you like. Add a small tin of white beans eg cannelini, haricot or butter beans (3oz dried beans, soaked and cooked). Heat thoroughly and put in the bottom of a casserole dish. Warm some tinned or frozen tomatoes or fresh ones, sliced, in season, and put a layer of these over the top.

Grate some cheese and mix with fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs, sprinkle over the top and brown under the grill.

Nice with fresh greens.

More Dock Puddings and some wild onions

Margaret Lear Berries, Broadleaved Woods, Diary entries, Estuary/Wetlands, Flora, Hedgerow, Mountain, Pudding, Salad, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Vegetables, Wine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Oddly enough now I don’t have to drink herbal teas, I’m really enjoying some of them! Mints are growing  now, so lots of choices – chocolate, basil, apple, eau de cologne… or shall I just have peppermint? All taste so fresh, so green and lively. Mind you I am inundated with orders for mints that are really hard to keep up with given the slow start into growth – must be the herb of the year. Bistort is everywhere just now, and I’ve been making more traditional dock puddings, using oatmeal and a little chopped bacon with the variety of wild leaves around now.

River floodplains throw up some odd edible plants at times – in an old orchard next to the River Tay at its tidal extent Andrew found not only Ramsons (Allium ursinum), but also Three cornered leek (Allium triquetrum) and what we think was Field Garlic growing wild. They went into a salad to go with the first barbecue of the year last weekend. On a field trip with my countryside students this week, we enjoyed snacking on fresh lemony-sharp leaves of Wood Sorrel – a real appetite stimulant. We harvested a few juniper berries from the wild trees near Rumbling Bridge; they add a fantastic aroma and taste to game dishes. It was nice to note the pretty, bell-shaped flowers of the blaeberry or bilberry up in the hills, promising a harvest to come. Had another taste of bracken shoots, but I remain unconvinced. I don’t like the texture and the taste is woolly and bitter. Better wayside snacks are brand-new lime leaves, hawthorn shoots and the first broom buds, tasting of new pea pods, all available now.

Blackthorn, along with cherry blossom, seems to be very floriferous this year – I have noted where to go for sloes, but must find something other than gin to make with them, as we never seem to drink it all! Andrew’s explorations of relict orchards have identified potential pears in the autumn; we are looking forward to apple blossom time – just beginning here with our James Grieve wonder-tree against the shed.

Who else is back? HIRUNDO! the first swallows were spotted in Bankfoot on Sunday……. and an orange-tip butterfly…….. the ospreys are home, to and busy breeding…… St. G’eorges Day tomorrow – look out for St George’s Mushrooms! (and the dragons who got away).

Two Hours to Easter….

Margaret Lear Fauna, Flora, Vegetables, Wine Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

…but I’ll break my fast after the early morning service held up at little Glenshee, a point that geologically sits on the Highland Boudary Fault, and geographically on a ford at the start of the hills that mark the beginning of the Highland landscape. The last day has been every bit as trying as the rest;  yet taken on its own it would seem like a pretty good day’s eating: an omelette (hens eggs) with pak choi donated by Janet; 2 hard boiled eggs (ducks, just for variety!) for lunch plus a munch of some of the Bucks Horn Plantain, Chervil, Garlic Chives and Chives I was selling at the time (I was at Blairgowrie Market) washed down with a flask of luke warm herbal liquid, and for dinner a cross between a Spanish Tortilla and Scottish Stovies, made from fragments of venison recovered from boiling the deer bones from the banquet 6+ weeks ago and kept in the freezer, mashed rather small seed potatoes, half an ancient chilli, an onion from Andrew and parsley from the greenhouse – bound together with yet another egg. That was it, last challenge meal.

After market we went shopping. My children are cooking for me tomorrow and have all sorts planned (including some pizza at some point!), but I felt rather odd going round the supermarket with them. So many things no longer appealed and I certainly didn’t feel inclined to plan a binge. I am looking forward to the organic bread and hot cross buns I bought at market, and some yoghurt. Fresh mushrooms appeal, as do crisp apples (as opposed to shrivelled ones) and grapes.  Strong mugs of rooibos tea, with milk. Ah – and some real ale, and the Cairn O’Mohr Carse of Gowrie apple juice and cider that’s waiting for me in the cupboard. Nothing particularly exotic or fancy – simple foods and the choice of having them is what I crave most.

I shall be foraging for fun now, but intend to keep wild food as a large part of my diet; and go for local produce wherever I can. Where I can’t, fair trade. Can’t afford to be totally organic, but what we produce is organic enough and this year I’ll try to produce more of the foods that would get me through another fast in late winter/early spring – not that I’m intending to repeat the experiment!

Not sure how much money I’ve raised yet, but work has begun to get the gardens and orchard at Bankfoot Church off the ground, I’ve found new friends and feel it has been worthwhile. Changed my outlook on food for sure….. and there’s the small matter of rediscovering my waist and being a stone and a half lighter – an unexpected benefit! Chocolate eggs and freedom to eat notwithstanding, I don’t want to put it all back on, so some of the changes in my eating will be lasting ones.

But less eggs and a moratorium on herbal teas!

4 days to go!

Margaret Lear Fauna, Herbal Remedies, Salad, Uncategorized, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

OK, I’m now on antibiotics, which seem to have cleared up the cystitus, but the doctor didn’t think my surfeits of spinach and rhubarb were major culprits, neither does my herbalist friend Helga, so I am carrying on to the bitter end. I was never going to give up anyway, was I? However, Helga bids me stop eating comfrey as it contains chemicals that can damage the liver….. I’ve eaten rather a lot of it over the years and it’s recommended in several places, but looks like it might be one to be cautious about.

Anyway, I should manage without for the rest of Lent, because my friend Janet rescued me today from the tedium of four more days of potatoes, carrots and chicken (whether stir-fried, stewed, souped or raw, trust me, it gets tedious). She has a neighbour who loves fishing but doesn’t like fish and so gives away any catch – last weekend he had a successful trip and there was trout to spare! So we met up today in Glasgow Botanic Gardens and ate a picnic of delicious trout and weed/rocket salad in the Kibble Palace. We sat by a large flourishing plant of Caprobotus edulis, the Hottentot Fig, with its succulent edible leaves looking very tempting. But I was very good and the plant is intact. I do have it in the nursery anyway if I need some – but theirs was glossier and fatter! Brought home a large trout for the rest of the week and a big bag of kale, pak choi and celery from Janet’s polytunnel. I am really on the dregs of the carrots and tatties now; they are taking longer and longer to prepare enough decent bits, so fresh greens are a great help. I swapped them for some plants – Tree Spinach and Tree Cabbage.

I am now completely out of apples, and hazelnuts – no more snacks.

Now I’m getting to the end of the challenge I am thinking where I go from here. It has not been impossible to survive the fast, but where would I have been without Ian’s potatoes and apples, James’s pheasants and carrots, Andrew’s onions and Janet’s contribution today? Clearly I am far from self-sufficient on my own! though its true to say had I planned it, I would have had more of the right stores. It’s also clear that within a community a good deal of potential exists for self-sufficiency if we can learn to share or trade. More and more I am convinced by the need to develop community thinking in food provision. And it is a way of thinking that seems to be catching like wildfire.

I am struck that it isn’t the lack of food that has made this hard, but the lack of choices. I realise that in former times, this dietary monotony was the norm for common people – and how much more feast days and celebrations must have meant to people. They really knew a treat when they got one, and doubtless appreciated it. I have remembered how to appreciate treats, good food, special things, myself; and I don’t want to lose that appreciation by going back to “having anything I want any time I want” from the glittering displays in supermarkets. I know throughout the world there are many millions of people who NEVER have food choices, and I have realised a bit what it must mean to live like that, often in real hunger, not the slightly panicky peckishness I’ve had to put up with from time to time.

I know I will never take food, and the choice of food, for granted again.

Dock Pudding – a potato recipe

Margaret Lear Diary entries, Estuary/Wetlands, Flora, Fritters, Spring, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Here is a recipe I used the other day for a Dock Pudding using mashed potato instead of oatmeal or barley. Oatmeal’s better, but I can’t have it at the moment because of the beeping Lent challenge, oddly enough I never grew a field of oats last year, perhaps I should try this year in case I ever have a silly idea like this again. The “docks” in question are, of course, Bistort (Polygonum bistorta).

15 Bistort leaves
8 comfrey leaves (should have been stinging nettle tops but the ducks have been grazing them)
6 Ladies Mantle leaves (Alchemilla xanthoclora)
6 ground elder leaves
1 chopped leek

Wash and cook all the above together like spinach. Drain, chop and add to mashed potato (think I had about 4 medium tatties). Beat in one egg, and seasoning to taste. Press into a pudding basin and place in a pan of water; simmer for about 25 minutes. (think you could also microwave it, but haven’t tried). Loosen in bowl and invert onto a plate. Garnish with primrose flowers or broom buds (or anything else edible I guess). It’s really nice, even if not oatmeal based.

I’m still feeling rough. Muttered to friend Janet about the odd cystitus symptoms which seem to be getting worse. “Have you been eating too much spinach” she asked. Ummmm….. yes….. It turns out spinach, rhubarb and probably most of the greens I’ve been living on cause a build up of oxalic acid, which CAN cause crystals in the bladder, which can cause infections….. looks like something I have to be careful of, if its not too late… going to see the doctor tomorrow. If I can’t eat greens, it’ll get even more boring.In the interests of my kidneys, I’ve drunk 6 pints of water today, think I actually prefer it to herbal teas!

Anyway, feasted on Solomon’s Seal shoots tonight; they’re bound to be bad for you because they are DELICIOUS. My son who’s a great cook, is home from Uni, which makes me wistful for one of his curries and envious of his dinners ( to be honest, I rarely envy my partner his meals, rice pudding straight from the tin does nothing for me!).

Reed Mace by the Tay EstuaryTried something new in the wild food line – came upon reed mace (Typha angustifolia) by the Tay and extracted some young shoots. They were nice – a bit like asparagus, but tough outer layer needs to be removed. I think I’ll collect some more when they are taller, should get more for the effort. Typha’s an invasive, suckering plant, so no risk to wild population from taking a few shoots. Apparently the root is edible too (and indeed the flowers and even the pollen later), but roots looked a bit fibrous to me.

We’ve set dates for our Plants with Purpose Wild Food Rambles and workshop this week; you can get the details from http://www.plantswithpurpose.co.uk, or you will be able to once I’ve updated the webpage.

Oh yes – first goose egg tortilla tonight…..

Ullapool – and Beyond

Margaret Lear Salad, Seaweed Tags: , , , , , 1 Comment

Just back from student field trip to Ullapool. Hotel very accommodating about microwaving my peculiar dishes, and very amused by whole thing. Took enough food, just, but the chef managed to incinerate my last potato which was for on the way home. Never mind! On the shore and various beaches, I saw lots of edible seaweed – bladder wrack and kelp most noticeably – and would have liked to collect some, but decided that would be one thing too far for the hotel. No shellfish, though.

I got really p***ed off with watching people eat interesting soups and chocolate cakes and lamb chops; and smelling other people’s coffee or beer (strangely enjoyable, but not quite the same as drinking it!). The students were all very supportive – even to the point of offering me bits of the plants they’d bought to make tea with! At Inverewe Gardens, in the cause of education, was obliged to break off some leaves of various herbs to demonstrate the smells…. and pocket them for tea or (in the case of the chives) to munch with my cold potato and hard boiled egg. Some delicious curly kale came away in my hand as well – good with the chicken and chilli casserole I’d brought for the evening meal.

Talking of eggs, I think the surfeit is giving me what my mum used to call egg – binding. The digestion is bizarre and sporadic, and I don’t feel too well, to be honest. Think I have a touch of cystitus and wonder if the excretory system is under some stress. Drinking plenty, but it’s so BORING….

And the ducks are laying eggs as well now. New food from the garden: Solomon’s Seal shoots, tastier and more tender than asparagus and a real treat, and lashings of salad stuff. Baby lettuce leaf seedlings nearly ready to cut, and I’ve started the chrysanthemum greens. Only two weeks to go, despite the still cold weather I’m not going to starve, but what wouldn’t I give for a pie…

Losing It.

Margaret Lear Bog, Flora, Hedgerow, Herbal Remedies, Pudding, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

This week I’ve been increasingly bored with what I’m eating, and failing to do much about it. High point was James next door discovering a row of parsnips he’d forgotten about and didn’t want; lovely roasted with pheasant on Sunday, but then it was on to another week of variants on stew which all tasted the same. On Thursday I even forgot to take the food flask to work, so went from 7am to 6pm on a boiled egg and some REALLY boring yarrow tea. My students offered me various Pot Noodles and Crisp Rolls but I resisted; even the cake, with which one student insisted on rewarding me  in shock at passing an assessment, I passed on to a colleague whose birthday it was. By the time I crawled home, I considered myself crazy to be doing this.

And then I ate a baked potato and a poached egg and was full, and couldn’t be bothered to eat or prepare anything else. Not surprisingly, I am losing weight. I need a belt to keep my trousers up. What’s helping me lose weight? Not avoiding carbohydrate (as a one-time (briefly) Atkins diet veteran, I couldn’t go through that again). I am eating less carbohydrate – and what I am eating is mostly the starchy kind. But then I’m eating less of everything. No dairy produce – apart from the small quantity of home made cheese I’ve now discarded (partly suspicion it didn’t smell so good, partly because I dropped it in the washing up water).

Anyway – crossly I chopped up skinny leeks and bits of vegetables and herbs, pushing aside  packets of biscuits left out to annoy me and odd bunches of dried chillies…… hang on. How could I have forgotten? I GREW THOSE CHILLIES – AND DRIED THEM IN 2007! So I could use them! Why hadn’t I thought of that before? Chopped and chucked one into the stew – would it still have any power? It did! Oh joy, a change in flavours….. and I had the first of my forced rhubarb for pudding; so tender and sweet I had only to add a touch of redcurrant jelly to make it palateable.

Sweeteners – honey and sycamore syrup – are getting low, it’s a good thing I am getting used to sharper tastes. Wild greens are forming a larger part of my diet. Orpine (Sedum telephium), a native succulent with fleshy, crunchy leaves, is available, nice in salads and I’ve added it to stew as well. Nettles are appearing, and I’ve seen the first Bistort coming up, so will try a variant on Dock Pudding soon. Comfrey and ground elder remain mainstays – going in everything. Wild garlic and Welsh Onions and Three-cornered leeks are lined up to replace garden leeks of which I have only 4 left. No hardship in wild greens – they have always been one of my favourite foods. I like their strong, pronounced flavours and the freshness after months of root veg.

I also noticed Meadowsweet (Filipendula ulmaria) coming up – a beautiful white flowered native found in dampt meadows andboggy ground. It contains salicylic acid, and aspirin was first synthesised from it. I made some meadowsweet tea forthwith, it is a quite distinct flavour, can cure a headache (not that I had one) and as welcome a change drinks wise as peppermint was last week.. I am now past the half-way point to Easter Sunday, a challenge coming up next week when I go off to Ullapool for a 3 day student trip, if I get through that I’ll be on the downhill stretch.

The “Humble” Potato and Respite from Spinach

Margaret Lear Flora, Fritters, Fruit, Hedgerow, Nuts, Salad, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Ian from the church (who has previously cheered my dietary life with a bag of apples) has given me a big bag of potatoes from his farm! Suddenly I don’t have to eke out tatties for the rest of Lent – I have plenty. This is reassuring, and potatoes aren’t known as versatile for nothing. Having an abundance of them and very co-operative hens just now, I made a pile of savoury potato bubble and squeak “pancakes” – mashed potatoes, combined with beaten eggs, herbs, seasoning, onion and assorted greens, and fried. Very tasty – as a meal, accompaniment to breakfast, or a snack. Cottage pies of various  types come to mind – had I enough fat left I could even make crisps (but then I’m forgetting I don’t actually like crisps).

Things running out:
All freezer vegetables
home made soft cheese
hazelnuts
Fresh onions and leeks (beetroot and celeriac already gone)
Venison fat

Things still plentiful:
Meat (alive or otherwise)
Frozen soft fruit
Donated apples and potatoes
Herbs, dried and fresh

New foods appearing:
Comfrey, Ground Elder and other weeds for greens
Orpine, wild garlic and other wild plants for salads
MINT!!!!  and other aromatic plants at last for teas – which have suddenly become more palateable

The now rapid growth of spring greens (even seedling brassicas that I’ve sown are coming on now) means that I can have a rest from spinach. There’s still some in the freezer, but not much else veg wise, so I’m ekeing it out. With four weeks to go, I am nearly half way through Lent, and I think my body has now adjusted to the change in diet. My thinking has changed a lot – no longer panicking about what I am going to eat, no longer really thinking about it very much either. Sometimes I manage to make something really enjoyable like the potato pancakes, sometimes I think “oh no not another egg”, but I’m not craving other people’s food all the time now. I just know I can’t have it and so long as I’m not hungry Im not bothered. This is a new experience for me!

I realised I am still eating apples in mid-March from last autumn’s harvest, and enjoying them. OK so they have to be peeled and are a bit wizened and spotty – but perfectly edible. Normally I’d have fed any apples still hanging around by now to the hens. Now I value them and will be looking for varieties to grow that are good keepers.

Confess your sins Margaret. I nearly slipped today – the other half asked me to test his rice to see if it was ready and it got right to my mouth before I realised what I was doing. And then I needed to fry a potato pancake to go with my vegetable stew, and as the venison fat is running low, I decided it was both practical and allowable to fry it in the pan in which HE has just cooked a chop….. well it saved some fat, but the pancake did taste faintly and delightfully of pork…..

Live to eat, or eat to live?

Margaret Lear Fauna, Nuts, Pickle, Salad, Soup, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Tree Sap, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

I just realised I am now eating to live. And predominantly in our society we live to eat. Which I don’t have a problem about. I like food and enjoy experimenting, savouring and sharing the experience of good food.

However, now that food is more than a bit repetitive, has to be eked out and includes no real treats, I’m becoming aware how much more than physical sustenance food has always been in my head – comfort, reward, healing, social interaction, social belonging, reassurance, substitute – to name but a few! When you think that most people in the world have no choice but to eat purely to live, and don’t have the choices in what they eat that I have even during this fast – well, you have to wonder. Someone sent a comment advertising a weight loss programme – do you know what I’m thinking, it’s no wonder so many of us need to lose weight when we are using food to do so many jobs for us! What do you think?

I did have a lovely salad yesterday – the last half beetroot, half a potato and an apple, with pickled ash keys, roasted hazelnuts and a variety of weed leaves, garnished with Calendula  (marigold) petals (I’ve had some flowering away in the greenhouse all winter). Some nice garlic mustard coming up on the edge of the car park at Perth College, which went in. Back to chicken and spinach for dinner!

Second batch of curd cheese much better than the first; but the sap has stopped rising in the sycamore because its uncompromisingly cold still. Negotiating with one of my students who’s a keen fisherman for a fish in return for the ruff feather from a cockerel (for fly-tying). Starting to hate herbal teas with a vengeance! TINY little shoots appearing on my white peppermint – hurry up! it might not be rooibos, but I can live with it…

Predominantly spinch soup for lunch. Hmmm. Well it was OK for Popeye.

Spring Greens – and Winter Returns!

Margaret Lear Flora, Hedgerow, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Vegetables Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It has been icy today – a freezing wind, with snow and sleet. The sycamore is refusing to draw up any sap at present and I don’t blame it. But because I am worried about running out of frozen veg (that’s all the beans gone, most of the courgettes too) I decided it had to be wild spring greens today.

I dredged the largest of the little shoots of comfrey out from under the hedge and laboriously picked tiny leaves of ground elder wherever they were to be found (this covers most of my garden actually, but the best bits are round the compost heap!). Still noy enough, so I added several young dock leaves. I’ve stood up in front of numerous SWRIs (Scottish Womens Rural Institute) and stated that dock is edible at a pinch, but this was the first time I’d tried it. I boiled them all quickly together and had them with a slow-roasted cock (au vin, elderflower to be precise) for dinner. Last night’s dinner was adventurous too – eggs florentine, topped with my home-made curd cheese. Stomach must be shrinking – I couldn’t manage it all and had some for breakfast this morning.

Not much else to report – still bored to racking sobs with every “herbal” or weed tea I try; I went for gold with an infusion of dried apple and lemon balm, a favourite garden herb that smells overpoweringly of lemons and can be used in cake-making (when one is allowed flour) and let’s say it DID taste of something, but I woke early this morning from a glorious dream of REAL TEA with milk…… ah well less than 5 weeks to go now……

Andrew returned from the sunny south today and was delighted to find the peach coming into leaf and the apricot in flower bud – this is unexpected good news as he told me he wasn’t going to let it fruit for another century (or something). And I love apricots almost as much as I love tea. He didn’t bring me any wild food from Devon or any filched vegetables from his brother’s garden (difficult on a megabus anyway) but did bring me some Somerset apple juice and a couple of sponsors (Thanks Di and Betty!)