RESOURCES: Wild Harvest There is such a huge amount of food growing wild, untended, abundant and free - if you only know where to look. Our ancestors would have considered wild food as an essential part of their diet, and there are many reasons to give foraging a go. The adventure, the great outdoors, the huge nutritional and medicinal benefits. We are lucky to have on the Seed Truck team a seasoned herbalist, Elspeth Killin, who has a huge depth of knowledge about all sorts of wild plants and their uses.
Healing foods - tame and wild. Written by Elspeth Killin
H
erbs and wild plants can be found everywhere – in the fields, lanes and hedgerows, woodlands and seashore – your garden and pots on the kitchen window. They are a key ingredient of our diet – not only adding interesting – and very individual tastes – but also providing nutritional and medicinal benefit. I have listed 5 key tastes (although some traditions define them differently). Taste unlocks our food and sets the digestive system in motion. Tastes should be balanced in the diet. • • • • •
Sweet – basic cereals, root vegetables, fruits dried & stored Sour – fruit acids including berries & rosehips Bitter – dandelion, chicory, wild lettuce, hops Salty – seaweeds, possibly nettles ? Acrid/pungent – cayenne, mustard, horseradish, garlic (which becomes ‘sweet’ when cooked)
Gathering plants in the wild is a joy – the different seasons offering different bounty. Spring has ransoms (Allium ursinum – bear garlic), nettles, raspberries and elderflowers.
“
Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food.
- Hippocrates
Ripe elderberries on the tree
Elder was known as the ‘medicine chest of the country people’, referring to its number of uses – the flowers may be used in sinus conditions and a traditonal tea (EYP) was made from Elderflowers, Yarrow and Peppermint to help with the symptoms of coughs and colds. Elderflower are made into various flavoursome drinks and deserts. In Autumn the elderberry is abundant – cooked before use – and made into wine and a ‘rob’ (the juice thickened by heat – using other ingredients – perhaps brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and lemon. ) – full of vitamin C and a base for cold remedies. Hawthorn berries,
sloes, rosehips, crab apples and brambles are all at hand at that most abundant time of year Autumn, or Hairst (Harvest) in Scots. Please note: • • • • • •
! Berries may have to be cooked ! Never strip a plant bare! ! Collect away from traffic and sprayed fields ! Never lift whole plants ! Ensure you have the right plant ! Harvest only what you can use