foraging

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The Forager Newsletter Feb 2024 – Springtime Foraging Adventures

Hello Fellow Foragers! We have got you covered for a couple of fun foraging adventures in Springtime.

Let Winter be the time for research, planning, and discussing new beginnings. Spring is the starting point, the time when everything is at your fingertips and the world is waiting to inject energy. I hear you now “come on and just get on with the program”.

So, what can you expect to find inside this months issue of “The Forager” for February? Let’s take a peek!

Foraging in Springtime:
Get ready to embark on an exciting journey through lush forests and meadows as we explore the bounty of nature awakening from its winter slumber. From delicate wildflowers to hearty greens, discover the treasures waiting to be harvested in the great outdoors.

A Wild Cleanse with Sticky Willies (Got to be the best title ever):
Join us as we delve into the world of Sticky Willies and learn how these underrated wild plants can be transformed into a cleansing tonic to kickstart your spring detox. Get ready to feel revitalized and refreshed from the inside out!

Wild Green Walnut Nocino:
Indulge your senses with our irresistible recipe for Wild Green Walnut Nocino, a traditional Italian liqueur infused with the essence of early-harvested walnuts. Sip, savor, and celebrate the flavors of spring with this delicious homemade treat.

Wild Onion Focaccia Recipe:
Elevate your baking game with our mouthwatering recipe for Wild Onion Focaccia, featuring foraged wild onions for a flavorful twist on this classic Italian bread. Impress your friends and family with your culinary prowess!

Food for thought:
Curious about the latest trends in foraging or looking for recommendations on books and podcasts to expand your knowledge? Dive into our “Food for Thought” section, where we share insights on what we’ve been reading and listening to in the world of foraging and beyond.

Subscribe to “The Forager” today and join us on an unforgettable journey through the wonders of springtime foraging. Let’s embrace the season of renewal and rediscover the joy of connecting with nature one wild treasure at a time!

Happy foraging!

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Wild Garlic Salt: The Benefits of Wild Garlic and a Flavorful Recipe


In the world of foraged delicacies, wild garlic stands out as a verdant gem with a rich history. Also known as ramps, ramsons, or Allium ursinum, this vibrant green herb not only adds a burst of flavor to your dishes but also brings a host of nutritional advantages. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of wild garlic and provide you with a simple yet tantalizing recipe for wild garlic salt.

Benefits of Wild Garlic:

  • Rich in Nutrients: Wild garlic is a nutritional powerhouse, containing vitamins A and C, along with essential minerals like iron and manganese. These nutrients contribute to overall health and well-being.
  • Immune Boost: The high levels of allicin, the same compound found in garlic, give wild garlic its immune-boosting properties. Regular consumption may help fend off common illnesses and support a robust immune system.
  • Cardiovascular Health: Wild garlic has been linked to cardiovascular benefits, such as reducing blood pressure and improving cholesterol levels. Its allicin content plays a role in promoting heart health.
  • Anti-Inflammatory Properties: The anti-inflammatory properties of wild garlic make it a valuable addition to your diet, potentially assisting in managing inflammation-related conditions.
  • Rich in Antioxidants: Antioxidants in wild garlic help combat oxidative stress in the body, contributing to cellular health and potentially reducing the risk of chronic diseases.

Recipe: Wild Garlic Salt

Ingredients

  • 1 cup wild garlic leaves, washed and dried
  • 1 cup coarse sea salt


Instructions:

Harvesting Wild Garlic:

Ensure you are harvesting wild garlic from a clean, pesticide-free environment.
Carefully pluck the leaves, leaving the bulbs and roots intact for sustainable foraging.
Cleaning and Drying:

Wash the wild garlic leaves thoroughly under cold water.
Pat them dry with a clean kitchen towel or use a salad spinner to remove excess water.
Blending:

In a food processor, combine the wild garlic leaves and coarse sea salt.
Pulse the mixture until the wild garlic is finely chopped, and the salt has absorbed the vibrant green color.
Drying the Wild Garlic Salt:

Spread the wild garlic salt evenly on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Allow it to air-dry for 1-2 days or until the moisture has evaporated.
Storing:

Transfer the dried wild garlic salt to an airtight container.
Store in a cool, dark place to maintain its freshness and potency.
Usage Tip: Sprinkle this aromatic wild garlic salt on roasted vegetables, grilled meats, or even use it as a finishing touch for salads and soups. The distinct flavor of wild garlic will elevate your dishes to new heights.

See more recipes here

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Autumn Obituary – In Loving Memory of Our Dearest Fruit Friends

It is with heavy hearts and sticky fingers that we gather here today to bid a fond farewell to some of our most cherished companions – the fruits of autumn. As the leaves change color and the air grows crisp, we must acknowledge that our fruity friends have embarked on their final journey to the compost heap in the sky.

First and foremost, we mourn the passing of Mr. Apple McJuicy, a beloved member of the orchard community. He was known for his rosy cheeks and sweet disposition, always hanging out with the coolest bunch in the tree. He leaves behind a juice legacy that will be remembered fondly in pies, cider, and childhood memories.

Next, we say goodbye to Ms. Pear Perfection, who, despite her somewhat pear-shaped figure, was the embodiment of elegance in the fruit bowl. Her undeniable charm and grace will be sorely missed at fancy dinner parties and cheese platters.

Let us not forget the wild and unpredictable cousin, Mr. Blackberry Brooks, who made it a point to keep us on our toes with his ever-changing colours and prickly nature. Although his behavior could be inconsistent, he was always the life of the autumnal fruit party.

In a shocking turn of events, the notorious daredevil, Banana Peel Johnson, met his untimely demise in the most cliché of ways – slipping on his own peel. He was known for his slippery sense of humor and was always ready for a quick laugh. We’ll remember him every time we check for hazards on the kitchen floor.

Last but not least, our grapevine informs us that the grape cluster, affectionately known as the “Grapetastic Six,” met their fate during an intense game of vine-twister. They will be forever entwined in our memories.

In conclusion, let us raise our glasses (of apple cider) to our dearly departed fruit friends. May their juicy souls find eternal delight in the great compost heap in the sky, where they can mingle with veggie friends and perhaps even spawn a bumper crop of future fruity hilarity.

Rest in peaches, dear fruits of autumn, you will be missed, and your legacy will live on in our pies and punch bowls.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE LATEST FORAGER NEWSLETTER TODAY

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The Forager Newsletter Sept 2023

Enjoy the latest newsletter from The Forager here

What’s in the latest newsletter:

  • Reasons to enjoy picking wild Blackberries
  • Berrylicious recipes – The humble crumble and a berry smoothie
  • Truffle Season! Why do chefs love this wild treasure and an unmissable tour
  • 7 Fun Facts about Mushrooms
  • Food for thought: What I’ve been reading
  • An Obituary for Autumn Fruits

Read The Forager Newsletter for September 2023

Subscribe to all news from The Forager

The Forager Newsletter: Cleaning with Cleavers, Wild Dip Recipe, Suggested readings and more

Hello Fellow Foragers & Nature Lovers,

Just a short recap on what’s included in the latest newsletter from THE FORAGER:

5 Ways to use Cleavers – Nature’s natural cleanser is everywhere at the moment. Be sure to get your hands on some.

We re-watched Paul Stamets Ted Talk. He is such a legend. Check it out!

How blockchain can be used to fund a greener future – I am always writing but this article was published on an Asian publication called e27.

I also added a short poem to help us stay mindful and celebration the abundance of nature.

Catch up on THE FORAGER NEWSLETTER HERE

What are your summer plans? Be sure to share all of your foraging adventures with us. I am busy planning my foraging outings for June and writing May’s newsletter.

Happy May!

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The Forager: A Collection of abstract Wild Food NFTs

Wild, locally grown food is there to be discovered and cherished by everyone. Foraging brings us all a little closer to the natural world around us. A sustainable future may be more tangible than we currently imagine it to be. 

For me this NFT collection is about bringing the old me into the new me, bridging the worlds that I love: technology and nature, to raise awareness of the abundance of wild foods patiently waiting to be discovered. From the woodlands to the sea, we gather, we chatter, we roam. I have used AI to design wonderous art from a series of high definition photographs taken whilst foraging. Most of the photographs

I currently write about the world of Web3 and how blockchain technology is going to change the future. One of the ways that I hope to see this happen is by offering more traceability of our food systems. It is easy to see that our relationship with food is broken but we have the power to fix it and we only need to start investigating to find the answers.

VIEW THE FORAGER NFTS HERE

Orchards Near Me began as a passion project in Canada after a weekend fruit picking in the Okanagan. Rambling from orchard to vineyard and back to the campsite I was completely inspired by the real connection with the land. When I returned to Ireland I vowed to keep that connection with the outdoors alive. On a cycling trip in the Tuscan mountains near San Miniato I discovered Massimo and his truffle hunting dogs. This is where I first learned about the Italian truffle hunters and their love affair with the seasons best produce. The beauty of the truffle foragers is that they don’t manipulate the production as we find with mass producing farms across the world. They are patient, familiar with the time the earth needs to restore before offering up its most treasured truffle bounty.

Again, inspired by the In Ireland, I started a small tour company to bring people on wild food adventures. It didn’t pay the bills but was by far the most gratifying way to spend a morning with new friends. We would walk unbeaten trails learning about the wild foods around us, sipping homemade huckleberry tea and eating fresh raspberry jam. When the pandemic hit, the foraging tours were cancelled and the world seemed bleak but I knew that the fire had been lit in my mind and now that I was aware there was no way of going back. A lifelong quest to fix the food system must be madness but education in tangible, writing is achievable and so here I am. 

Foraging for wild food teaches patience, durability, awareness, pleasure and connectedness. It gives gifts of various edible plant species throughout the year but a forager must be kind to mother nature to receive the precious gifts on offer. 

Foraging for wild foods isn’t simply a past time, it is a way of life, a way of connecting with the natural world as it intended us too, a way of appreciating the abundance of nature and the constant replenishment of the forests with each new season. 

My absolute favourite times are the beginning of Springtime when you walk through dense oak forests only to be greeted by the pungent small of wild garlic and then stumble upon a carpet of the deepest green, delicious leaves covering the forest floor around you or another favourite is looking up on a wonderous trail through a mixed wood forest in late summer only to find green walnuts. Pickled green walnuts are something of a delicacy and should be treasured by all foodie lovers.  

This collection of NFTs is a representation of some of my favourite wild foods, including: Sweet Chestnuts, Blackberries, Pineapple weed, Green Walnuts, Spruce Tips, Gorse, Sea Radis, Seabeat, Orach, Turkey Tail Mushroom, Winter Chanterelles, Jelly Ear Mushroom, Penny Buns, Rosehips, Birch Nuts, Amanita, Dandelions, Thistles, Wild garlic and many other wild herbs straight from the parks, forests and coasts of Ireland. 

WHERE: ARTMINE STUDIO

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What foods can be Foraged in Springtime?

Discover the natural Spring flavours from the forests and coasts. Foraging in Springtime is a great way to get to know the plants around you. Whether you want to broaden your palette or simply get a taste of the woods, foraging is a great way to get a taste of the outdoors. Dandelions, Wild Garlic, Sea beet and Chickweed are just a few of the many tasty plants that you will find in grassy patches during the months of Spring.

Lets get to know where to find, how to pick and how to prepare a few of our favourite edible plants at this time of the year.

Sea Beet

This wild green edible plant is easy to find by the coast. Boil it or steam it to get the best flavour. It is known as the cousin of spinach and packed full of nutrients. Look out for glossy, bright green leaves on your next coastal walk.

Cow Parsley

Look out for fern like leaves when foraging for cow parsley. This plant grows tall just before the summer months. It likes the shade and grassy areas. You will find umbrella like bunches of tiny white flowers on the tip. Dont pick cow parsley if you can’t identify it as it is often mistaken for more poisonous plants such as hemlock.

Wild Garlic

Also known as ramsons, you might smell this plant before you see it if you are wandering in the woods in springtime. In May it is very easy to identify with it;s pointy small white petaled flowers. Common uses for wild garlic include making homemade wild garlic pesto, chopping it into salads and adding it to soups to give an extra punch of flavour.

Elderflower

If you live near any organic fruit store or hipster cafe you may have stumbled upon Elderflower cordial or better yet Elderflower champagne. This fragrant plant comes bursting to life at Springtime. Usually found in hedgegrows, on the banks of rivers and in wild wooded areas, it is easy to identify. All you need to make homemade elderflower cordial is a little bit of patience as it takes time for the mixture to set. Find our tried and tested recipe here.

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Dandelions

The health benefits of dandelions are now widely recognised. Containing plenty of antioxidants and vitamins this may be the most undervalued commonly found plant. This humble yellow flowers are often a source of pain for gardeners who like to keep their gardens clear of wild weeds. However dandelions are rich in pollen and nectar that feed the bees so try to hold off on mowing your lawn the second that spring arrives. To get your weekly does of dandelion, use it is a hot pot of tea or add the petals to your salads.

Nettles

Often feared for their stinging abilities, nettles are full of nutrition when picked at the right time of year. Most parks and wooded areas will have patches of nettles hanging around together in large crowds. They are rich in Vitamins C and K and contain more iron than spinach. Try this heart warming nettle soup recipe to get acquainted with this edible plant.

Linden Leaves

These nutrient packed leaves come from Linden trees. It has massive heart-shaped leaves with fragrant flowers that can be eaten fresh or dropped into any wild tea recipe. They are said to have relaxing properties like chamomile. Young Linden Leaves are a sweet addition to salads in spring and summertime.

If you have any plants to tell us about we would love to hear from fellow fruit and foraging enthusiasts.

Wild Recipe: Elderflower and Lime Granita

It’s June and the smell of Elderflowers is in the air. Summertime is the perfect time to celebrate flowers and the elderflower is simply delicious in almost any wild cocktail or drink so give it a try.

Elderflower & Lime Granita Recipe

INGREDIENTS

DIRECTIONS

Pour the sugar into a pot of cold water, bring it to the boil, stirring slowly as you let the sugar dissolve.

Leave the mixture to cool. Time to add the elderflower cordial, gin and lime juice.

Stir well and freeze for an hour.

After an hour, remove from the freezer and use a rolling pin to break up the ice into pieces, return to the freezer for 2 hours.

Remove from the freezer, add to tumblers and grate the lime zest over it.

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Is Orache Edible? Identify and Use Orache

Spear leaved Orache is a dusty green leaf that is commonly found on and near the beach. Coastal tracks will lead you to this salty wild treat. The first time we encountered to wild edible leaf was on a coastal foraging excursion to the west coast of Ireland with our foodie friend Denis. He would often stop and taste the delicacies of the land: samphire, dulce and chamomile were definitely on the list but then we stumbled upon Orache and he told me to try some. I was blown away.

This is the salty spinach I wanted to add to every soup dish I had tried so thanks to Denis we made a new discovery and have been using Orache to experiment ever since.

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What is Orache?

Orache is a green plant that loves to grow in saline laced sand and coastal areas. It is also know as Atriplex (A.prostrata)

How to Identify and Eat Orache Leaves

The spear headed leaves and the coastal location makes this tasty plant easy enough to identify.

There is a look-a-like plant called lambs quarter which is also an edible cousin of this plant but not as salty and mostly found near woodland.

The leaves are arrow like triangular shaped.

You can eat Orache leaves raw in a salad or fry them up in a little olive oil. Substitute it for some of your spinach recipes.

When to eat Orache?

Forage the young leaves in late March and April. They maintain their saltiness while also having sweeter tones that are easy to digest when raw. Harvest the mature leaves in summer time. I snip the leaves in the summer months, leaving the stems for wildlife to nibble on.

Orache Recipes

Orache Flatbread

Wild Orache Dip

Seafood and Orache Pho

 

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Wild Onion Focaccia Recipe

This is a super easy and super delicious wild recipe that you bake over and over again. One batch a month is probably enough but in the summer months wild onion focaccia recipe goes well with any main meal.

Ingredients

For the Flavour

  • 1 large handful of Wild Onion chopped finely
  • 1 small bunch of wild garlic chopped finely
  • 3 cloves of garlic grated
  • Fresh herbs chopped finely (we used rosemary and thyme)
  • 1 Cup of Olive oil
  • Pepper and Sea salt

For the Dough

  • 1 packed of dry fast acting yeast
  • 2 1/2 cup of flour
  • A teaspoon of salt

Putting the Ingredients together

Add all of the flavour ingredients to a pan and pour over the olive oil. Leave this heat gently. Once the oil is infused with all of the ingredients leave it cool down.

Add the yeast to a cup of warm water. Mix in 1 cup of flour and leave for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes add the salt and the remainder of the flour. Now you are ready to add half of the oil mixture to your dough. Knead the dough 20 times and put into the fridge for 1 hour.

After an hour, remove the dough from the fridge, roll it out roughly (you don’t want to flatten it completely, just make a nice bulky rectangle). Now pierce holes all over the top of the dough with your thumb, pour over the rest of the infused oil and put into the oven for 25 minutes at 160 degrees.

To Serve

Whip together a few homemade dips, wild garlic hummus or just a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

A simple, wild focaccia recipe for family and friends. Enjoy!

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