Birdseed Bonanza

February 3, 2013December 27, 2013Margaret Lear Autumn, Fauna, Garden, Wild Food & Wild Things, Winter Tags: birds, birdseed, finches, garden, Good King Henry, hemp agrimony, milkthistle, sparrows, spinach, thistle, wild birds, yellow hammers Leave a comment

Goldfinches came to the garden this morning and dithered for ages in front of the window industriously gathering seed from the dead heads of meadowsweet. I was so glad I had not cut them back yet. Nature does not share our compulsion to order and tidiness, so seed-eaters such as finches, buntings and sparrows thrive in neglected gardens like mine. They really appreciate it when we are slow to tidy up and good seed-bearing plants tower gaunt and brown into the winter!

Apart from meadowsweet, I have found goldfinches to be particularly fond of the dead but still fragrant heads of wild oregano, and the copious, fluffy seeds on Hemp Agrimony. This is a tall, stately native plant with big, brush-like heads of purple flowers in late summer and autumn. It likes to grow in damp places but does well in most garden soils. The flowers are much visited by bees and butterflies, making it excellent value for wildlife gardening.

Milk Thistle

Most of the thistle family provide good birdseed once the flowers have faded. Here you will note a conflict of interests – the last thing a gardener needs is weed thistles running to seed in the hope the birds will enjoy them, because for every fattened bird there will be a hundred new thistles choking up your border next spring! However, there are several attractive, non-invasive thistles you can happily allow to run their course – the low growing Carline Thistle, the towering Scots or Cotton Thistle (Onopordon acanthium), or the variegated Milk Thistle for example. Spectacular Cardoons or Globe Artichokes have massive thistly heads which look great even when gone over and will bring in goldfinches and chaffinches. Of course, you might have eaten the globe artichokes yourself, but it’s worth leaving some to feed the birds as well as enjoy the sight of the lovely purple flowers! Globe Thistles are related, but bear spherical heads in blue or white that bees and hoverflies love, and provide substantial seeds when they ripen.

Sparrows, linnets and yellowhammers all enjoy seeds from grasses and cereals, and there are many attractive varieties, from the delicate Golden Millet to the chunky Pampas Grass, which will meet their needs. Seeds from the edible members of the goosefoot, or spinach family are always appreciated – such as Good King Henry, Red Orache and spinach beet that has bolted.

Finally, if you have ever bought wild bird seed you will know that sunflower seed is a big favourite. As the big flowers bend over and the petals fade, don’t bin them! Let the seed gradually ripen for the birds to find. I must admit that I kept banging my head on mine, though, as they keeled over at 45 degrees – a neat and tidy answer was to cut off the heads and hang them to dry from the shed roof, where I expect the Bankfoot Sparrow Gang will eventually decimate them!

Birds and Berries

November 6, 2012December 27, 2013Margaret Lear Autumn, Berries, Broadleaved Woods, Fauna, Flora, Medicinal Uses, Wild Food & Wild Things Tags: berries, Bird, birds, bullfinch, crab apple, crab apples, cramp bark, elderberries, nature, plants, plum, plum blossom, robin, starlings Leave a comment

We have a liberal attitude to kleptomaniac birds. We are quite happy to share the abundance of our raspberry crop with the needy families of warring blackbirds in the hedge, and don’t begrudge the bullfinches a little bit of plum blossom (mind you, they were pushing it last year.). I don’t object to them taking every reachable holly berry from our tree, because I am happy to trek a mile or so to a far more prolific bearer for my Christmas decorations. The walk is good for me. Honestly. With much of northern Perthshire currently in the grip of permafrost, it’s comforting to lurk behind festive windows and watch the resourceful birds make the most of the berries they can find in the garden. In Autumn, blackbirds and robins cheerfully hacked away at the crab apples, but these are long gone. Rowan berries last a bit longer, and if you have a pink or white berried Rowan (Sorbus hupehensis or cashmeriana are the species to look for) the birds may leave some till winter ends. If your tree is prolific, grab your own share for delicious rowan jelly to go with Christmas dinner or game; and a decent country wine can be had from them as well. Added to which, of course, a rowan tree in your garden will provide protection against evil spirits! (Turning off the TV has a similar effect). We have a Guelder Rose (Viburnum opulus) in the garden. It’s not a rose of course, but a small tree or shrub also known as Cramp-bark. You will not be surprised to hear that its bark was used to appease stomach cramps, among other things. The berries, which follow the creamy flowers, are a beautiful translucent red and are borne in such abundance, some are on the tree still, despite being raided by finches, starlings, robins and the Bankfoot United Sparrow Thugs (currently running in a gang with chaffinches and siskins it seems). If the birds can spare any, Cramp-bark berries may be used in tarts and sauces (but are indigestible to us unless cooked and sweetened), and may ward off scurvy should your Christmas diet have been short on Brussels sprouts! Between us, the birds and I have polished off the elderberries long since, but it’s a shrub I would highly recommend for wildlife if you have room. In fact I am not sure how anyone can manage without it – aside from its many household uses (dyeing, firewood, cosmetics, wood stains, charming warts and so on…..), 70 illnesses were recorded in 1666 by Martin Blockwitch in his “Anatomie of the Elder” against which this much maligned “weed” is effective! Of the more “gardeny” shrubs, Pyracanthas, Berberis and most cotoneasters will still have fruit on to feed hungry birds – and, of course, nectar for bees when the flowers come again. Which they will.

Orkney, Oysters and Oysterplant

July 27, 2009December 27, 2013Margaret Lear Dishes/Comestibles, Fauna, Flora, Pasture, Seashore, Seaweed, Summer, Vegetables, Wild Food & Wild Things Tags: bannocks, bere-barley, bladder wrack, Eday, edible seaweed, enteromorpha intestinalis, gutweed, kelp, Kirkwall, Laminaria, Ligusticum scoticum, mertensia, minke whale, Orkney, oysterplant, Primula scotica, red-throated diver, rose root, scots lovage, Scottish Primrose, sea lettuce, sedum roseum, serrated wrack, skuas, sugarweed, Yesnaby 1 Comment

We had a ridiculously wonderful week’s holiday in Orkney. Expecting windswept, wet and cold marginal land where nothing grows, but instead found fertile, weather-rich (every kind in a day) and unique countryside, wrapped in glittering sea and sky, nice cheese, good beer, bere-barley bannocks, and Andrew, bless him, even found an apple tree with apples on within minutes of getting off the ferry (reported, doubtless with pictures, on his website www.appletreeman.co.uk) . There were plenty of seaweeds to choose from – bladder wrack, serrated wrack, sea lettuce, kelp (Laminaria digitata), sugarweed (Laminaria saccharina) and gutweed (Enteromorpha intestinalis) for starters! Most seaweeds are cookable when camping, even with our primitive trangia, because all they need is a wash and a rapid stir-fry. I do find the filmy ones easier, though, because you don’t need to cut them up. Wish we were nearer the coast at home, then I could experiment with different cooking methods.

Orkney is famed for its fish and seafood, and although we had to buy them, it was a wonderful near-neolithic experience picknicking on a beach by a prehistoric village on dived native oysters (Ostrea edulis) with Orkney oatcakes. Thanks to the oyster man for lending us his oyster knife!

We spent much time (between visiting prehistoric sites), botanising. Went in search of Scotland’s endemic primrose (Primula scotica) and found it, in abundance, on the spectacular cliffs at Yesnaby. We were in between flowering periods, so it was mostly seed heads, but an endemic in its native habitat is a wonderful find for a plant twitcher. However, we had the scary experience there of being dived on by bonxies, or great skuas, beastly great birds almost as aggressively territorial as Homo sapiens… Artcic skuas were about, too, and on the island of Eday (LOVELY place! LOVELY cake too, thanks Chris and Peter!) we watched red-throated divers on Mill Loch. Everywhere, the wild flowers were so abundant it was heavenly, the road verges providing the sort of floral display Perth Council pays good money to get; I can’t remember all we saw now, but three edible plants stand out:

Rose-root (Sedum roseum), clinging to the steep, deep edges of a GLOUP (basically a huge pit in the cliff due to the lower strata caving in). I have rose-root in the garden and sell it, but have never seen it in the wild before.

The same is true of Scots Lovage,, which I was thrilled to find sprouting freely on the shingle beach below the campsite. It was delicious – stronger in flavour than my garden specimen. Annoying how it obviously seeds itself merrily on a stony beach, but can I get the seeds from mine to germinate?

And on the same beach, one I’d only ever seen in books, the Oysterplant (Mertensia). With blue-grey, succulent leaves, and azure blue flowers, this member of the borage family is rare in the wild, and you wouldn’t dream of picking very much of it even though it was plentiful on this beach. It is absolutely beautiful. It is so named because the leaves are said to taste of oysters. I love oysters, as you’ve heard, and if you’ve never had one, imagine a taste that is the smell and lazy feel of dipping in rock pools on a clean coast on a warm, summer’s day. A plant that tastes like that?

Be assured, the Oysterplant really does!

The wildest thing I saw in Orkney was coming back from Eday to Kirkwall on the ferry. It was a hot, sunny evening, the sea calm and sparkling. I stood on deck and shut my eyes, just enjoying the sunshine and the peace and sea-smells. When I opened them, a minke whale surfaced and went down, up a few more times, then gone. I’d never seen a whale before. What can you say. It was magic.

See food….

May 21, 2009Margaret Lear Fauna, Seashore, Spring, Uncategorized Tags: bivalve molluscs, botanic gardens, Chenopodium bonus henricus, clams, cooking shellfish, Good King Henry, Sand Gapers, tellins Leave a comment

or sea food. Went on a student outing on Monday; it was a bit alarming to realise they (the students) were touchingly trusting in tasting anything and everything – had to remind them in the botanic garden that some plants are actually highly poisonous and that if they see me chewing on a leaf it’s because I have well-honed identification skills and a certain amount of knowledge – not just picking random foliage and munching on it! And I make mistakes too – discovered that Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus) raw is FOUL, whereas cooked it’s one of my favourites.

Then we went to the beach. There were lots and lots of bivalve molluscs that my small brain had classified as Sand Gapers, commonly if erroneously passed off as native clams. When I came to consult a field guide I realised there are in fact any number of nondescript bivalve molluscs they could have been, and closer examination would be needed for a precise identification. By the time I caught up with the students, Stuart had already filled his pocket and was insistent he’d eaten them before anyway, others were following suit. I gave them all dire warnings and persuaded Stuart to part with some of his haul, which I cooked later by plunging into boiling water and boiling for 8 minutes…… they were just the last word in deliciousness. Must go back a. to get more and b. to stick a Latin name on them!

Two Hours to Easter….

April 11, 2009Margaret Lear Fauna, Flora, Vegetables, Wine Tags: Bankfoot Church, Blairgowrie, Bucks Horn Plantain, Cairn O'Mohr Winery, Carse of Gowrie, cider, Easter Eggs, fair trade, Highland Boundary Fault, Little Glenshee, local food, organic food, rooibos, Stovies, weight loss 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!

April 7, 2009Margaret Lear Fauna, Herbal Remedies, Salad, Uncategorized, Vegetables Tags: Caprobotus edulis, comfrey, community gardens, food sharing, Glasgow Botanic Gardens, Hottentot Fig, liver damage, psychology of food, self-sufficiency, tree cabbage, tree spinach 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.

Live to eat, or eat to live?

March 11, 2009Margaret Lear Fauna, Nuts, Pickle, Salad, Soup, Spring, Teas & Tisanes, Tree Sap, Vegetables Tags: calendula, eat to live, fish, fishing, fly-tying, garlic mustard, live to eat, marigold, peppermint tea, psychology of food, world hunger 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.

March 1st

March 1, 2009Margaret Lear Fauna, Teas & Tisanes, Tree Sap, Uncategorized, Wine Tags: curd cheese, hazelnuts, mackerel, pheasant, wild strawberry tea Leave a comment

Severely put to the test last night. Friends of mine had a joint birthday party, with food. Johanna offered to cook for me one of the mackerel we had caught together in the Firth of Tay last summer, with veggies from their garden, and the event was to kick off at 7pm. That sounded great and didn’t break any rules! So I didn’t eat too much all day – just one of the potatoes I dug from James next door’s garden in return for the digging, for lunch about 1.30pm.

What I didn’t realise was that dinner was preceded by two hours of the most succulent and delicious-looking “canapes” – which of course I couldn’t eat! I sipped at the home made elderflower wine I’d brought and realised I was getting light headed, and my stomach was making funny noises, so I went back to water. All the while this table full of food beside me…. anyway, I perked up considerably after wolfing down my mackerel, cauliflower and peas – and Johanna insisted on donating me the other 2 mackerel fillets they had defrosted, so I had one for breakfast. Had to disappear to the loo when the birthday cakes and the After Eights came out – more than the heart could bear.

Mercifully the hens have decided to start laying again, so I shall have some hard-boiled eggs to add to the slowly drying apple rings as snacks. I think I will just use the hazelnuts as snacks, too, rather than try to make them into a meal. Rose wanted rid of another cockerel yesterday who was brutalising her bantams, so I think I have no problem really with protein, and the hazelnuts are just a treat at times.

I had the cockerel hung up to pluck and draw this morning when I discovered the cupboard under the sink was full of water so was distracted by the need to do some filthy plumbing. By the time I had got that fixed, the cock in the freezer, tonights dinner (pheasant, leeks and a potato) in a slow cooker, and tomorrow’s vegetable stew for the food flask (I work a 12 hour shift on Mondays at the college), not to mention cleaning and drying the kitchen, it was late afternoon. So much for foraging! I’d have loved a pot of tea (how I LOVE tea), but had to settle for a wild strawberry leaf tisane, which is… acceptable.

I have my curd cheese hanging up in muslin to drain; and another pan of sycamore sap on the stove, and the house is tidy but I’ve had no time to relax this weekend. So pretty exhausted tonight, craving chocolate, or a mug of Horlicks, a biscuit…. I think I’d better go to bed.

Feb 25th-27th

February 27, 2009Margaret Lear Berries, Fauna, Flora, Fruit, Nuts, Salad, Sauce, Smoothies, Spring, Teas & Tisanes Tags: brambles, cheese making, cider vinegar, cleavers, curd cheese, elderberries, hazelnuts, maple syrup, ramsons, rendering fat, sticky willy, stock, sycamore sap, venison, wild garlic, wild salads 2 Comments

Lent begins. On Shrove Tuesday, there was a pre-Lent good life banquet at the church, with everything donated and home grown, or wild. The main course was a wild deer – very fat he was too, and I brought back the fat for rendering, as well as the bones for stock. The fat was easily processed; it is very hard and white, and gives a good flavour in cooking. It solves, at least for now, the issue of whether I am allowed cooking oil during my Lent challenge. As for the bones, after boiling for stock I got four portions of meat from them.

Ash Wednesday, the hens having begun an untimely strike, I breakfasted on a fruit compote consisting of home grown raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, with brambles and elderberries from the freezer. I didn’t eat again till about four, then used a portion of the venison and some stock to make a sort of stew with a Jerusalem artichoke, a carrot and an onion from the garden, and some spinach. It did me for lunch on Thursday too. Later, I sorely missed my evening snack, but could only find a few hazelnuts I couldn’t really spare to scoff.

I am finding having to go in the garden to find an edible herb every time I want a hot drink a bit of a pain – especially as hardly anything is really growing yet – and also boring! Tried gorse flower tea on Thursday – tastes like hot water. Cleavers (known here delightfully as Sticky Willy) is about the best; sage is OK but not very flavoursome at this time of year. Passed a garden with a healthy clump of Sticky Willy growing in it. When the householder came out of his door, I only just avoided saying, “Scuse me mate, can I have a bit of your sticky willy?” This kind of thing can get you into trouble. As an alternative, I’ve spun the fruit compote into smoothies – astonishing number of pips! I am allowing myself home-made wine, but have been too wobbly so far to dare drink any.

By today, Friday, I need a rest from venison, good though it is. Hens deigned to lay some eggs, so omelette for breakfast (with half a leek) and a sort of Spanish omelette (the other half of the leek, carrot and defrosted runner beans) for dinner. With which I had roasted beetroot and artichoke with mixed herbs from the garden. Not too much wild stuff yet, but I did have a brilliant salad for lunch – miners lettuce, sorrel, garlic mustard, rocket, spinach leaves and the first ground elder, chopped finely with half a cooked beetroot and a chopped apple. Made a sort of dressing with Rose next door’s accidental cider vinegar that was meant to be apple wine and my redcurrant sauce. It offset the bitterness of the leaves and I really savoured every mouthful – something I’ve noticed that’s different in my eating experience!

Also I can feel myself becoming, of necessity, much more resourceful. As I write, the first bucket of sycamore sap is reducing gently on top of the stove. A gallon of raw milk donated to the banquet that didn’t get used is curdling in the kitchen, hopefully to become curd cheese. Ian at the church gave me a bag of apples from storage from his orchard – as I am badly missing snacks, I intend to dry some as rings to carry to work with me. Traded one of Rose’s spare cockerels for some venison, and it’s stashed in the freezer. And I am noticing the emergence of every weed – today I saw the first shoots of Ramsons or wild garlic – and remembered I have some rather rubbishy cultivated garlic in the veg plot – suddenly reject vegetables and the tops of leeks become highly desirable!

As the warm weather continues, I hope to see an acceleration in the wild food options in my diet. I am hungry, and craving bread, oatcakes and biscuits especially. But so far, so good – even when I had to go to the pub quiz on Wednesday and drink a pint of water – on the rocks.

August 2008

February 7, 2009Margaret Lear Berries, Broadleaved Woods, Diary entries, Fauna, Flora, Fruit, Fungi, Hedgerow, Pasture, Pine Woods, Sauce, Seashore, Seaweed, Soup, Summer Leave a comment

August – Weeks 1, 2 and 3.

More chanterelles, more wild cherries. We think it’s odd that the several fairly old cherries in a hedge line from which we gather the fruits all seem to produce fruits of varying sweetness and colour when ripe. One is almost black, another, barely red. All delicious, though. Any theories, anyone?

One long walk on 10th produced in addition to a sack of chanterelles, Plums -and-Custard mushrooms (Tricholomopsis), Birch Boletes and larch Boletes, and tawny grisettes. The chanterelles from this trip we dried, by threading them onto cotton and hanging them as garlands in our warm shed. When they are nearly dry I will de-thread them and spread them on trays over the boiler to finish before putting them in tightly sealed jars for the winter.

On the 11th, I macro-foraged! In that I went sea angling from Arbroath with friends, and caught 7 big mackerel. I hadn’t been before and must admit the sea was choppy and a tad nauseous, but I got over it and would definately like to go again. As my friends were going on holiday the day after, I managed to “forage” (borrow? steal?) 5 of their fishies too to make a round dozen which I have cleaned, filleted and frozen, or eaten. The same day, Andrew brought home a bag of field mushrooms he’d found at work, which I turned into a delicious soup.

Then we went on a week’s holiday to Norfolk, and got to try out some wild foods on Andrew’s unsuspecting (or suspecting?) family. At Holkham Beach we gathered samphire, oh how I love samphire and it especially nice after being exiled from this East Anglian delicacy for a couple of decades. Steamed for 15 minutes and tossed in butter, this unprepossessing-looking product of mudflats with its fleshy, salty stems is incomparable. We didn’t gather any more, no-one seemed that enthused except us, but perhaps we shouldn’t have inflicted the seaweed Sea Lettuce on them in the same meal. Filamentous pale green sheets you’d think wouldn’t take much to cook, but in fact it was a bit chewy. Next time I would make more of a meal of it, with some flavouring, longer cooking, combined with mushrooms perhaps…. not really a side vegetable with roast pork. The apple sauce, though, was made with a combination of wilding apples from the hedgerow, “scrumped” eaters from an abandoned garden, and wild water mint, and it went very nicely. Likewise, we all enjoyed (I think that’s the word) the mind-banditing sharpness of Sea Buckthorn berries growing on the dunes near Old Hunstanton, and Andrew brought the pips home in a hankie…..

We kept a supply of fungi going through the week – puffballs, horse mushrooms, grisettes etc. – some of which were appreciated, the rest we just ate ourselves.

Horse Mushroom

I was specially excited by the Roman mushrooms – found while exploring the site of a Roman fort at Brancaster. Resisted some big Parasol Mushrooms (Lepiota procera) at Wretham Heath – after all it was a nature reserve – look forward to finding some more before the summer’s out.

Parasol Mushroom

Back home, we realised the fridge was empty so went out after more chanterelles and found, in addition, an absolute HORDE of Boletus edulis, the Cep or King Bolete. However, most of them were coated in white and contorted or deformed in a most sinister looking way. We think – but please educate us if you know better – these specimens had been affected by the torrential rain which had obviously been plaguing Perthshire in our absence and fallen foul of some predatory fungus themselves. Luckily there were some good specimens, as well as a variety of other boletes and the first Slippery Jacks. We have cleaned, sliced and set these to dry for winter, but the Ceps are for tea tonight. While out we snacked on some lovely little wild gooseberries, and checked the progress of rowan berries in general.