Adventures in Food

I do sometimes think "is it ok for me to collect wild food" because surely there are lots of wildlife who cant go to tesco if they dont find any nuts in the woods that day. And generally people like the guys at River Cottage and other proponents of wild food collecting give the answer more or less of "yes its fine, there is plenty to go round, so long as you always leave a bit of it ie dont dig up ALL the truffles you can find in one spot." Now I know the deer in Richmond Park are not a "naturally occurring" species in a "natural" environment but even so I found this interesting. I was up there on an early morning to photograph the deer with a friend and saw this notice. I hadn't seen that sign when I collected the chestnuts last time. I have taken an interest in the past in the idea of eating invasive species so will start to investigate that as an alternative. We could act as a biological control agent, enhancing the biodiversity rather th...

I have just become a publisher - with the production of a book about the English Christmas Pudding under the publishing name 'Spiderbooks'. The book is a tasting sample of some of the stories behind the ingredients of the Christmas Pudding. it will be in some local shops in the Kew and Richmond area, and should be on Amazon soon too. Your feedback is welcomed! Find out more at http://www.spiderbooks.co.uk

There was a big pile of rose cuttings in the garden and they were covered in rosehips; not being one with a high tolerance of wastefulness I set about cutting them off with plans to make some delicious thing or other. Then the little red hips sat in my fridge for a few days while i was too busy. Eventually I got round to dealing with them but quite a lot had gone soggy and or mouldy so the initial crop was quite whittled down. It was surprisingly difficult to find recipes for rosehips. I found several for rowan berries in my assortment of ancient recipe books, even though rowan is less spoken of generally in life, and i rather suspect, considerably less palatable than rosehip. I did find one however, in May Byron's Pot Luck, an old favourite. And it was very true about how awkward they are to prepare, covered in fine sharp hairs than get under your fingernails and apparently in another recipe ( which I ignored) one is expected to not only top and tail but de-seed and peel them bef...

I recently signed up for a local food pledge (see previous post) but I had also sigend up to go the summer school at the Cyprus College of Art. So i am doing the local thing here in Cyprus, and its been tootally fantastic. Two highlights have been the best breakfast ever in Fikardou, staying with freinds, and a supberb lunch in the weaving village of Fiti, not too far from Paphos. Fikardou Breakfast Sophocles is a breakfast guru and I was presented with a leaisurley mountain breakfast of fresh anari, local honey, eggs from the builder who keeps hens, fresh local sheeps yoghurt, sweet plump dark plums, Paphos mangoes, grapes from my hosts vine, figs, and what else I cant remember so will have to look at my photos to check. Fiti Lunch I first found Fiti last week when I am dmy travelling companions, both Irish weavers, went exploring and stumbled into it on the way to a monastery. It turned out to be a weaving village, and I hgad one the best lunches Ive ever experienced in the local re...

Ever wondered what you would eat if oil ran out tomorrow? Well now is your chance to find out! Join us* for a week of eating only local organic food, free from plastic packaging to highlight to government that they need to act now to reform our food system Between Saturday 6 and Sunday 21 September, during Organic Food Fortnight and when food is at its most abundant in the UK, we ask you, for one week, to only eat food from a selection of the following sources: a. Organically grown UK food without plastic packaging – if it is organically grown on British soil, it qualifies, but obviously the more local the better. Plastic packaging is out. b. Foraged food – food growing wild and abundantly all over the UK – free rich pickings! c. Self-grown food – any food you, your friends or family ha ve grown. Advice and support on sourcing food will be given throughout, and all participants will be encouraged to keep a diary of their experiences over the week on our website, not only to share expe...

You may know that we started making our own bread last year when we were on the local diet, as none of our suppliers knew where the flour was grown, that they used in their bread making. So we had little choice. But we just threw some flour, yeast and water into a bowl. slopped it a bout and baked it after rising. It was very delicious but it was on the dense and cakey side and it went hard quite quickly. The other day though, I bought an amazing book (after spending about an hour browsing in Kew bookshop and knocking books over) called Bread Matters by Andrew Whitley (who runs Village Bakery , so admittedly he has a bias but also he knows a hell of a lot about bread), which explains both how most processed or shop bread is made (even the really sexy nice stuff is all made by the same 'Chorleywood bread process') and how yeast and lactic acid bacteria work on wholewheat to extract nutrients and flavour and reduce the presence of common allergens. The book also shows how to mak...

These are SO easy to make, last for ages,are delicious and healthy so I think a great recipe even if you aren't out seeking wild oats. Oat cakes basically involve oats, water, a pinch of salt, and a little fat. You warm up some water and mix in a bit of butter to melt. Then mix that warm liquid into your oats in a bowl until they are of a nice pasty, sticky consistency. Roll them out on a board - you can use a few more oats or some flour to reduce stickiness if you like, and bake in a medium oven for about 15 min on baking parchment paper. Keep an eye on them to see when they are ready. Rolled oats are better because they have been softened up a bit and the starch powder helps to stick them all together. As you can see I got all romantic with them. I hardly ever get to use thes nice pastry cutters from Anna so thats another good reason to make oat cakes. I believe the scots used to leave the oat cakes by the fire overnight to dry out so I guess a low oven is also suitable. They ar...

I've been having fun with elderflowers last week. Making cordial, and making a film. It is of course elderflower season. The elder grows a lot by the Thames. Its a small tree or large shrub depending on how you think about things. The Blossoms are large white foamy circular things scattered all over the tree like white pancakes. I made elderflower cordial which it turns out is incredibly easy and is probably the most delicious thing I have made yet from foraging food. You simply boil some water, about 4 pints or more, Add sugar so it melts in and pour this mix over the elderflowers in a big bowl. The mix looks dark brown in the picture because I used dark brown sugar. I really thought this would overwhelm the elderflower flavour but it doesnt at all, quite the reverse in fact. Leave this in the fridge for four days or so, then strain off the juice. You can add lemon peel, lemon juice, and/or oranges and juice to add flavour and acidity, either at the beginning or after you make th...

This isn't actually about coffee from new zealand, its a message from Eve in New Zealand about making Great coffee. Thanks Eve! ************************************************ Yesterday the guy from Atomic Coffee roasters came for the fair trade coffee event. He told us how to make coffee properly and how we hadbeen doing it so wrong... This is with a plunger as we don't have a machine. The coffee must be ground quite coarse a bit bigger than granulated sugar. Grindjust as much as you need at the time coz it oxidises quite quickly. about a heaped desert spoon for a cup but more or less if you like. Then.....you pour the water on just a bit and let it go frothy but not boiling water, you need water just off the boil about 85. This will make the coffee much sweeter because it burns at about 95 which is what makes it bitter. mmmmm So then poor the rest of the water on and leave for not longer than a minute (its not like tea wher it keeps gettingstronger) and then plunge away....

Comfrey or knitbone is famed for its ability to heal wounds. Rob and I have both tried it and its marvellous. No really. But that is in the form of oil or crushed leaves. Then I discovered you can also eat these very rough-skinned leaves. The comfrey plants are brimming with life these days so its a good time to collect these leaves. Apparently comfrey fritters are the thing, and are particularly enjoyed by Germans I read. Anyway you take some comfrey leaves from your plant in the back yard that seeded itself and grows most vigourously. You make a thin batter using oil, water, flour and fold in a whipped egg white, as you are making a sponge. Dip the leaves into the batter and drop into hot oil, like you would with deep fried mars bars or whatever you normally deep fry. Actually this wasnt very nice, not because of the leaves, which are lovely, but because they are too oily. Maybe the oil was at the wrong temperature but I would welcome any tips on improving this recipe. Comfrey is als...

I was in Stroud in early may and we went for a walk across the tops of the hills. I was nearly out of hawthorn tea from last year so when I saw the may bushes I decided to collect it in my walnut-dyed scarf. I made Rob take pictures with his mobile. The may leaves have been dried since then and I have a full jar of leaves again, to last another year. Apparently the phrase 'Ne'er cast a clout till May is out' doesnt mean 'until the month of May is over' but ' Until the May flowers have blossomed' May (hawthorn) apparently has had a huge significance in English ( and Scottish ) folklore in the past. It smells a bit nasty as Rob so eloquently expressed when we started this lark...this and other factors have been woven into the folklore. Read Richard Mabey 'Flora Britannica' for all the lowdown on May.

I was walking home the other day when I saw a huge orangey-yellow fungus growing in a the nook of a tree in our road (I think its a type of birch but I am not great on tree species. that is my best guess from my new tree book). So I bethought myself to investigating this large orange putrescence. The mushroom books tell me it is Chicken of the Woods ( Laetiporus sulphureus ) This extraordinary fungus is apparently - very occasionally - toxic - with hallucinations and upset stomach. Hallucinations etc So I have approached this particular culinary adventure with some trepidation and tested a small sample first before eating it for a meal. Even though the books say it can't be mistaken for anything else, I still am a bit nervous about having got it right. Nice for lunch No suffering followed the initial test so I have just eaten up the lot for lunch. I fried in in small pieces with olive pesto, mackerel, a squeeze of lemon and some balsamic vinegar. As you can see on the right, I had ...