Rich Pickings

We are born foragers. I’ve been running wild food forays for nearly 30 years and see it in people’s eyes – the joy of doing what they were intended to do, the joy of discovery. A walk, I am often told, will never be the same again. There’s nothing quite like finding a wooded hillside golden with hundreds of chanterelles, spotting a bullace tree heavily laden with its miniature plums or a glassy rockpool brimming with edible seaweeds. And foraged food comes with a sense that you have, for once, completely earned your dinner.

Of course, it’s essential to know what you’re doing; picking random mushrooms, or random anything, is likely to end very badly. There are at least 30 deadly fungi and hundreds that will make you ill; plants fare no better. Seaweeds at least are safe, as none are poisonous, though only about 20 are worth eating. 

Find a good book on the subject and perhaps some general identification guides for plants, fungi and seaweeds. But do, always, be cautious. I have been eating these things since 1961 and have never suffered so much as a mild stomach upset. I am an old forager, not a bold forager.

Take things slowly. Learn a few species this year and a few next year. Learn the easy fungi and plants first. Chicken of the woods, chanterelle, parasol mushrooms, puffballs, fairy ring champignon, hedgehog mushrooms, wood blewits and about 20 more species are easy to identify and plentiful. For the plants, there are the familiar wild foods such as blackberries, sloes, hazelnuts, nettles and common sorrel, and the less familiar wood sorrel, sea buckthorn berries, fat hen, samphire and more, all common and none too challenging.

Learn also the laws of foraging. In short, you can pick “fruit, flowers, fungi or foliage” from any land provided that it’s not protected for conservation reasons, is growing wild and only for personal consumption. Technically, you can forage while trespassing, but then you shouldn’t be trespassing! One of the handful of caveats is that you’re not allowed to uproot anything without the landowner’s permission.

Finally, be a considerate forager. The things we pick have value in themselves, to other people and to organisms that use them for food and shelter. Make sure you can eat something before picking a basket-full and always leave behind much more than you find – unless it’s blackberries, obviously.

Most of my October foraging is dedicated to mushroom hunting, but some often overlooked things are available during the month – and are even at their best.

Chanterelle

The chanterelle is one of the easiest of wild fungi to identify and a common denizen of certain woodlands. The bright yellow, trumpet-shaped body, with gills that form in wrinkles, make it (almost) unmistakeable. The chief impostor is, you guessed it, the false chanterelle, a species that confuses even me – from a distance anyway. The latter is more orange and its flesh softly papery in texture. If you do get it wrong, nothing terrible will happen. It’s not known to be poisonous, just tasteless – and perhaps indigestible to some. In the southern counties, chanterelles grow chiefly with beech and oak in open woodland. Further north it can also be found with pine and spruce. A reasonably good tip for the southerner is that if you find your chanterelles with pine or spruce, they are likely to be false chanterelles.

Unusually for fungi, chanterelles are seldom infested with maggots. This is doubly good news as you won’t be killing any rare fungal gnat larvae in your frying pan.  

Chanterelles have a subtle, fragrant flavour and should be cooked gently. Cream and a hint of garlic come to mind; served on a slice of crusty toast, it makes for a simple feast. Unlike most mushrooms, they have little nutritional value, but, frankly, who cares? 

Rosehip

I was fed rosehip syrup by the spoonful when I was a child. Some of you may remember the bottles of Delrosa that were spooned out to millions of us baby boomers for its vitamin C. I loved it. Rosehip syrup is made from the hips of the wild dog rose and field rose, though any rose can be used. The chief problem is the hairs that are attached to the seed inside the fruity casing. I was recently reminded of their notorious use as itching powder after being a little careless with my methodology. I was scratching for days. This was just an irritation but, in the gut, it can be quite dangerous.

Rosehips can be picked from August almost until Christmas. Pick any that are thoroughly red. Soft, rock hard or squishy are all fine. 

For the syrup, boil them in water that covers them by two inches (5cm) – or would if they didn’t float. When all are soft, gently squash everything to a paste with a potato masher. Don’t use a blender as this will make the hairs impossible to remove. Leave to cool, squeeze out the pulp through muslin, then again through a double layer. Reheat and add sugar to taste. You can drizzle it over panna cotta or your morning porridge, fill a layer cake, use as a cordial, mix in a cocktail, or take by the spoonful for the authentic boomer experience.

Sweet Chestnut

That the magnificent sweet chestnut is at the north of its range in Britain is evident only from its nuts. These are considerably smaller than those found in more southerly climes and appear only irregularly. Nevertheless, they are nutritious, of good flavour and, in an accommodating year, they can reach a useful size and lie ankle deep on the forest floor. Even in these good years, not every tree will produce fruit, so a bit of exploration will be needed. I collect my annual crop during my October mushroom-hunting expeditions – any earlier and the forest floor will yield only empty husks discarded by the tree.

If you have ever tried, you will know how difficult sweet chestnuts are to peel. Steam them for about 20 minutes after cutting an X in the rounded bottom. Both the thick and thin skin should come away easily after a 20-minute boil. Keep them all warm by wrapping in a towel. The fresher they are, the easier they peel.

Sweet chestnuts are shamefully under-appreciated in Britain, with “roasting on an open fire” at Christmas their main use. But they can be used as a stuffing, candied, preserved in sugared brandy or pureed. Sweet chestnuts also make a superb flour. Chop up cooked, boiled and peeled chestnuts, dry them in a low oven and blitz the bits in a blender. Sieve out flour and return the intransigent pieces to the blender for another go. I use the flour for thickening a roux, as an addition to wheat flour in cakes and pancakes, and, best of all, in sweet chestnut macaroons.

Horseradish

The bright green upright leaves of horseradish are a common sight along roadsides and on wasteland throughout southern Britain. This non-native is the same plant as the one we grow in our gardens and will be easily identifiable by most gardeners. Some people, however, find dock leaves too much of a lookalike to be certain. The two distinguishing characteristics of horseradish are the lack of redness anywhere and the pepperiness of the very base of the leaf stem.

The roots can be found all year, but it’s dangerous to eat roots when you can’t see the whole plant. You may, for example, gather hemlock water-dropwort roots by (fatal) mistake. In October the leaves are still visible and the root full of stored starch, so it’s then that I collect it.

It must, obviously, be dug up, but that presents you with the legal issue mentioned earlier. This I leave to your conscience.

The powerful flavour of Horseradish does not survive much cooking, but when grated into dumplings (which are cooked only lightly) enough of its punch is left to transform them into things of wonder. Horseradish sauce is also a must: grate 25g Horseradish and blend with 15ml cider vinegar, 30ml mayonnaise, 120ml soured cream or Greek yoghurt, salt and black pepper.

This article is taken from the Goodwood Magazine, Autumn/Winter 2020 issue.