Wild about foraging A global pandemic, climate change and a better understanding of the fragility of our world has prompted many people to look to their gardens and the wild to see what to harvest, cook and eat. In this edited extract from Johanna Knox’s The Forager’s Treasury we find out how to get started and some plants to look out for
Why forage?
There are many compelling reasons to gather from the wild: for health, for economy and for connection.
To keep healthy
The cultivated foods we buy in shops today have been bred for the commercial market, which values size, sweetness, colour, storability and uniformity. Nutritional value isn’t always high on the list of priorities, and consequently many modern cultivars have a lower nutritional value than their ancestors. Wild foods are often more densely packed with nutrients, and a wild-food diet can offer greater species variety.
To save money
In both the short and long term, foraging can save dollars. Relatively few people in this country will live entirely off what they gather, even for a short time, but if you have a pantry stocked with cheap staples you can combine them with many fresh, richly nutritious wild ingredients to make a wide range of dishes. While I was writing the first edition of this book, money was tight for my family. But I had stores of rice, pasta, flour, sugar and beans. By spending money on only a few extra essentials and foraging for the rest, I killed two birds with one stone: I tested the recipes in this book and helped to keep my family well fed.
To explore terroir
Every plant is a storehouse of valuable phytochemicals – natural chemicals made by plants. Each plant or group of plants specialises in certain chemicals and holds them variously in its roots, sap, bark, leaves, flowers and seeds. Some chemicals appear throughout a plant and others only in one part of it. The same chemicals can pop up in diverse parts of the plant kingdom. For example, anethol gives liquorice, fennel and star anise their aroma, even though they’re from quite different plant families.
CLEAN SWEEP Broom plants are a common sight along highways, by rivers and forest tracks. The branches can be used to make brooms, brushes and baskets. Some species of broom have flowers that fill the air with a sweet scent during summer and others are noted for giving a yellow dye when you boil up their leaves, flowers and twigs.
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