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  #1   ^
Old Sat, Mar-31-12, 04:32
Demi's Avatar
Demi Demi is offline
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Default UK: The wild food gastro trend

Quote:
From The Telegraph
London, UK
30 March, 2012

The wild food gastro trend

Claire Cohen spends a day as a hunter-gatherer to find out why courses in wild food gathering are becoming increasingly popular up and down the country.


This is unlike any lunch invitation I’ve ever received.

Forget fine dining. I’m on my knees in a patch of soggy grass and up to my elbows in stinging nettles. Next to me, Nick Weston is patiently explaining how to avoid getting stung.

“Don’t pick them from the bottom. The top leaves are what we’re after. And don’t feel like you’ve got to grab them quickly. The nettles will sense you coming and it won’t sting any less. Treat them gently and after a while you won’t even notice the prickles,” he says cheerfully.

Which isn’t very reassuring. Nick, you see, is a huntergatherer (“is it pretentious to call myself that?”). When not rummaging around by river banks for edible plants, he runs a foraging school from a farm in Barcombe, East Sussex, teaching urbanites the skills required to live off the land.

Foraging is the latest big gastronomic trend and courses in gathering wild food are popping up all over the country. Some of Britain’s most prestigious restaurants are also taking a keen interest, with chefs such as Mark Hix and the two Michelin-starred Nathan Outlaw offering foraged ingredients on their menus.

Nick, however, has few ambitions beyond imparting the joy of foraging to his willing pupils. Workshops run from April to October and he even caters for stag dos (these are taken literally, with the party required to butcher, cook and eat a deer) at his camp. There are also plans to open a school in France, where he spends much of the year living with his fiancée, Clare.

A keen lover of the great outdoors – he’s been fishing and shooting since childhood –two years ago, Nick spent six months living in a woodland tree-house that he built himself. It was a valuable lesson in sustainability, self-sufficiency and survival.

His philosophy? That, with a little basic knowledge and a decent pair of wellies, we can all enjoy the herbs and plants that cover Britain’s fields, meadows and woodlands.

And what better time to start exploring than spring – when nature is busy replenishing her wild larder.

‘‘Taste this,” he cries, holding what looks like a weed under my nose. “Chew it, slowly, it’s bitter at first, but - bear with it - what can you taste? Familiar, isn’t it? A bit woody. Yes, yes. It’s Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup!”

He can hardly be faulted for enthusiasm. Indeed, from the moment he stalks into camp and dumps lunch (four fat wood pigeons in a carrier bag) on the table, it’s clear that, for Nick, wild food is a lifestyle.

So, here we are, strolling through the lush meadows in the blinding sunshine, clutching a wooden basket and picking the ingredients to accompany it.

First in the basket are three-cornered leeks (“they look like white bluebells but taste of garlic”); then primrose flowers (“lovely in a salad”) and sorrel (“very citrusy and perfect for cutting through the rich flavour of pigeon meat”).

We stumble across some elder trees and pick the dark brown, rubbery fungus - called jelly ears - growing on them.

With lobe-like tips and raised cartilage there’s no denying they look like grotesque, misshapen ears. They are a popular ingredient in Oriental cuisine and particularly good at soaking up strong flavours.

But not everything is safe to eat. One to avoid is hemlock water-dropwort; a bright green plant that grows near water.

Last summer two Danish campers picked and ate some, mistakenly thinking it was flat-leaf parsley. It was a snackthat nearly cost them their lives: hemlock is highly toxic and, consumed in quantity, causes rapid death.

Then it’s back to camp for a lot of chopping, mixing, grating and seasoning, using select condiments from (whisper it) Tesco, plus a small selection of utensils by Jamie Oliver. “He gets everywhere, doesn’t he?”says Nick with a shrug.

On the menu? Jelly ear broth, followed by pan-fried wood pigeon in red wine, pomme purée, nettles sautéed with nutmeg and sorrel verde.

In front of the wood-fired stove, Nick springs to life. With admirable patience – I am a touch squeamish at first - he shows me how to pluck a pigeon and remove the breasts.

And all the while he natters away, telling stories about his childhood fishing trips to the nearby river Ouse and how he and his brother once stuffed his dad’s pipe with rabbit droppings as a prank (he smoked the lot).

In addition to a set of very sharp knives, Nick uses a traditional flint to cut the pigeon meat. It’s all part of the hunter-gatherer philosophy.

He studied archaeology at Newcastle University before deciding against a life spent wielding toothbrushes in dusty pits. It’s only now that he’s applying the skills learnt during his degree to everyday life, much to his parents’ relief.

He’s applying imagination too. Take his extraordinary homemade spin on an icecream machine: two metal buckets, a plastic paddle, an old meat mincer and a power drill.

Mr Whippy this isn’t.

All cooking is done on an ‘‘off-grid’’ stove, built by hand from sandstone blocks, oak and clay. Meals are eaten at Hunter Gatherer HQ – a triangular wooden structure, made from oak and hornbeam, and covered with a green awning.

There are pots, pans, mugs, ladles, washing-up brushes, deer skulls and the odd axe hanging from the nails which have been hammered into every available beam.

As daylight fades and fatigue sweeps through the camp, we gather round and tuck into tender wood pigeon and steaming piles of mash, all the more satisfying for having prepared it ourselves.

But all too soon it’s time to return to civilisation, leaving Nick to tidy the camp for another day’s foraging.

Out here, alone - save for a solitary lamp shining out into the wood and the occasional crackle of the dwindling fire –he’s in his element. It all has the discreet charm of a boyhood dream realised.

Recipe:

This recipe serves two.

This broth is designed to be good for the immune system: the warming ginger and chilli, vitamin C from the lemon juice and a pleasant burst of citrus from the sorrel leaves. An excellent starter for a foraged dinner party.

Ingredients:
A handful of jelly ear fungus
A thumb-size piece of ginger, chopped into thin slivers
500ml of water
1 beef stock cube
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp rice wine or
cider vinegar
1tsp of sugar
Juice of half a lemon
Handful of sorrel
Fresh chilli, finely chopped, to taste

Method:
Wash the fungi and slice into thin strips.
Bring the water to the boil and add the stock cube, soy sauce, vinegar, sugar, ginger, chilli and finally the jelly ear fungus.
Simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Before serving, add the juice from the lemon and give the broth a good stir.
Sprinkle a handful of sorrel leaves over the top and enjoy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsore...od-cooking.html


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  #2   ^
Old Sat, Mar-31-12, 07:20
DAGrant DAGrant is offline
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My brother used to sell surgical supplies in Florida. I thought it was interesting when he told me that many of the heart surgeons down there would only eat wild game, deer or wild pig that they either killed themselves or paid someone to get for them.

Maybe they know something?
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  #3   ^
Old Sat, Mar-31-12, 10:45
mio1996's Avatar
mio1996 mio1996 is offline
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Default

I know I was out in the forest just yesterday foraging for soy sauce, vinegar, red wine, and teaspoons of sugar, and that stuff must not be in season here
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