Wild Kitchen
Oonagh O’Dwyer
Wild Kitchen Published by Wild Kitchen Publishing, Callura South, Lahinch, Co. Clare. 2016 ISBN 978-0-9955624-0-0 Written by Oonagh O’Dwyer. Photography Oonagh O’Dwyer. Cover Photo: Blackberry, Elderberry and Sorrel Pesto made by Cearbhúil Ní Fhionnghusa
© Copyright This book, its photographs and contents remain the product of the author and its reproduction for sale or financial profit elsewhere is prohibited. “This little book, celebrates nature’s bounty. Our seashore, woodlands, hillsides and quiet boreens are the last remnants of a rich wilderness which deserves to be shared, sustained and cared for by all of us.’’
Jim McNamara, Educational Director (Retired) of an T-ionad Glas, Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick.
Wild Kitchen is a member of the Burren Eco-Tourism Network. Member of the award winning Burren Food Trail. Wild Kitchen is a tourism partner of The Burren and Cliffs of Moher UNESCO Global Geopark leave no trace
Centre for outdoor ethics
I guide wild food walks, teaching people from all walks of life how to sustainably harvest our wild plants. Walks include practical identification tips, what’s in season, what not to eat, while discussing the many ways to use wild food, from cooking to preserving, drying, smoking and making wonderful drinks from nature’s bounty. We create fully imersive “Wild Food Experiences” in unusual venues, that include workshops and hand-crafted cooking. This book is about FOOD, the wild food that adorns our hedgerows and fields, providing us with a wonderful variety of roots, leaves, flowers, seeds, berries, nuts, fungi and seaweed. Wild food that can richly enhance our diets, adding valuable vitamins and minerals, new tastes, colours and textures. A sustainable food source that is seasonal, local, delicious, FREE, beneficial to human health and can be used as food medicine. I hope through its info, photographs and recipes this guide can help you to enjoy this wild bounty as much as I do. As an avid forager since childhood, growing up in the shade of the Galtee Mountains in Co. Tipperary, finding, cooking and using wild food remains, to this day, the joyful experience I recall of those carefree days of my youth. So often I meet people on my walks that share special food memories, recalling stories passed down from their elders of recipes using wild food, that are, to me, as precious as photographs and they delight in telling me “their’’ specific local names of these same plants.
My food memories are of dawn mushroom walks in dewy fields, with my Dad and yes our Yorkshire terrier Orla, the promise of these beauties steamed in butter on toast with hot tea for breakfast, well worth the early rise. We would catch rabbits, brown trout and salmon in season in the local river. A way of life passed down to me that has enriched mine in so many ways. Autumn would find us risking life and limb climbing into the branches of a wild cherry tree on the neighbour’s farm reaching for the fattest fruit. My Dad would often spend an early morning himself, as a child, in those same mountains, collecting wild blueberries, known locally as ‘‘whorts’’ filling his belly more than his bucket. We since learned the vitamin rich berries were bought and sent to Wales for the miners. I learned also the importance of wild food myself as a school child getting days off to pick rosehips that were destined for malnourished children in Africa, as rosehips contain 20 times more vitamin C than oranges. As well as all the various wild plants, rabbit, pheasant and fish provided a welcome addition to our regular diet, and my Mother’s brilliant talent for cooking, turned humble ingredients into dinners fit for kings. Freshly caught brown trout fried in butter, warm railway cake with blackcurrant jam (so called because there was a currant at every station) as they were used so sparingly. Her dish of wild rabbit roasted with streaky bacon was a wonderful thing, if we were really lucky blackberry and apple crumble would follow, simple and unforgettable. From the orchard, four types of apples, that we would wrap carefully in greaseproof paper, ‘’acquired’’ from a friend of Dad’s who worked in the famous Kiely’s bakery in the town.
Mum and I would bake a dozen apple pies every Saturday, filling the house with the smell of Autumn, and filling our hearts with wonderful food memories that have endured through the years. I continued my love for all things wild when as a mature student I studied organic Horticulture in the wonderful an T-ionad Glas, Organic College, in Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick. Tutoring, growing food, being a mother and creating Wild Kitchen since. Sadly, tonnes of wild food goes to waste every year, food that could be so beneficial to society. We have thousands of edible plants available to us globally and most of us eat only a tiny fraction of these. Our bodies have evolved over tens of thousands of years to deal with a varied diet of hundreds of plants, but modern living can now leave us with less than 20 plant sources of food and much of this is processed. So we often have a nutritional deficit, a taste deficit and a nature deficit......hence wild food. I don’t know about you, but I crave being out in the wild. Through the ages, the ongoing “advances’’ in agriculture and the sad decline of gathering wild food as a way of life, like our ancestors did, we have lost touch with that primal need to feed ourselves from nature and look to supermarkets and mass produced “food’’ to sustain us. Thankfully green shoots are appearing and a food revolution seems to be emerging, with more people growing their own, setting up farmers markets, creating interesting food trails, starting community supported agriculture projects, (CSAs) incubator kitchens and co-ops. May they thrive and grow, locally and globally.
Dandelion Taraxacum officinale The Dandelion is one of our most common wild plants hugely beneficial to bees and humans. A hardy perennial, easily recognized by its sun yellow flowers, it has a tap root and lobed, saw edged leaves, like “lions teeth’’ hence the name (dent de lion). The flowers turn into the round seed heads or “clocks’’ that blow in the wind. Found in fields, hedgerows and lawns, it tolerates most soils. Gather the leaves before the plant flowers to avoid the bitterness often associated with them. Used for improving overall health, great for your skin and prescribed as a diuretic. They are high in minerals, especially potassium, and vitamins A, B, C, and D. The bitterness of the leaves is good for digestion and poor appetite. All parts can be used. Soak the whole plant in alcohol, roots, leaves and flowers, leave in a cool place for a couple of weeks before straining through muslin. Store in dark bottles and label. A teaspoon a day for general good health.
Dandelion leaves The young leaves are delicious in a salad, and make a good tea. The flowers can be used to make beer, wine, salad oil or marmalade, can be fried in flour or the petals sprinkled on your favourite dish. The roasted roots of dandelion, a well-known caffeine free coffee substitute, is surprisingly pleasant, try it ground up with other seeds for a fabulous hot drink. Dandelion flowers make a beautiful oil for dry skin, steep a jar full of open flowers in good quality olive oil and leave somewhere warm for a week or two, strain and store in a sterilized jar. Add to a salad dressing, lovely with rosemary, tomatoes and olives. The unopened flowers are good for pickling. Wilt the leaves with garlic, topped with parmesan shavings or mixed through good pasta, turning it a lovely green colour. Dandelion Marmalade
Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) One of my favourites and sure to please the tongue, as the young leaves of this common wild herb taste of green apples and some say have a lemony taste, they do. Common perennial, leaves grow from a rosette base, found in fields and hedgerows and easily identified in Summer by their beautiful pink seeds that sway in the wind. It contains oxalic acid, so don’t eat too much, but Sorrel is full of vitamin C, and is used for soup, cold or chilled and makes a wonderful fish sauce, or can be used as a spinach substitute. Great chopped and mixed into plain organic yoghurt with some good olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and a pinch of salt, mix into pasta with walnuts, or as a dip with spicy food, so good. Or use as a wrap for your favourite filling.
Blackberry Rubus fruiticosus Our common bramble, with its vitamin C rich berries, loved by so many in September for the traditional jammaking sessions that preserved the harvest and smothered many a slice of bread. By far our most abundant wild berry, unmistakable by its thorns and ability to tip root and take over very quickly. The leaves and shoots when young are full of minerals and vitamins and make a great tea. Use fresh leaves when green or dry for later use. The berries have endless culinary uses and make an interesting chutney when mixed with other wild fruit. Turn into a divine spread when simmered with apples, sugar and lemon juice. I make blackberry syrup for ice-cream and pancakes. Steep berries in a good white vinegar and brown sugar for a salad dressing and soothes a sore throat! They also make a lovely jelly and of course the Autumn staple desserts of my childhood, crumbles and pies, maggots and all I’m sure. Also good in a smoothie. Blackberries of course make a wonderful country wine.
Common or Stinging Nettle Urtica diocia Nettle seeds
Nettle the most useful of plants, and one that needs no introduction. Common in many parts, a hardy perennial that has that famous ‘’sting’’. A delicious and nutritious herb full of vitamins and minerals, especially iron. The leaves, seeds and roots are edible and have many culinary uses. Use the young leaves in spring as a tonic, as my aunt Nonie in Tipperary says “eat three feeds of nettles in May’’. Nettles indicate a fertile soil and make a nitrogen rich fertiliser for feeding hungry leafy plants. Soak them in water for a couple of weeks, then sieve and dilute. But keep a lid on the mix, it does have a “strong’’ smell. When cut, they grow back quickly, providing a constant supply of new young leaves. I love nettles and crave their earthy taste for making into pesto, tea, delicious soup, beer and as a green vegetable substitute, cooked traditionally in Ireland with cabbage and bacon, and maybe swede, it makes a wholesome dish. Simmer them for using in pesto and on pizza, it keeps the lovely green colour. I make nettle syrup for diluting as a pleasant drink. Fabulous when chopped finely and added to a pasta flour mix, green tagliatelle anyone. I use them in making a wonderful Jerusalem artichoke and Nettle Rosti, comfort food at its best. Stop using the leaves when the plant goes to seed, but use the seeds when almost ripe, for a nutritious nutty tasting addition to your diet. Dry them and mix with other seeds and salt for a great condiment. I add them to my seaweed bread mix, or soak in honey for a delicious addition to cereal and fruit.
Elder Sambucus Nigra
What a plant, I yearn for the Summer when the flowers of this special tree dot the hedgerows. One could write an entire book about this powerful plant, such are the stories and cures associated with it, revered and loved for many reasons. Elder is a common deciduous hedgerow tree, the leaves have two or three pairs of opposite leaflets and one terminal one. Flowers are umbel shaped sprays that appear in late May and June, followed in late Summer by the purple berries, loved by birds, so be quick. I make the most delicious drink from the flower heads, a light summery drink with fizz and attitude, great added to white wine, or Limoncello, for a beautiful cocktail. Steep 10 flower heads in a plastic bucket with 500g of sugar, 4 litres of water, juice and rind of 2 organic lemons, and 2 tbspn of cider vinegar. Stir until sugar is dissolved, cover and leave somewhere cool for a day. Strain into screw top bottles, ready in a few weeks. Serve chilled. The flowers can be dipped in batter and fried in butter, delicious. Made into wine and all sorts of desserts and go particularly well with gooseberries and cream‌‌and of course leave some flowers for the glorious fruit. Elderberries are used as a dye/ink, hair colour!! and of course for Elderberry wine, chutney and syrup, and they make a wonderful vinegar and vitamin rich cordial for diluting. Always cook the berries. To make a beautiful blancmange, simmer a handful of the seaweed Carrageen and a couple of heads of elderflowers in a pint of milk for 20 mins, add 100g of caster sugar or honey and stir until dissolved. Strain and stir in 500 ml of cream, pour into a bowl where it will set. Quite delicious.
Common Chickweed Stellaria media Yes, to some a weed that takes over newly cultivated ground, but a most tasty wild green, full of vitamins and minerals. A common annual weed of gardens, it self-seeds freely. Can be added to a comfrey liquid as fertilizer, as hen food! in a bath for sore skin and delicious eaten raw in a salad, or made into fritters or pesto, yum. Identified by its small white flowers which have 5 white lobed petals and a single line of hairs on its stem. Use as a basil substitute, I make it into a pesto with sundried tomatoes, walnuts, maybe lentils, garlic and olive oil. Amazing on toast or crusty bread or mixed into pasta.
Meadowsweet Filipendula ulmaria One of our beautiful Summer plants, with its intoxicating scent of almonds from its cream flowers. Common in hedgerows, meadows, and riverbanks, a perennial that can grow to over a metre tall. Stems reddish in colour. The leaves are white underneath and flowers until late Summer. Pick flowering stems in June/July and hang them to dry in an airy place for later use. Used to flavour the drink mead, it adds a distinctive flavour to summer cordials and the flowers and leaves make a pain relieving fragrant tea, as it is the original source of aspirin! The old name for Meadowsweet, is Spiraea. I use it as I do Elderflower, for that famous Summer drink, or turn it into wine, that is as good as any Muscadet. Wonderful to flavour desserts, paired with summer fruits and cream.
Crow Garlic Allium vineale Leek like when young this wonderful wild plant is a hardy perennial, common in most parts in hedgerows and coastal laneways. It produces beautiful seed heads in late summer and has an amazing bulb of garlic when unearthed in the Autumn. Though not as strong in flavour as regular garlic it imparts a wild taste like no other and keeps very well. Use the stalks like leeks and then the bulbs for any dish that requires garlic, increasing the quantity if desired.
WILD GARLIC RAMSONS Often the first wild plant I get asked about, a hardy perennial that dies back in Summer and shoots up again from bulbs in Spring. The broad leaves of Ramsons have a strong garlic taste and are followed by beautiful white flowers that are also edible and great on a salad or can be pickled. It grows abundantly in woodlands and shady hedgerows and is easily identified by the scent on approach. Leaves used for making pesto, as a green vegetable and to wrap fish and meat in and makes a wonderful sauce by mixing with vinegar and oil. Can be whizzed in a processor with a little oil and frozen for when out of season.
Haws Hawthorn Crataegus Monogyna Wonderful common native Irish deciduous tree, with thorns and lobed leaves, adorning the countryside in May with the ‘’May Blossom’’ of white/pinkish flowers. Followed by bunches of orange/ red berries in the Autumn that look like small apples and contain a single seed. Known also as the Fairy tree, or Whitethorn, and still used in many parts of Ireland to celebrate May eve. The young leaves have a pleasant nutty taste and are great in salads in spring. The flowers and leaves make a pleasant tea, with a calming effect. They were known as bread and cheese by country children when put between empty slices of bread. The flowers make a beautiful summer cordial and an interesting wine. Sadly, the berries are not commonly used and many believe they are not edible, they are quite delicious, and can be combined with other wild fruit for making into a beautiful jelly. They do contain a stone, so be careful to remove by straining. Haws also make a good wine, fruit leather, and the flowers make a great liqueur. I found a wonderful recipe for Haw Ketchup, in a book called the Wild Foods Cookbook, by Joy O.I. Spoczynska, that I make lots of in the Autumn. Great on an egg or with cheese.
Haw Ketchup
Gorse/Furze Ulex europeus Gorse or Furze is a common evergreen thorny bush that lights up the countryside with its rich yellow flowers and wonderful scent of yes, coconut. A member of the pea family, that flowers for most of the year, bringing welcome colour to a bare Winter landscape. One of the first flowers I made into wine, and one I describe as grapefruit juice with a kick!! It remains to this day one of my favourite country wines, dry and refreshing, wonderful with fish. Use gloves to harvest the flowers that have many uses including Gorse Flower Vinegar, simply steep flowers in good quality wine vinegar for a couple of days and strain for a beautiful addition to salads and dressings. Also used to flavour ice-cream and desserts, the dried branches make excellent firelighters!
Blackthorn Prunus spinose Our common native very thorny, (hence its name) shrub that is the first to flower even before the leaves appear in early Spring. Blackthorn is a member of the plum family, with its prized blue/ black fruit in the Autumn, cherished for making into a rich jelly, interesting chutney, wine, and the much loved liqueur Sloe gin. The fruit is very sour, but softens after frost, and often lasts into the Winter, providing welcome fruit when all else is gone. The dense black wood used for making Shillelaghs, pronounced shih-LAY-lee the famous Irish walking sticks. I love to gather them and dry them slowly, storing for later use, and ready for any recipe that requires them, just pop into water, but remember they contain a hard stone.
Plantain Ribwort/Plantago Lancelot and Plantago major Common perenniel herb, either long narrowleaved (lancelot) often called Ribwort or broad leaved (major) with distinctive ribs on underside of leaves that grow from a rosette shaped base. Wonderful plant for coughs, it contains magnesium and vitamins A, C, and K. Flowers are long, slender, densely packed and form seed heads that turn brown, providing food for wild birds. It can be found in many locations, being one of the most commly used wild herbs in the world. The young leaves are edible and are not too unlike spinach, it can be cooked or added to salads, and juiced for smoothies. Leaves make a pleasant tea. The seeds are also edible, and can be eaten raw or dried and stored for later use. They can be ground and added to flour and are rich in vitamin B1. I have used Plantain Lancelot as a wonderful cough remedy, simply juice a handful and add to the same amount of organic honey, take 1 teaspoon 3 times a day. Being anti-bacterial the plant is brilliant for insect and nettle stings, squash a leaf and rub in to affected area.
Cleavers/Galium aparine The plant that take a lift on your clothing, giving it the common name of sticky-willy, or goosegrass. Very common garden and hedgerow plant that creeps through bushes and winds its way through shrubs and trees, forming a dense mass. Totally edible when young in spring, either eaten raw, or stir-fried. It can be juiced and added to smoothies, or mixed into honey. The seeds of cleavers, believe it or not, make a great coffee substitute, dried and lightly roasted! It also makes a handy basket for an unexpected harvest, see pic. What a plant‌
Seaweed Living on the Wild Atlantic Way has many benefits, enjoying our highly nutritious seaweed is one of them. We harvest more than twelve seaweeds along the coast near Wild Kitchen, and their possible uses are endless. A seaweed bath with bladderwrack and solar heated water is an exilirating, highly beneficial experience. Seaweed is wonderful for the garden as a slow release fertilizer, as a mulch for supressing weeds and preventing soil erosion. Kelp was collected locally in times gone by and sent to Kilrush to be made into powdered seaweed for the land. The list goes on. I eat seaweed every day. I crave it, I sprinkle it on my porridge in Winter, and on my salads in Summer. I use it in soup, as a stock, in hummus, in tapenade, as crisps, milled with spices, in desserts, bread mixes and as a rich paste made from simmering Nori in soy sauce, salt and sugar in water for 30 minutes, utterly delicious. Some seaweeds contain our fifth taste, after salty, sweet, sour and bitter, it’s called Umami. It is an extraordinary resource, that needs to be harvested sustainably. Always cut seaweed using a sharp scissors, leaving at least a third to grow back. Don’t take more than you can use and harvest little amounts from various suitable locations. Seaweeds we harvest through the year include, Carrageen, Dilisk, 3 types of Kelp, Sea lettuce, Sea grass, Sea Spaghetti, Nori, Alaria, Bladder wrack, Channelled wrack and Pepper Dulse. I have included some of my favourites here.
Sea Lettuce Ulva lactura Beautiful delicate green seaweed, with a wonderful fresh taste. Bursting with vitamins B12 , iron and trace elements. Gather nearest the waters edge to avoid any run off from nearby fields as it can thrive in brackish water. Cut half of the plant and dry to preseve its amazing colour and taste. Shred and add to salads and is great in sushi. When dried, I toast it in a dry frying pan for a few minutes for sprinkling on salads and as a garnish with nettle seeds and dried spices.
Carrageen Chondrus crispus The popular purple seaweed found in rock pools and under brown seaweeds and often sold bleached. Used most commonly to make liquid set into jelly and blancmange. Carrageen is used in many food stuffs from baby formula to ice-cream and makes a wonderful drink for warding off colds and flu in Winter. Simmer a handful in milk or water, then strain and either flavour with honey or vanilla and drink straight away or pour into a mould and allow to set, try adding elderflowers, wonderful added to fruit, rhubarb, or with Baileys Irish Cream !!!
Flecks of pure blue oxygen on Carrageen.
Sugar Kelp
Sugar Kelp Saccharina latissima With its sweet white powder called Mannitol that forms on this wonderful seaweed when it is dry, Suger Kelp or Kombu Royale is one of our most beautiful seaweeds. My boys think it looks like a reptile‌. Growing on the lower shore it is a long seaweed with a short holdfast. Always cut, never pull seaweed from rocks. Used in many ways, dried and ground to add to cake and biscuit mixtures, young Sugar Kelp is delicious fresh in a salad or in Asian dishes. Simmer in water with bonito flakes to make a tasty seaweed stock or when dried cut into strips and bake in oven for 7 minutes for healthy crisps.
Sea Spaghetti Himanthalia elongata A delicious alternative to pasta, sea spaghetti is full of vitamins, minerals and trace elements. It grows from buttons, and can be found floating like hair at the lower shore. Cut when young, leaving the buttons to regrow. It gets warty in late Summer and is not as good to eat. Can be used instead of pasta, and turns a lovely green when simmered in water. Great marinated overnight with soy sauce and vinegar for a nutritious addition to salads and lunch boxes.
Dilisk Palmaria palmata Packed with all the essential vitamins and trace elements we need, a nutritional hit, that can be eaten straight off the rocks. May be found growing on serrated wrack and is common all along the coast. Also known as Dulse. Dilisk is a purple ribonny seaweed, that is traditionally sold dried as a snack. Great for crisps, as a tapenade with green olives, makes a great addition to a bread mix. Toast dried Dilisk in a dry frying pan and grind for a delicious salt alternative for sprinkling over food.
Pepper Dulse Osmundea pinnatifida I love the reaction people have when they try this amazing seaweed, it’s called the truffle of the sea, and yes it tastes like mushroom, and has also been described as tasting like anchovies and salt and pepper. A very small, pretty seaweed, puple in Winter when it’s at its best, found growing on the side of rocks. I use it fresh on pasta and pizza, amazing in a lemon sauce for fish, or dried and powdered as a wonderful condiment.
Nori Porphyra A jewel of the sea, Nori made famous for making into sushi sheets is a delicate, small dark brown, sometimes puple seaweed, that can be seen covering rocks, like melted black plastic bags. Common along the coast at lower to middle shore. Said to be at its best after the first frost, like parsnips! Known as laver in Wales for making into their famous laver cakes and in Ireland as Sleabhac. Utterly delicious when simmered with soy sauce, spoon of sugar, sprinkle of salt and enough water to cover. It turns into a paste, and is great as a filling in sushi rolls, as a spread on toast or crackers, or as a wonderful healthy side dish.
Dog Rose Rosa canina A wild rose, with delicate pink petals, on thorny branches, followed by pointed red hips in the Autumn. Leaves are oval and pointed. Common all over Ireland, growing in hedgerows and fields. This plant holds happy memories for many reasons. We used to get a day off school to pick the vitamin C rich rosehips of this common hedgerow shrub. They were put into special bags and sent to Africa for malnourished children. Delighted our free day gathering wild food could help others. They make a tasty syrup, great on ice-cream or on desserts and to ward off colds. They can be used for making jellies, sorbet, wine and the leaves and the hips make a wonderful tea. Add a splash of rose hip syrup to white rum and apple juice for a great cocktail! Use the petals on a salad, so beautiful. Care needs to be taken when using to remove all the hairy seeds inside the hips, by straining through muslin a couple of times. Rose hip syrup
Cook 1kg of rosehips in 1 ½ litres of water until soft for 20 mins. Squeeze them twice through double muslin and add 500g of sugar. Allow to dissolve, then bring to the boil and take off the heat. Pour into sterilized bottles for later use.
Japanese Rose Rosa Rugosa. Another worthy edible, and becoming quite common in gardens and hedgerows, where it thrives. The petals of Rose Rugosa are either pale or dark pink and this plant is particularly useful as the hips can be up to four times bigger than Dog Rose, reducing the amount you need to collect for syrup and other nice things. Use the fragrant petals for Turkish Delight and on salads and as cake decorations when dipped in sugary water and let dry.
Wild Thyme Thymus Polytrichus Wild thyme is a low growing herb, with creeping stems, common in bogs, mountains and in coastal areas of Ireland. Carpeting the ground with its purple, rounded flower heads and aromatic scent, though not as strong a taste as the cultivated varieties. A bed of wild thyme makes a wonderful place for a nap. I have my favourite spot to harvest from and use it where thyme is required. Mix with olive oil and garlic, for marinating olives, and as a dip for good bread. Steep in hot water and organic honey for a pleasant remedy for a sore throat.
Wild Marjoram Origanum Vulgare Common perennial purple flowered herb, with leaves in opposite pairs, with short stalks and a wonderful aroma when chopped. Found in the Burren, and common on roadside verges throughout the country, it is a great addition to pizza and pasta, or tomato dishes. Dry a few stems in an airy place for use all year, makes a lovely tea, or mix into cream cheese, or yoghurt for a Mediterranean flavour.
Water Mint Mentha aquatica I first came across this culinary delight as a child, growing happily in a stream in the Galtee mountains. Its heady peppermint scent filling the summer air, another plant that is easily recognized by its aroma. Water mint is a common perennial growing happily with watercress and marsh marigolds. Leaves are opposite, pointed/oval with purple flowers, and all parts smell of mint. Used where mint is required, makes great tea, sauce, and ice-cream flavouring, and a handy mouth wash when camping.
While all care was taken in accurately conveying the details of plants in this book, this is not a medicinal reference and advice of a qualified medical person be sought if needed.
A few simple rules
If in doubt about a plant do not eat it. Forage away from busy roads and pathways used by dogs. Always tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back. When seashore foraging, check tides and weather conditions before venturing out. Always cut seaweed, leaving at least a third to continue growing. Never eat seaweed that is washed up at the highest tide mark. Never clear a whole patch of wild edibles, take a little from here and there. Leave lots of flowers to turn into berries and seeds. Respect the countryside, landowners and other outdoor activity users.
Have fun, some of happiest days have been spent in the wild. Leave No Trace Ireland is a network of organisations and individuals with an interest in promoting the responsible recreational use of the outdoors. Techniques designed to minimise the social and environmental impacts to these areas are incorporated into the Leave No Trace Outdoor Ethics Education Programme. In co-operation with this initiative, Wild Kitchen has completed Leave No Trace Awareness Training and is now an official Leave No Trace Partner 2014. www.leavenotraceireland.org
Wild Kitchen Tel: 087 6877890 Email: info@wildkitchen.ie www.wildkitchen.ie
Sushi Art
Seaweed Crackers
Pickled Nettles