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!