Mountain

Olives and more in Chefchaouan

Margaret Lear Status Appletree Places, Blogs, Dishes/Comestibles, Firewood, Fruit Press, Medicinal Uses, Mountain, Purposeful Plants, Spring, Wild Food
Chefchaouan

Chefchaouan

Yeah, its the blue town and full of tourists. And hash punters. My wee hostel was run by some  permanently stoned guys, what a waste! But what a pretty little souk of narrow blue painted alleyways, lovely at night. A wee boy put the finishing touch to a wallet I had made for me.

Leatherwork

Leatherwork

The market day drew in rows of Rifian men and women, here to sell a few cabbages and onions and buy their own shopping before returning. It’s a very hard and simple life for these people…other larger traders had oranges and apples, olives or spices. These palm shoots intrigued me.

Palm Shoots

Palm Shoots

One of the wee squares was piled up with firewood for the Hammam Public Baths, a pleasure I didn’t find time for on this occasion.

Market Day

Market Day

Hammam Baths

Hammam Baths

Heading down from Chef to Fez, I was struck by the oranges,  and beans and others cereals sown underneath the Olive groves. At lower altitudes, there were larger fields of cereals and co-operatives with a more commercial layout of large fields. Almost no hedges or fences exist in Morocco. The sheep are constantly herded to prevent straying; even the motorway verges are grazed between Fez and Rabat!

Long slow spring…..

Margaret Lear Broadleaved Woods, Cider & Ale, Flora, Fruit, Mountain, Seashore, Spring, Uncategorized, Vegetables, Wild Food & Wild Things Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Today heard the first cuckoo, in the woods fringing Glen Garr. Was with HNC Countryside Management atudents and the last time I dragged them for a walk we saw the first swallows down on the Tay Estuary – so I think the class are my lucky spring charms. They do seem to expect

Long time no blog – winter went on and on, nothing much to report and I realise I am about to repeat everything I wrote about last year if I don’t watch out. Will try to be selective….. the apple mountain finally petered out late February, with the blackbirds getting the last of them. Andrew borrowed the Carse of Gowrie cider press and the crucial crusher and made 11 gallons of cider and perry – we are still drinking it and mist of it is truly excellent. We have added to the fruit trees in our garden about 11 apples, 3 or 4 pears including the famous Perthshire Jargonelle, and a couple of plums and a damson. They are all leafing out nicely.

Have made wild garlic pesto and earwigging to Radio 4 and the like tells me the whole world is making stuff with wild garlic these days! It’s much in demand from customers too. Bistort, nettles, ground elder, comfrey and ladies mantle have all been et – both in and out of Dock Puddings, and Solomon’s Seal has produced its delectable shoots. Magnificent!

Have not found any St. George’s mushrooms yet. We found a red Peziza type fungus the other day – Scarlet Elf Cup – which we’d not seen before. Inedible but very pretty. Nearby we found a lizard out basking, which reminds me – on a student trip to the Rhinns of Galloway a morning walk at Portpatrick yielded a BEAUTIFUL adder by the path, fulmars and nesting ravens, and a stoat.

 Well, a new season dawns, and my “pet” early potatoes called Bonnie Dundee (but labelled Claverhouse out of badness) are coming up….

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).

July – Third Week

Margaret Lear Berries, Diary entries, Fruit, Fungi, Mountain, Pine Woods, Seashore, Seaweed Leave a comment

July – Third Week
Rowan and I were camping on Mull this week, at Fionnphort in the far south west of the island, right by the beach. We stopped at a wood on the way over to Oban for a picnic, and had a walk. “Bet I can find something to eat” I said, and lo, there were hordes of delicious blaeberries (bilberries) just asking to be picked. A German couple were already tucking in so we wasted no time in collecting a bag each to serve as snacks for our camping trip. We finished them the first night though – Rowan turned purple. “You can never have too much fruit Mum,” she frowned as I suggested she might want to slow down. Later in the week she repeated it as she foraged a hedge in Salen for wild raspberries. Also in the little wood I found some Orange Peel Fungus on the path – a flavourless but attractive ascomycete we saved for breakfast.

ENTEROMORPHA INTESTINALIS
Being by the beach, seaweed had to be on the menu. Enteromorpha is bright green, roughly cylindrical and looks like a pile of translucent, irridescent guts where it grows in profusion in rock pools and shallow sea. But don’t be put off – we had it stir-fried in butter with a single field mushroom we found in the hills and it was delicious.

Enteromorpha - an edible seaweed

Enteromorpha - an edible seaweed

I threw in some Serrated Wrack (Fucus ?) as well, but the meths ran out in the trangia and I think it could have done with longer cooking.

On Iona, we found some wonderful flowers on the machair, but the only wild food was Crowberry, with black berries, and I couldn’t remember if they were edible so we didn’t. Apparently, they are – this month I seem to be getting to grips with all these odd “something-berry” plants.

July 2008 – Week 2

Margaret Lear Autumn, Berries, Bog, Crumble, Jam, Mountain, Pudding, Summer Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

Andrew brought down from the Cairngorms some fruits of Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus), which we hadn’t seen before let alone tasted. They grow up in the boggy bits of mountains. They tasted a bit watery, but perhaps they weren’t really ripe.

Another month or two, they would have been soft and apparently juicy – at this stage they can be used in jams, puddings and crumbles. Maybe another time!

Cloudberry