FORAGING IN WALES: A LONDONER’S GUIDE

Swapping the West End for wild garlic scavenged from Cardiff’s green spaces

With the clocks forward and the winter chill behind us, Brits are tentatively leaving the house without their big coat on. Some are even switching their chunky knit for a slightly thinner jumper.

Spring in London means the tube is getting a little sweatier. Walks on Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park are blighted by having to squeeze onto a packed Victoria line carriage.

With more time spent underground than with London’s flora, my knowledge of plants is embarrassingly poor.

Moving to Wales – which has nearly three times more common land than England – was the perfect excuse to improve my botanical brains, and what better way to know you have got the right plant than by eating it?

The law

Foraging is legally protected in the UK.

The Theft Act 1968 states that you are allowed to pick “mushrooms, flowers, fruit or foliage from a plant growing wild on any land” in most places in the UK, so long as it is for personal use.

There are notable exceptions to what and where you can forage, however, be sure to check for restrictions before you go.

Delicious or deadly?

Wild garlic is common across the UK and is a good entry-level plant to forage. It can be eaten raw and is relatively simple to find if you know what you are looking for. I did not know what I was looking for...

I was also terrified of poisoning myself, so

I used a variety of apps and resources to help find my pungent prize without eating the similarly looking, but poisonous, lily of the valley. That wouldn’t end well at all.

Both have wide green leaves and grow in the same areas. After an hour or so of searching in my local park, which while being in the centre of the city has wild spaces, with my eyes trained to the forest floor I found a cluster of leaves sprouting from the ground.

You can search for a plant by either inputting its name or characteristics.

A hedgerow guide has images of plants in various stages of growth, as well as information on whether it is edible, inedible, or poisonous, each with an icon. You get one guess as to what the icon for poisonous is.

Entries also have a “possible confusion” section, in which I learnt about lily of the valley. The section clearly explains the differences between the entry and its doppelganger. Wild garlic’s stems have one leaf to lily of the valley’s two. So far so good.

The dead giveaway is the smell though: wild garlic simply stinks of garlic.

After a quick whiff, I tore a handful of leaves from the ground, ensuring the roots stayed put, and put them in my mesh pouch: the ones supermarkets sell for fruit and veg.

The PlantNet app asks you to take a picture of a plant to identify it. Once snapped, the app provides a list of plants in order of visual similarity, complete with images to crossreference with your own. Close-up pictures of leaves or flowers yielded the best results.

I took a photo of the leaves with PlantNet and was greeted with an 85% match for wild garlic. I didn’t feel confident enough to rely on imagery alone to stop an untimely death though.

Wild Food UK’s hedgerow guide, available on their website (wildfooduk.com), provided an encyclopedic knowledge of British fauna.

WILD GARLIC & MUSHROOM RISOTTO

Ingredients serves 2

1 red onion

1 clove garlic

1 carrot

1 celery stick

80g chestnut mushrooms

150g arborio risotto rice

500ml vegetable/chicken stock

Handful of wild garlic

Parmesan cheese

Method

1) Chop and dice the garlic clove, onion, carrot and celery.

2) Add to pan with 1 tbsp olive oil. Simmer on low heat for 3 minutes.

3) Add risotto rice and mushrooms. Simmer for another 3 minutes.

Smells like victory

Most of my time in the park was spent searching for wild garlic, as well as photographing anything that looked remotely edible with PlantNet.

It made a refreshing change to traipsing through the park to force some fresh air into my lungs; having a task to do made me feel connected with nature, and although my forage was small, it felt wildly mighty.

4) Add your stock in stages, ensuring rice has absorbed stock before adding more.

5) Finely chop/slice wild garlic.

6) Once all stock is absorbed, add wild garlic and stir. Season and serve with parmesan.