Foraging Four Months
Words and Photography: Jen Abell
Keen-eyed wanderers spend years taking trips to find foraging spots, many of them fruitless. This is why we’ve all met foragers reluctant to give their maps and tip-offs. This is fair. It’s important to respect the protection of their hardwon annual rituals when we start our soil searching. Before you read this guide, remember three things: 1) Think of your neighbours. Leave enough for them to enjoy. 2) Think of the birds and the ecosystem. Fill a bottle with elderflower cordial, not a cellar. The agricultural revolution has long been thought of as an advancement of humankind. For the first time, we staked a claim in one spot, relishing the safety of predictable food sources. Eventually, new-found nutritional safety allowed us spare time, instigating a surge in all manner of useful inventions we take for granted today. With Climate Crisis no longer looming, but hovering over our heads, historians like Yuval Noah Harari are citing the agricultural revolution not as the moment that we took a step to secure lifestyles, but that we fell for a Trojan horse, trapping ourselves in a static cycle of damage both to ourselves and our planet. We know this as the moment that provided an opportunity for animal-derived virus’ to make the leap from beast to man. We have goats to thank for tuberculosis, horses for the common cold, ducks for influenza, cows for measles and as for Covid-19: the jury’s out… Is this the moment our diets became less varied? (Would you like some wheat with that wheat?) That the planet began to groan under the weight of human industry? The beginning of physical inactivity and excess food supply evolving into the lifestyle diseases we now think are unavoidable? Diabetes, stroke, gout to name a few. What were we doing before we made this ‘leap’? We were gatherers; eating our way across the planet with the seasons and without passports. We moved monthly, sometimes daily, eating all the antioxidantrich varieties nature had to offer, no mile-long lorry queues at Dover required.
3) Doubt what you’ve found? Leave it in the ground. That said, you don’t have to be an expert to dip your snips into foraging. Start with common plants and see where your interest takes you. Here are some of nature’s obvious offerings to look out for over the next 4 months: March: What? Nettles. Green coarsely toothed leaves that grow 2-5ft tall. Used for: Soup, risotto, fritters, pizza, cake, plant food, smoothies, tea, beer. Nettle is a blood purifier, mild laxative and packed with Vitamin C. It adds a similar taste to broccoli in soups. Where? Incredibly common. Railway embankments, the Ely River, Bute Park. Foraging tips: Don’t pick the plant when in flower, this changes the nutritional quality. Early Spring or Late Autumn is advised. Wear gloves. If eating raw, use a pestle and mortar to pulverise the formic acid (this puts the ‘sting’ in stinging nettle).
We can’t change the past. But with a strange locked down Spring around the corner, we can use home sprung exercise expeditions to channel the spirit of our ancestors and improve our present. In and around Cardiff, even on short strolls, I stumble across blackberries, dog rose and apples. We are spoilt by nature’s spoils, no gardens or allotments necessary. With high vegetable diets proven to fight disease, and time in nature a known mood booster, we may enjoy more than a tasty chutney for our rummaging endeavours.
30 CARDIFF TIMES
April: What? Wild Garlic (pictured). Green leaves with white flowers with separate triangular petals. Used for: pesto, pickle, ketchup, stir fry and as a salad leaf.
