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Food for Free
Richard Mabey


The classic foraging guide to over 200 types of food that can be gathered and picked in the wild, Food for Free returns in its 40th year as a sumptuous, beautifully illustrated and fully updated anniversary edition.Originally published in 1972, Richard Mabey’s classic foraging guide has never been out of print since. Food for Free is a complete guide to help you safely identify edible species that grow around us, together with detailed artwork, field identification notes and recipes.In this stunning 40th anniversary edition, Richard Mabey’s fully-revised text is accompanied by photographs, new recipes and a wealth of practical information on identifying, collecting, cooking and preparing, history and folklore. Informatively written, beautifully illustrated and produced in a new, larger format, Food for Free will inspire us to be more self-sufficient and make use of the natural resources around us to enhance our lives.


















© Justus de Cuveland/Imagebroker/FLPA






© Siepmann/Imagebroker/FLPA


Preface to the new edition

In 2010, René Redzepi’s Copenhagen restaurant Noma, whose reputation rests on its innovative use of an extraordinary range of wild ingredients, was judged to be the best eatery in the world in an annual poll of food professionals. It was a milestone in the foraging renaissance, but also a sign of the times. It would be hard to find a serious restaurant these days that doesn’t feature wild food on its menu. Marsh samphire, chanterelles, wild garlic, dandelion leaves, elderberries, have all become routine ingredients. And increasingly wildings are marshalled into the exotic presentations of the new cuisine. Snails on moss. Haws conjured into ketchup. Cep cappuccino. Sea-buckthorn-berry gel. A whole infrastructure of professional pickers has evolved to service the fashion, and portfolios of television series to popularize it. Wild food has gone mainstream.

How times have changed. When the first edition of Food for Free was published in 1972, foraging was still regarded as mildly eccentric. To the extent that it was a new (or revived) tradition, it seemed part of the counter-culture, not the food business. It was a natural outgrowth of the idealism of the 60s, and its roots were firmly anchored in the burgeoning interests in ecology and food quality. I have a snapshot of myself taken around the time the book was published. I’m sitting cross-legged on the lawn in a kaftan, looking rather smug, and cradling an immense puffball on my lap. What the picture reminds me of, forty years on, is that foraging for wild food then didn’t feel much like an exploration of some ancient rural heritage (though of course it was). It felt political, cheeky, hedge-wise, a poke in the eye for domesticity as much as domestication. It was only later that I began to appreciate that it might also be a way – on all kinds of social and cultural and psychological levels – of ‘reconnecting with the wild’.

But if you were to look at it sceptically, the growing popularity of wild food could seem like a shift in the opposite direction, not so much connecting ourselves with the wild, as domesticating the feral. The seriously intellectual Oxford Food Symposium devoted its annual conference to wild food in 2004. There were learned papers on foraging customs in south-west France and on ‘Wild food in the Talmud’, and a tasting of ‘The feral oils of Australia’. Here in the UK local authorities lay on guided forays in their country parks. New Forest fungi are on sale in supermarkets. The seeds of wild vegetables such as alexanders are available commercially, so you can germinate the wilderness in a window box. The fashionable rise of wild foods is perfectly expressed by the changing fortunes of marsh samphire. In the 60s it was an arcane seashore delicacy, a ‘poor man’s asparagus’. In 1981 it was served at Charles and Diana’s wedding breakfast, gathered fresh from the Crown’s own marshes at Sandringham. In the new millennium it’s become a garnish for restaurant fish, and a favourite seaside holiday souvenir, sold by the bag to those who don’t want to get their own legs mud-plastered, and as a bar-top snack, lightly vinegar-ed and set in bowls next to the crisps and peanuts. Out in the market-place the spirit of the hunter-gatherer seems to be waning.






© Paul Hobson/FLPA






© ImageBroker/Imagebroker/FLPA

But out in the countryside it is alive and well, and this strange duality – of atavistic foraging coexisting with comfortable eating-out – forces the question why? Why should 21st century diners, with most of the taste sensations on the planet effortlessly available to them on a plate, occasionally choose to browse about like Palaeolithics? What are we after? We’re opting for the most part for inconvenience food, for bramble-scrabbling, mud-larking, tree-climbing. For the painful business of peeling horse-radish and de-husking chestnuts., and the dutiful munching – for historic interest, of course – of the frankly rank ground elder, just because it was bought here as a pot-herb two thousand years ago. It seems a far cry from the duty once spelt out by that Edward Hyams, doyen of plant domestication, ‘to leave the fruits of the earth finer than he found them’.

But the inconvenience, the raw uncensored tastes, the necessity of getting physical with the landscape, may be the whole point. The gratifying discomfort of hunting down food the hard way seems genuinely to infuse its savour – even when someone else has done the gathering. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in Wild Fruit (1859): ‘The bitter-sweet of a white-oak acorn which you nibble in a bleak November walk over the tawny earth is more to me than a slice of imported pine-apple’. Another American forager called this elusive quality ‘gatheredness’.

To judge from the hundreds of letters I’ve been sent over the years, readers understand this. The intimacy with nature that foraging involves isn’t seen as pretend primitivism or some misty-eyed nostalgia for the simple life. Rather, it has encouraged a growing awareness of how food fits into the whole living scheme of things, and a curiosity and inventiveness that are every bit as sharp as those of our ancestors. Readers were writing about wild raspberry vinegar long before it became a fashionable ingredient of nouvelle cuisine; about the secret sites and local names of the little wild damsons that grow on the Essex borders; about childhood feasts of seaweed ‘boiled in burn water and laid on dog roses to dry’. Foreign cuisines, in which wild plants have always been important ingredients, have been brought to bear on our native wildings, and there have been experiments with fruit liqueurs that go way beyond sloe gin: service berries in malt whiskey, cloudberries in aquavit, gin with extra juniper berries.

Some of this innovativeness is even permeating the commercial food trade. A Glasgow brewery uses Argyllshire heather tops to flavour a popular ale sold as ‘leann fraoch’. Nettle leaves wrap Cornish ‘Harg’ cheese and sloe gins are available in the supermarkets. But it’s the new breed of adventurous chefs who are pushing at the boundaries of wild food use and bringing new ingredients into the repertoire, plants (or bits of plants) that may have never been deliberately eaten before: sea-aster (now cultivated commercially), bush vetch, flower pollens (with egg), spruce shoots, hogweed seeds (surprisingly like caradamom).

There has, of course, been a backlash. Some landowners and conservationists are worried that the sheer volume of foraging – especially where it is done professionally for the restaurant trade – may be damaging the populations of wild species: Marsh samphire, for instance, a major wild crop along the north Norfolk coast, but also an important stabiliser of bare mud on unstable shorelines. This is usually yanked straight out of the ground by foragers, root and all, so that the plant (an annual dependent on seeding) is destroyed. But whether samphire gathering, an ancient tradition in this region, happens on a sufficient scale to cause real damage and is therefore in need of controlling is debatable.

It’s mushrooming that raises the most serious worries. In a few areas, the widespread picking of fungi, including quite scarce species like cauliflower fungus, has become intense, and amplified by commercial foraging teams. In favoured spots, such as the New Forest and Burnham Beeches, there are now bye-laws prohibiting picking altogether, though this is a contentious matter, since the picked mushroom is merely a fruiting body, not the fungus ‘plant’ itself.

For myself, I’m not overly worried about the conservation impact of foraging. Almost all orthodox wild foods – leaves, nuts, fruits, even mushrooms – are a renewable resource, and are shed naturally by plants. And the impact of picking on wild vegetation is negligible when you compare it with the destructive effects of modern agriculture. But foraging has other, more subtle, side effects. It competes with the food gathering of wild birds and mammals. In some places it can make a visible impression on the local landscape, and spoil the enjoyment of walkers and naturalists. What we need more than legislation, I believe, is a foraging etiquette, to regulate our gathering enthusiasms in keeping with the needs of other organisms in the ecosystem (non-foraging humans included).

Paradoxically, it may be the restaurants that are doing most to develop this. The new wild food recipes use minute quantities of their ingredients. The ways in which they are cooked – frosted, blanched, quick-pickled, for instance – are designed to bring out the intensity of flavour, that ‘bitter sweet’ of the gathered wilding that Thoreau rhapsodised over. And chefs like René Redzepi are conjuring whole miniature ecosystems in their dishes. One of Noma’s set-pieces is ‘Blueberries surrounded by their natural environment’, an extraordinary evocation of an autumn heathland, with balls of spruce and bilberry ice-creams nestling in a cooled salad of wood sorrel and heather tops. It might be overstating things to call dishes like this works of art. But they have the same intentions as art, to encourage us to experience and think about the astonishing variety and texture of the wild, not to satisfy our hunger. And so they are able to employ the smallest quantities of their foraged ingredients.

I find I’ve drifted this way myself, evolving into a wayside nibbler. I like lucky finds, small wayside gourmet treats. I relish the shock of the new taste, that first bite of an unfamiliar fruit. Sun-dried English prunes, from a damson bush strimmed while it was in fruit. Single wild blackcurrants picked from a boat. Reed-stems, sucked for their sugary sap. Often the catch is apples, wayside wildings sprung from thrown-away cores and bird droppings. They seem to catch everything that’s exhilarating about foraging: a sharpness of taste, and of spirit; an echo of the vast, and mostly lost, genetic diversity of cultivated fruits; a sense of place and season. I’ve found apples that tasted of pears, fizzed like sherbet, smelt of quince, and still dream of discovering the lost Reinette Grise de St. Ogne with its legendary fennel savour. But it’s the finding of them, the intimacy with the trees and the places they grow, a heightened consciousness of what they need to survive, that are just as important. And it’s maybe that growing sense of intimacy amongst the new foragers that will provide the feedback to conserve their resource: ‘if you don’t take care of it you lose it.’ For me, it has generated the rough ethic, or etiquette, of scavenging. For preference I work the margins now, look for windfalls, vegetable road-kills, sudden flushes, leftovers. Or just those small, serendipitous treats off the bush. The 1930s fruit gourmet Edward Bunyan, meandering through his gooseberry patch, described the pleasures of ‘ambulant consumption’: ‘The freedom of the bush should be given to all visitors’. The freedom of the bush: it’s a liberty we should all enjoy, but also treasure.

This 40th anniversary edition includes many new recipes, including some based on ideas from René Redzepi, Sam and Sam Moro, and my old friend and fellow-forager Duncan Mackay. But I have not tinkered with the core of the text, despite its youthful and sometimes naïve idealism. That, after all, is what sparked the book off. If there are moments of, shall we say, tastelessness as a result, then the responsibility is entirely mine.

Richard Mabey, Norfolk 2012







© Nicholas and Sherry Lu Aldridge/FLPA

Introduction

It is easy to forget, as one stands before the modern supermarket shelf, that every single one of the world’s vegetable foods was once a wild plant. What we buy and eat today is still essentially nothing more special than the results of generations of plant-breeding experiments. For most of human history these were directed towards improving size and cropping ability. Some were concerned with flavour and texture – but these are fickle qualities, dependent for their popularity as much on fashion as on any inherent virtue. In later years there have been more ominous moves towards improving colour and shape, and most recently we have seen developments such as genetically modified crop plants and irradiated food, raising worries not only about human health but also about the potentially harmful effects of modern farming methods on the environment.

Indeed, concerns over modern methods of food production have led to something of a backlash, and Michelin-starred chefs are advocating the joys of marsh samphire, a native coastal plant that goes beautifully with another native wild food, fish. For the rest of us likewise: if plant breeding has been directed towards the introduction of bland, inoffensive flavours, and has sacrificed much for the sake of convenience, those old robust tastes, the curly roots and fiddlesome leaves, are still there for the enjoyment of those who care to seek them out.

To some extent, we have become conditioned by the shrink-wrapped, perfectly shaped produce we find in our supermarkets, and we are reluctant to venture into woods, pastures, cliff-tops and marshlands in search of food. But in fact almost every British garden vegetable (greenhouse species excepted) still has a wild ancestor flourishing here. Wild cabbages grow along the south coast, celery along the east. Wild parsnips flourish on waste ground everywhere. Historically these have always been sources of food in times of scarcity, yet each time with less ingenuity and confidence, less native knowledge about what they are and how they can be used. Food for Free is about these plants, and how they once were and can still be used as food. It is a practical book, I hope, though it would be foolish to pretend that there are any pressing economic reasons why we should have a large-scale revival of wild food use. You would need to be a most determined picker to keep yourself alive on wild vegetables, and since they are so easy to cultivate there would be very little point in trying. Nor are wild fruits and vegetables necessarily more healthy and nutritious than cultivated varieties – though some are, and most of them are likely to be comparatively free of herbicides and other agricultural poisons.

Why bother, then? Why not leave wild food utterly to the birds and slugs? My initial pleas are, I’m afraid, almost purely sensual and indulgent: interest, experience, and even, on a small scale, adventure. The history of wild food use is interesting enough in its own right, and those who would never dream of grubbing about on a damp woodland floor for their supper may still find themselves impressed by our ancestors’ resourcefulness. But those who are prepared to venture out will find more substantial rewards. It is the flavours and textures that will surprise the most, I think, and the realisation of to just what extent the cultivation and mass production of food have muted our taste experiences. There is a whole galaxy of powerful and surprising flavours preserved intact in the wild stock that are quite untapped in cultivated foods: tart and smoky berries, aromatic fungi, crisp and succulent shoreline plants. There is much along these lines that could be said in favour of wild foods. Some of them are delicacies, many of them are still abundant, and all of them are free. They require none of the attention demanded by garden plants, and possess the additional attraction of having to be found. I think I would rate this as perhaps the most attractive single feature of wild food use. The satisfactions of cultivation are slow and measured. They are not at all like the excitement of raking through a rich bed of cockles, of suddenly discovering a clump of sweet cicely, of tracking down a bog myrtle by its smell alone. There is something akin to hunting here: the search, the gradually acquired wisdom about seasons and habitats, the satisfaction of having proved you can provide for yourself. What you find may make no more than an intriguing addition to your normal diet, but it was you that found it. And in coastal areas, in a good autumn, it could be a whole three-course meal.

Wild food and necessity

It is not easy to tell how wide a range of plants was eaten before agriculture began. The seeds of any number of species have been found in Neolithic settlements, but these may have already been under a primitive system of cultivation. Plants gathered from the wild would inevitably drop their seed and begin to grow near their pickers’ dwellings; and if, as was likely, the specimens collected were above average in size or yield, so might be their offspring. So a sort of automatic selection would have taken place, with crops of the more fruitful plants growing naturally near habitation.

By the Elizabethan era, the range of wild plants and herbs used and understood by the average cottager was wide and impressive. In many ways it had to be. There was no other source of readily available medicine, or of many fruits and vegetables. Yet even under conditions of necessity, how is one to explain the discovery that as cryptic a part as the styles of the saffron crocus was useful as a spice? The number of wild bits and pieces that must have been put to the test in the kitchen at one time or another is hair-raising. We should be thankful the job has been done for us.






© Mark Sisson/FLPA

Many plants passed into use as food at this time as a by-product of their medicinal use. Blackcurrants, for instance, were certainly used for throat lotions before the recipients realised they were also quite pleasant to eat when you were well. Sheer economy also played a part, as in finding a use for hop tops that had to be thinned out in the spring. But like so much else, these old skills and customs were eroded by industrialisation and the drift to the towns. The process was especially thorough in the case of wild foods because cultivation brought genuine advances in quality and abundance. But if the knowledge of how to use them was fading, the plants themselves continued to thrive. Most of them prospered as they had always done in woods and hedgerows. Those that flourished best in the human habitats bided their time under fields which had been turned over to cultivation, or moved into the new wasteland habitats that were a by-product of urbanisation. Plants which had been introduced as pot-herbs clung on at the edges of gardens, as persistent as weeds as they were once abundant as vegetables.

Then some crisis would strike the conventional food supplies, and people would be thankful for this persistence. On the island fringes of Britain, where the ground is poor and the weather unpredictably hostile, the tough native plants were the only invariably successful crops. The knowledge of how to use these plants as emergency rations was kept right up to the time air transport provided a reliable lifeline to the mainland.

It was the two World Wars, and the disruptions of food supplies that accompanied them, which provided one of the most striking examples of the usefulness of wild foods. All over occupied Europe fungi were gathered from woods, and wild greens from bomb sites. In America, pilots were given instructions on how to live off the wild in case their planes were ditched over land. And in this country, the government encouraged the ‘hedgerow harvest’ (as they called one of their publications) as much as the growing of carrots.

Wild plants are invaluable during times of famine or crisis, precisely because they are wild. They are quickly available, tough, resilient, resistant to disease, adapted to the climate and soil conditions. If they were not, they would have simply failed to survive. They are always there, waiting for their moment, thriving under conditions that our pampered cultivated plants would find intolerable.

Some modern agriculturalists are beginning to look seriously at the special qualities of wild food plants. Conventional agriculture works by taking an end food product as given, and modifying plants and conditions of growth to produce it as efficiently as possible. In regions that are vastly different from the plant’s natural environment, its survival is always precarious, and often at damaging expense to the soil and the natural environment. The alternative approach is to study the plants that grow naturally and luxuriantly in the area, and see what possible food products can be obtained from them. This should become an especially fruitful line of research in developing countries with poor soils.

Plant use and conservation

These last few instances are examples of conditions in which wild food use was anything but a frivolous pastime. I sincerely hope that this book will never be needed as a manual for that sort of situation. But is there really nothing more to gathering wild foods than the fun of the hunt, and the promise of some exotic new flavours? I think there is. Getting to know these plants and the uses that have been made of them is to begin to understand a whole section of our social history. The plants are a museum in themselves, hangovers from times when palates were less fastidious, living records of famines and changing fashions and even whole peoples. To know their history is to understand how intricately food is bound up with the whole pattern of our social lives. It is easy to forget this by the supermarket shelf, where the food is instantly and effortlessly available, and soil and labour seem part of another existence. We take our food for granted as we do our air and water, and all three are threatened as a result.

Yet familiarity with the ways of just a few of the plants in this book gives an insight at first hand into the complex and delicate relationships which plants have with their environment: their dependence on birds to carry their seeds, on animals to crop the grass that shuts out their light, on wind and sunshine and the balance of chemicals in the soil, and ultimately on our own good grace as to whether they survive at all. It is on the products, wild or cultivated, of this intricate network of forces that our food resources depend.

I know there may be some people who will object to this book on the grounds that it may encourage further depletions of our dwindling wildlife. I believe that the exact opposite is true. One of the major problems in conservation today is not how to keep people insulated from nature but how to help them engage more closely with it, so that they can appreciate its value and vulnerability, and the way its needs can be reconciled with those of humans. One of the most complex and intimate relationships which most of us can have with the natural environment is to eat it. I hope I am not overstating my case when I say that to follow this relationship through personally, from the search to the cooking pot, is a more practical lesson than most in the economics of the natural world. Far from encouraging rural vandalism, it helps deepen respect for the interdependence of all living things. At the very least it will provide a strong motive for looking after particular species and maybe individual ecosystems.

And maybe foraging can contribute even more, in today’s ecologically threatened world. If plants like wilding apples could contribute to the restoration of lost cultivated varieties, maybe, conversely, the restoration of cultivated land to wild, forageable land could build up new natural ecosystems. The possibility of the revival of a gentle communal use of such places would add foraging to the increasing range of community food initiatives, from organic food boxes to city farms.

Omissions

This book covers the majority of wild plant food products which can be obtained in the British Isles. But there are some categories which I have deliberately omitted.

• There is nothing on grasses and cereals. This is intended to be a practical book, and no one is going to spend their time hand-gathering enough wild seeds to make flour.

• I have touched briefly on the traditional herbal uses of many plants where this is relevant or interesting. But I have included no plants purely on the grounds of their presumed therapeutic value. This is a book about food, not medicine.

• This is also a book about wild plant foods, which is the simple reason (apart from personal qualms) why there is nothing about fish and wildfowl.

• But I have included shellfish because, from a picker’s perspective, they are more like plants than animals. They stay more or less in one place, and are gathered, not caught.

Layout of the book

The text is divided into sections covering (1) edible plants (trees and herbaceous plants), (2) fungi, lichens and one fern, (3) seaweeds, (4) shellfish. Within each category, species are arranged in systematic order.


Some picking rules

I have given more detailed notes on gathering techniques in the introductions to the individual sections (particularly fungi, seaweeds and shellfish). But there are some general rules which apply to all wild food. Following these rules will help to guarantee the quality of what you are picking, and the health of the plant, fungus or shellfish population that is providing it.

Although we have tried to make both text and illustrations as helpful as possible in identifying the different plant products described in this book, they should not be regarded as a substitute for a comprehensive field guide. They will help you decide what to gather, but until you are experienced it is wise to double-check everything (particularly fungi) in a book devoted solely to identification. Conversely, never rely on illustrations alone as a guide to edibility. Some of the plants illustrated here need the special preparation described in the text before they are palatable.

But although it is obviously crucial to know what you are picking, don’t become obsessed about the possible dangers of poisoning. This is a natural worry when you are trying wild foods for the first time, but happily a groundless one. As you will see from the text there are relatively few common poisonous plants and fungi in Britain compared with the total number of plant species.

To put the dangers of wild foods into perspective it is worth considering the trials attendant on eating the cultivated foods we stuff into our mouths without question. Forgetting for a moment the perennial problems of additives and insecticide residues, and the new worries about irradiated and genetically modified food, how many people know that, in excess, cabbage can cause goitre and onions induce anaemia? That as little as one whole nutmeg can bring on days of hallucinations? Almost any food substance can occasionally bring on an allergic reaction in a susceptible subject, and oysters and strawberries, as well as nuts of all types, have particularly infamous reputations in this respect. But all these effects are rare. The point is that they are part of the hazards of eating itself, rather than of a particular category of food.

Here are some basic rules to ensure your safety when gathering and using wild foods:

• Make sure you correctly identify the plant, fungus or seaweed you are gathering.

• Do not gather any sort of produce from areas that may have been sprayed with insecticide or weedkiller.

• Avoid, too, the verges of heavily used roads, where the plant may have been contaminated by car exhausts. There are plenty of environments that are likely to be comparatively free of all types of contamination: commons, woods, the hedges along footpaths, etc. Even in a small garden you are likely to be able to find something like twenty of the species described in this book.






© David Hosking/FLPA

• Wherever possible use a flat open basket to gather your produce, to avoid squashing. If you are caught without a basket, and do not mind being folksy, pin together some dock or burdock leaves with thorns.

• When you have got the crop home, wash it well and sort out any old or decayed parts.

• To be doubly sure, it is as well to try fairly small portions of new foods the first time you eat them, just to ensure that you are not sensitive to them.

Having considered your own survival, consider the plant’s:

• Never strip a plant of leaves, berries, or whatever part you are picking. Take small quantities from each specimen, so that its appearance and health are not affected. It helps to use a knife or scissors (except with fungi (#litres_trial_promo)).

• Never take the flowers or seeds of annual plants; they rely on them for survival.

• Do not take more than you need for your own needs.

• Be careful not to damage other vegetation or surrounding habitat when gathering wild food.

• Adhere at all times to the Code of Conduct for the conservation and enjoyment of wild plants, published by the Botanical Society of the British Isles (www.bsbi.org.uk/Code.htm).

What the law says

The law concerning foraging is comparatively straightforward, at least on the surface.

• You are allowed to gather and take away the four Fs – foliage, flowers, fruit, fungi – of clearly WILD plants, e.g. blackberries and elderflowers, even on private land, though other laws regarding trespass and criminal damage may restrict you. You are not entitled to harvest anything from CULTIVATED crop-plants, e.g orchard trees or field-peas.

• But under the Wildlife and Countryside Act and the Theft Act you may not SELL wild produce gathered in this way.

• Nor may you UPROOT any wild plant without the permission of the owner of the land on which it is growing.

• A few very RARE plants (none of those mentioned in this book) are protected by law from any kind of picking.

• On various areas of land otherwise open to the public – certain forests, commons, parks, and the new Open Access areas declared under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act, 2000 (CROW) – there are BY-LAWS prohibiting any kind of picking. These are usually spelt out on notice boards.

But there are cases which don’t fall into these clear extremes, about which the law is hazy. For example, nuts from a walnut tree overhanging a pavement are clearly the owner’s whilst they are on the tree. But how about those that have fallen onto the public right of way? And how, on a road embankment, can a planted apple-tree be distinguished from a self-sown wilding? In all such matters, and others where the law is ambiguous, use your common sense, and don’t be perpetually looking over your shoulder.


Edible plants

Roots

Roots are probably the least practical of all wild vegetables. Firstly, few species form thick, fleshy roots in the wild, and the coarse, wiry roots of – for instance – horse-radish and wild parsnip are really only suitable for flavouring. Second, under the Wildlife and Countryside Act it is illegal to dig up wild plants by the root, except on your own land, or with the permission of the landowner.

The few species that are subsequently recommended as roots are all very common and likely to crop up as garden weeds. Where palatable roots of a practical size and texture can be found, however, they are quite versatile, and may be used in the preparation of broths (herb-bennet), vegetable dishes (large-flowered evening-primrose), salads (oxeye daisy), or even drinks (chicory, dandelion).

Green vegetables

The main problem with wild leaf vegetables is their size. Not many wild plants have the big, floppy leaves for which cultivated greens have been bred, and as a result picking enough for a serving can be a long and irksome task. For this reason the optimum picking time for most leaf vegetables is probably their middle-age, when the flowers are out and the plant is easy to recognise, and the leaves have reached maximum size without beginning to wither.

Green vegetables can be roughly divided into three types: salads, cooked greens, and stems. For general recipes see dandelion for salads, sea beet or fat-hen (#litres_trial_promo) for greens, and alexanders for stems.

All green vegetables can also be made into soup (see sorrel), blended into green sauces, or made into a pottage or ‘mess of greens’ by cooking a number of species together.

Herbs

A herb is generally defined as a leafy plant used not as a food in its own right but as a flavouring for other foods, and most herbs tend to be milder in the wild state than under domestication; being valued principally for their flavouring qualities, it is these which domestication has attempted to intensify, not delicacy, size, succulence or any of the other qualities that are sought after in staple vegetables. You will find, consequently, that with wild herbs you will need to double up the quantities you normally use of the cultivated variety.

The best time to pick a herb, especially for the purposes of drying, is just as it is coming into flower. This is the stage at which the plant’s nutrients and aromatic oils are still mainly concentrated in the leaves, yet it will have a few blossoms to assist with the identification. Gather your herbs in dry weather and preferably early in the morning before they have been exposed to too much sun. Wet herbs will tend to develop mildew during drying, and specimens picked after long exposure to strong sunshine will inevitably have lost some of their natural oils by evaporation.

Cut whole stalks of the herb with a knife or scissors to avoid damaging the parent plant. If you are going to use the herbs fresh, strip the leaves and flowers off the stalks as soon as you get them home. If you are going to dry them, leave the stalks intact as you have picked them. To maintain their colour and flavour they must be dried as quickly as possible but without too intense a heat. They therefore need a combination of gentle warmth and good ventilation. A kitchen or well-ventilated airing cupboard is ideal. The stalks can be hung up in loose bunches, or spread thinly on a sheet of paper and placed on the rack above the stove. Ideally, they should also be covered by muslin, to keep out flies and insects and, in the case of hanging bundles, to catch any leaves that start to crumble and fall as they dry. All herbs can be used to flavour vinegar, olive oil or drinks, as with thyme in aquavit.

Spices

Spices are the aromatic seeds of flowering plants. There are also a few roots (most notably horse-radish) that are generally regarded as spices.

Most plants which have aromatic leaves also have aromatic seeds, and can be usefully employed as flavourings. But a warning: do not expect the flavour of the two parts to be identical. They are often subtly different in ways that make it inadvisable simply to substitute seeds for leaves.

Seeds should always be allowed to dry on the plant. After flowering, annuals start to concentrate their food supplies into the seeds so that they have enough to survive through germination. This also, of course, increases the flavour and size of the seeds. When they are dry and ready to drop off the plant, their food content and flavour should be at a maximum.

Flowers

Gathering wild flowers for no other reason than their diverting flavours would at least be antisocial, and in the case of the rarest species it is illegal under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. Some of the flowers mentioned in this book are rare and should not be picked these days because of declining populations, though many of them have been anciently popular ingredients of salads, and are included for their historical interest.

The only species I advocate picking from are those where removing flowers in small quantities is unlikely to have much visual or biological effect. They are all common and hardy plants. They are all perennials and do not rely on seeding for continued survival. They are mostly bushes or shrubs in which each individual produces an abundant number of blossoms.

Most of the recipes in the book require no more than a handful or two of blossoms, but if you like the sound of any of them it may be best to grow the plants in your garden and pick the flowers there. Many species, such as cowslip and primrose, are commercially available as seed.

Fruits

A number of the fruits I have included are cultivated and used commercially as well as growing in the wild. Where this is the case I have not given much space to the more common kitchen uses, which can be found in any cookery book. I have concentrated instead on how to find and gather the wild varieties, and on the more unusual traditional recipes.

Almost all fruit, of course, can be used to make jellies and jams. Rather than repeat the relevant directions under each fruit, it is useful to go into some detail here. The notes below apply to all species.

Another process which can be applied to most of the harder-skinned fruits is drying. Choose slightly unripe fruit, wash well, and dry with a cloth. Then strew it out on a metal tray and place in a very low oven (50°C, 120°F). The fruit is dry when it yields no juice when squeezed between the fingers, but is not so far gone that it rattles. This usually takes between 4 and 6 hours.

Most of the fruits in this section can also be used to make wine (not covered in this book); fruit liqueurs (see, for example, sloe gin); flavoured vinegars (see raspberry); pies, fools (see gooseberry); summer or autumn puddings (see raspberry, and blackberry (#litres_trial_promo)).

Some fruits, notably the medlar and the fruit of the service-tree, need to be ‘bletted’ – in other words, half-rotten – before they are edible.

Making a jelly

Jellies and jams form because of a chemical reaction between a substance called pectin, present in the fruit, and sugar. The pectin (and the fruit’s acids, which also play a part in the reaction) tend to be most concentrated when the fruit is under-ripe. But then of course the flavour is only partly developed. So the optimum time for picking fruit for jelly is when it is just ripe.

The amount of pectin available varies from fruit to fruit. Apples, gooseberries and currants, for instance, are rich in pectin and acid and set very readily. Blackberries and strawberries, on the other hand, have a low pectin content, and usually need to have some added from an outside source before they will form a jelly. Lemon juice or sour crab apples are commonly used for this.

The first stage in making a jelly is to pulp the fruit. Do this by packing the clean fruit into a saucepan or preserving pan and just covering with water. Bring to the boil and simmer until all the fruit is mushy. With the harderskinned fruits (rosehips, haws, etc.) you may need to help the process along by pressing with a spoon, and be prepared to simmer for up to half an hour. This is the stage to supplement the pectin, if your fruit has poor setting properties. Add the juice of one lemon for every 900 g (2 lb) of fruit.

When you have your pulp, separate the juice from the roughage and fibres by straining through muslin. This can be done by lining a large bowl with a good-sized sheet of muslin, folded at least double, and filling the bowl with the fruit pulp. Then lift and tie the corners of the muslin, using the back of a chair or a low clothes line as the support, so that it hangs like a sock above the bowl. Alternatively, use a real stocking, or a purpose-made straining bag.

To obtain the maximum volume of juice, allow the pulp to strain overnight. It is not too serious to squeeze the muslin if you are in a hurry, but it will force some of the solid matter through and affect the clarity of the jelly. When you have all the juice you want, measure its volume, and transfer it to a clean saucepan, adding 500 g (1 lb) of sugar for every 500 ml (1 pint) of juice. Bring to the boil, stirring well, and boil rapidly, skimming off any scum that floats to the surface. A jelly will normally form when the mixture has reached a temperature of 105°C (221°F) on a jam thermometer. If you have no thermometer, or want a confirmatory test, transfer one drop of the mixture with a spoon onto a cold saucer. If setting is imminent, the drop will not run after a few seconds because of a skin – often visible – formed across it.

As soon as the setting temperature has been achieved, pour the mixture into some clear, warm jars (preferably standing on a metal surface to conduct away some of the heat). Cover the surface of the jelly with a wax disc, wax side down. Add a cellophane cover, moistening it on the outside first so that it dries taut. Hold the cover in place with a rubber band, label the jar clearly, and store in a cool place.

Nuts

The majority of plants covered by this book are in the ‘fruit and veg’ category. They make perfectly acceptable accompaniments or conclusions to a meal, but would leave you feeling a little peckish if you relied on nothing else. Nuts are an exception. They are the major source of second-class protein amongst wild plants. Walnuts, for instance, contain 18 per cent protein, 60 per cent fat, and can provide over 600 kilocalories per 100 grams of kernels.

It is therefore possible to substitute nuts for the more conventional protein constituents of a meal, as indeed vegetarians have been doing for centuries. But do not pick them to excess because of this. Wild nuts are crucial to the survival of many wild birds and animals, who have just as much right to them, and considerably more need.

Keep those you do pick very dry, for damp and mould can easily permeate nutshells and rot the kernel. As well as being edible in their natural state, nuts may be eaten pickled or puréed, mixed into salads, or as a main constituent of vegetable dishes.






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Trees

Scots Pine

Juniper

Barberry

Hop

Walnut

Beech

Sweet Chestnut

Oak

Hazel

Lime

Sloe, Blackthorn

Wild Cherry

Bullace, Damsons and Wild Plums

Crab Apple

Rowan, Mountain-ash

Wild Service-tree

Whitebeam

Juneberry

Medlar

Hawthorn, May-tree

Elder

Oregon-grape


Scots Pine Pinus sylvestris (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






A conical evergreen when young and growing vigorously, up to 36 m (118 ft), becoming much more open, and flat-topped with a long bole, when older. Red- or grey-brown bark low down on the trunk, but markedly red or orange higher up in mature trees. Irregular branches, with needles in bunches of two, grey-green or blue-green, up to 7 cm (2½ inches) long. Native to Scotland, and originally much of Britain, as well as much of Europe and Asia.

A winemaker with patience and ingenuity might be able to devise a way of making a kind of retsina by steeping in a white wine base the resin that oozes from the bark of the Scots pine. But it is the needles that are the principal food interest of this tree, because of their strong and refreshing fragrance.

The Scots pine is our only truly indigenous pine, native in parts of Scotland and widely planted and naturalised elsewhere. The needles are quite distinctive, being much shorter than those of other species of pine, grey-green in colour and arranged in rather twisted pairs along the twigs. But the needles of any type of pine will do for cooking, provided they are gathered when fairly young, between April and August.

Anyone who has the patience to extract the tiny nuts from the pine cones will find this nail-breaking work rewarded by a pleasant wayside snack. (The pine nuts used in cookery come from the Mediterranean stone pine, pinus pinea.)

Pine needle tea

Tea made from pine needles is a favourite American wild food beverage, though it has a decidedly medicinal taste. Take about 2 tablespoons of fresh needles, and steep in a cup of hot water for about 5 minutes. Strain and add honey and lemon juice to taste.

Pine needle oil

A recipe for an aromatic oil which makes good use of pine needles’ strong resinous scent simply involves soaking the needles in olive oil for a week or two; the resultant oil is superb for making into French dressings or for cooking meat in.






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Juniper Juniperus communis (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Locally common on chalk downs, limestone hills, heaths and moors, chiefly in southeast England and the north. A shrub 1.5–3.5 m (4–12 ft) high – though there is also a prostrate form – with whorls of narrow evergreen leaves. Flowers, small, yellow, at the base of the leaves, appear in May and June. The fruit is a green berry-like cone, appearing in June but not ripening until September or October of its second year, when it turns blue-black.

At the time of ripening, juniper berries are rich in oil, which is the source of their use as a flavouring. They are of course best known as the flavouring in gin, and most of the historical uses have been in one kind of drink or another (though home-grown berries have not been used by British distillers for over a century). Experiment with drinks in which the berries have been steeped. Even gin is improved by, as it were, a double dose.

Uses across Europe are varied. The berries have been roasted and ground as a coffee substitute. In Sweden they are used to make a type of beer, and are often turned into jam. In France, genevrette is made by fermenting a mixture of juniper berries and barley.

Crushed juniper berries are becoming increasingly popular as a flavouring for white meat or game dishes. In Belgium they are used to make a sauce for pork chops. Seal the chops on both sides and place in a shallow casserole. Sprinkle with lemon juice and add parsley, four crushed juniper berries, rosemary, salt and pepper. Arrange peeled and sliced apples over the top and then pour over melted butter. Cook in a medium oven for 30 minutes.


Barberry Berberis vulgaris (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






A shrub of hedge and waste places, growing to 3 m (10 ft). It is spiny, with small, toothed oval leaves, yellow flowers and scarlet berries from July.

Because of its spiny branches and brilliant scarlet berries, barberry was once popular as a hedging plant. It was stockproof as well as being ornamental. Then, last century, it was discovered that the foliage was a host of the black rust fungus that could devastate cereal crops, and most bushes growing near arable fields were destroyed. Today barberry is largely confined to hedges in pastureland and to old parks and commons. The berries are strikingly attractive, being brilliant red in colour, oblong in shape and hung in loose clusters all over the bushes. They are usually ready by late August or early September, but check their ripeness by seeing if a berry will burst when squeezed. It is advisable to use scissors and gloves when picking because of the shrub’s long, sharp spines.

Barberry dressing

The berries are juicy and pleasantly tart, and make an excellent jelly with lamb. But it is a shame not to make use of their shape and colour, and the sense they give of being concentrated capsules of juice. Many of the most interesting uses of barberry have been partly decorative. They can be used as a dressing for roast duck – they burst during the cooking and baste the meat with their juice. Mrs Beeton suggests that ‘the berries arranged on bunches of nice curled parsley make an exceedingly pretty garnish for white meats’. Some cooks float the berries on top of fruit salads.

Candied barberries

The berries can be candied for longer storage. Boil sugar to the syrup point, then dip the bunches of barberry into the syrup for 5 hours. Remove the berries, boil the syrup to the candy point and return the berries for a few minutes. Then remove them, and allow to set.






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Hop Humulus lupulus (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






A familiar perennial climber, 3–6 m (10–20 ft) high. Locally frequent in hedges, woodland edges and damp thickets, especially in the southern half of England. Flowers July to August.

The green, cone-like female flowers of the hop have been used in mainland Europe for flavouring beer since the ninth century. Although the plant is a British native, hops were not used for brewing in this country until the fifteenth century. Even then there was considerable opposition to their addition to the old ale recipes, and it was another hundred years before hop-growing became a commercial operation.

Wild hops can be used for home brewing, but a more intriguing and possibly older custom makes use of the very young shoots and leaves, picked not later than May. They may be an ancient wild vegetable, but most of the recipes came into being as a way of making frugal use of the mass of trimmings produced when the hop plantations were pruned in the spring.

The shoots can be chopped up and simmered in butter as a sauce, added to soups and omelettes, or, most popularly, cooked like asparagus. For the latter, strip the young shoots of the larger leaves, tie them in bundles and soak in salt water for an hour, drain and then plunge into boiling water for a few minutes until just tender. Serve with molten butter.

Hop frittata

Frittata is an Italian recipe that can be used with many of the green-stem wild vegetables in this book – for example, asparagus, wild garlic, thistles and bramble shoots. A frittata should be much more solid than an omelette, and can be served hot or cold.

2 handfuls of hop shoots

1 small onion

4 eggs

1 dsp dried breadcrumbs

1 dsp parmesan cheese

Parsley

• Beat the eggs with seasoning to taste, and with the breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese. Chop the hop shoots into roughly 5 cm (2 inch) lengths and fry with the chopped onion in a little olive oil in a heavy pan until they have both begun to brown.

• Add the beaten egg mixture and simmer over a low heat. In about four or five minutes the frittata should have set.

• Take a large plate, cover the pan and turn over so that the frittata settles onto it, slide it back into the pan, and simmer until the other side is brown.


Walnut Juglans regia (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Deciduous tree, up to 30 m (100 ft) high, with grey, fissured bark. Leaves are odd-pinnate, with 5 to 9 leaflets. Catkins followed by flowers. Nuts ripen in September.

The walnut is a native of southern Europe, introduced to this country some 500 years ago for its wood and its fruit. Although not quick to spread outside cultivation, there are some self-sown trees in warm spots in the south, and nuts can be carried away from the parent trees by birds and mammals.

Walnuts are best when they are fairly ripe and dry, in late October and November. Before this, the young ‘wet’ walnuts are rather tasteless. If you wish to pick them young, do so in July whilst they are still green and make pickle from them. They should be soft enough to pass a skewer through. Prick them lightly with a fork to allow the pickle to permeate the skin, and leave them to stand in strong brine for about a week, until they are quite black. Drain and wash them and let them dry for two or three days more. Pack them into jars and cover them with hot pickling vinegar. Seal the jars and allow to stand for at least a month before eating.

Mushroom cutlets with walnut cream sauce

Chop the mushrooms finely, cook in a little butter and drain. Soak 125 g (5 oz) of soft breadcrumbs in milk and squeeze dry. Dice and sauté an onion, beat together two eggs and chop some parsley. Combine all the ingredients, form into cutlets and fry in oil. Finally, chop the walnuts with a little more parsley, blend with cream and season.






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Beech Fagus sylvatica (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Widespread and common throughout the British Isles, especially on chalky soils. A stately tree, up to 40 m (130 ft), with smooth grey bark and leaves of a bright, translucent green. Nuts in September and October, four inside a prickly brown husk. When ripe this opens into four lobes, thus liberating the brown, three-sided nuts.

Beech dominates the chalk soils of southern England and is associated with a number of species of fungi. It is a native species, and has long provided a source of fuel, although it did not gain popularity as a material for furniture until the eighteenth century. Since then it has become extremely popular in the kitchen – albeit for building kitchen units rather than for its culinary delights.

However, the botanical name Fagus originates from a Greek word meaning to eat, though in the case of the beech this is likely to have referred to pigs rather than to humans. This is not to say that beechmast – the usual term for the nuts – is disagreeable. Raw, or roasted and salted, it tastes not unlike young walnut. But the nuts are very small, and the collection and peeling of enough to make an acceptable meal is a tiresome business.

This is also an obstacle to the rather more interesting use of beechmast as a source of vegetable oil. Although I have never tried the extraction process myself, mainly because of a lack of suitable equipment, it has been widely used in mainland Europe, particularly in times of economic hardship, such as in Germany between the two World Wars. Although beech trees generally only fruit every three or four years, each tree produces a prodigious quantity of mast, and there is rarely any difficulty in finding enough. It should be gathered as early as possible, before the squirrels have taken it, and before it has had a chance to dry out. The three-faced nuts should be cleaned of any remaining husks, dirt or leaves and then ground, shells and all, in a small oil-mill. (For those with patience, a mincing machine or a strong blender should work as well.) The resulting pulp should be put inside a fine muslin bag and then in a press or under a heavy weight to extract the oil.

For those able to get this far, the results should be worthwhile. Every 500 g (1 lb) of nuts yields as much as 85 ml (3 fl oz) of oil. The oil itself is rich in fats and proteins, and provided it is stored in well-sealed containers it will keep fresh considerably longer than many other vegetable fats. Beechnut oil can be used for salads or for frying, like any other cooking oil. Its most exotic application is probably beechnut butter, which is still made in some rural districts in the USA, and for which there was a patent issued in this country during the reign of George I. In April the young leaves of the beech tree are almost translucent. They shine in the sun from the light passing through them. To touch they are silky, and tear like delicately thin rubber. It is difficult not to want to chew a few as you walk through a beechwood in spring. And, fresh from the tree, they are indeed a fine salad vegetable, as sweet as a mild cabbage though much softer in texture.

Beech-leaf noyau

An unusual way of utilising beech leaves is to make a potent liqueur called beech-leaf noyau. This probably originated in the Chilterns, where large beechwoods were managed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to service the chair-making trade. Pack an earthenware or glass jar about nine-tenths full of young, clean leaves. Pour gin into the jar, pressing the leaves down all the time, until they are just covered. Leave to steep for about a fortnight. Then strain off the gin, which will by now have caught the brilliant green of the leaves. To every 500 ml (1 pint) of gin add about 300 g (12 oz) of sugar (more if you like your liqueurs very syrupy) dissolved in 250 ml (½ pint) of boiling water, and a dash of brandy. Mix the warm syrup with the gin and bottle as soon as cold. The result is a thickish, sweet spirit, mild and slightly oily to taste, like sake.








© Derek Middleton/FLPA


Sweet Chestnut Castanea sativa (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Well distributed throughout England, though scattered in Scotland. Common in woods and parks. A tall, straight tree, up to 30 m (100 ft), with single spear-shaped serrated leaves. Nuts in October and November, two or three carried in spherical green cases covered with long spines.

A nut to get your teeth into. And a harvest to get your hands into, if the year is good and the nuts thick enough on the ground to warrant a small sack rather than a basket. Although the tree was in all probability introduced to this country by the Romans, nothing seems more English than gathering and roasting chestnuts on fine autumn afternoons.

The best chestnut trees are the straight, old ones whose leaves turn brown early. Do not confuse them with horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum), whose inedible conkers look rather similar to sweet chestnuts inside their spiny husks. In fact the trees are not related, Castanea sativa being more closely related to the oak. They will be covered with the prickly fruit as early as September, and small specimens of the nuts to come will be blown down early in the next month. Ignore them, unless you can find some bright green ones which have just fallen. They are undeveloped and will shrivel within a day or two.

The ripe nuts begin to fall late in October, and can be helped on their way with a few judiciously thrown sticks. Opening the prickly husks can be a painful business, and for the early part of the crop it is as well to take a pair of gloves and some strong boots, the latter for splitting the husks underfoot, the former for extricating the fruits. The polished brown surface of the ripe nuts uncovered by the split husk is positively alluring. You will want to stamp on every husk you see, and rummage down through the leaves and spines to see if the reward is glinting there.

Don’t shy away from eating the nuts raw. If the stringy pith is peeled away as well as the shell, most of their bitterness will go. But roasting transforms them. They take on the sweetness and bulk of some tropical fruit. As is the case with so much else in this book, the excitement lies as much in the rituals of preparation as in the food itself. Chestnut roasting is an institution, rich with associations of smell, and of welcomingly hot coals in cold streets. To do it efficiently at home, slit the skins, and put the nuts in the hot ash of an open fire or close to the red coals – save one, which is put in uncut. When this explodes, the others are ready. The explosion is fairly ferocious, scattering hot shrapnel over the room, so sit well back from the fire and make sure all the other nuts have been slit.






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Chestnuts are highly versatile. They can be pickled, candied, or made into an amber with breadcrumbs and egg yolk. Boiled with Brussels sprouts they were Goethe’s favourite dish. Chopped, stewed and baked with red cabbage, they make a rich vegetable pudding.

Chestnut purée

Chestnut purée is a convenient form in which to use the nuts. Shell and peel the chestnuts. This is easily done if you boil them for 5 minutes first. Boil the shelled nuts again in a thin stock for about 40 minutes. Strain off the liquid and then rub the nuts through a sieve, or mash them in a liquidiser. The resulting purée can be seasoned and used as a substitute for potatoes, or it can form the basis of stuffings, soups and sweets, such as chestnut fool.

Chestnut and porcini soup

For 4 people

250 g (½ lb) chestnuts (tinned will do)

30 g (1 oz) dried porcini (better than fresh for this soup)

1 large onion

4 rashers of bacon

100 g (3½ oz) butter

lemon juice

fino sherry

• Peel the chestnuts (#u8943d31c-5027-5b5c-9d07-f317b0d9b0ee), if you are using fresh ones, and boil for an hour in a large saucepan with just enough water to cover (40 minutes will do if you’re using vacuum-packed nuts).

• Reconstitute the dried porcini in sufficient boiling water to cover them, and leave to soak for 30 minutes. Hang on to the water.

• Meanwhile peel and finely slice the onion, cut the bacon rashers into broad slices, and fry both in the butter for about 10 minutes, until the onion is golden. Then slip this mixture, plus the porcini and their soaking water into the pan containing the chestnuts and their water. Simmer for a further 15 minutes.

• Cool the soup a little, and liquidise in batches until it’s thoroughly smooth, adding water if necessary until it is at your preferred consistency.

• Reheat in the pan with a squeeze of lemon juice, and just before serving add a small glass of fino sherry.

Chestnut flan

Chestnut flour is difficult to make at home, but is obtainable in most health food stores. This is a recipe from Corsica.

100 g (3½ oz) chestnut flour

750 ml (1½ pints) milk

150 g (5 oz) sugar

butter

4 eggs

Put the chestnut flour, milk and sugar into a saucepan and heat gently, stirring frequently until the flour lumps have vanished. Continue to simmer, just short of boiling until the mixture becomes quite thick (about 10 minutes). Line a round oven dish, about 5 cm deep, with greaseproof paper, and rub a little butter over the paper. Beat the eggs in a bowl, and stir into the chestnut mixture. Pour into the dish and bake in an oven at 160°C/gas 3 for 40 minutes. Leave to cool overnight., or for at least a few hours, and turn upside down on to a large plate before serving.

PS: Chestnut flour can be substituted for wheat flour in almost any recipe, provided you add baking powder to help it rise a little. Try it, for instance, in a Yorkshire pudding, cooked under the meat.








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© David Hosking/FLPA

Oak OaQuercus robur/Quercus petraea (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






A common deciduous tree up to 35 m (115 ft) high, typically with a broad, domed crown. The two common species are pedunculate oak (Quercus robur), which occurs throughout Britain, and sessile oak (Q. petraea), which is the dominant species in northern and western Britain, and in Ireland. Leaves are distinctively shaped, with irregular lobes. The fruits (acorns) ripen in September to October.

The oak tree has formed part of our folklore and history for centuries, not only as a source of timber for building houses and ships but also as a source of food. Like beechmast, however, the chief economic use of acorns has been as animal fodder, and they have been used as human food chiefly in times of famine. The raw kernels are forbiddingly bitter to most palates, but chopped and roasted they can be used as a substitute for almonds. In Europe the most common use of acorns has been to roast them as a substitute for coffee, and they were recommended for this role during the Second World War. Chop the kernels, roast to a light brown colour, grind up, then roast again.


Hazel Corylus avellana (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






An abundant and widespread tree, found in woods, hedgerows and scrubland. A small tree or multi-stemmed shrub, 1.5–3.5 m (4–12 ft) high, with roundish, downy, toothed leaves. Well known for the yellow male catkins, called ‘lambs’ tails’, which appear in the winter. Nuts from late August to October, 1–2.5 cm (½–1 inch) long, ovoid and encased in a thick green-lobed husk.

The hazel was among the first species to recolonise the British Isles after the last Ice Age. It is an extremely useful tree, with leaves that can be used as food for livestock, branches for building fences and shelters, and nuts that can be eaten as food. Widely eaten in prehistoric times, the hazelnut became part of Celtic legend – its compact shape, hard shell and nutritious fruit was an emblem of concentrated wisdom. Today they are grown commercially in many parts of the world, and are second only to the almond as a world nut crop. Hazelnuts begin to ripen in mid-September, at about the same time that the leaves begin to yellow. You may have to compete with the birds and squirrels, as the nuts do not just provide a treat for humans. Look for them at the edges of woods and in mature hedges. Search inside bushes for the nuts, as well as working round them, and scan them with the sun behind you if possible. Use a walking stick to bend down the branches, and gather the nuts into a basket that stays open whilst you are picking: a plastic bag with one handle looped over your picking wrist is a useful device.

If the ground cover under the bush is relatively clear of grass, then it is worthwhile giving the bush a shake. Some of the invisible ripe nuts should find their way onto the ground after this. In fact it is always worth searching the ground underneath a hazel. If there are nuts there which are dark or grey-brown in colour then the kernels will have turned to dust. But there is a chance that there will also be fresh windfalls that have not yet been picked at by birds.

Once you have gathered the nuts, keep them in a dry, warm place but in their shells, so that the kernels don’t dry out as well. You can use the nuts chopped or grated in salads, or with apple, raisins and raw oatmeal (muesli). Ground up in a blender, mixed with milk and chilled, they make a passable imitation of the Spanish drink horchata (properly made from the roots of the nutsedge, Cyperus esculentus). But hazelnuts are such a rich food that it seems wasteful not to use them occasionally as a protein substitute. Weight for weight, they contain fifty per cent more protein, seven times more fat and five times more carbohydrate than hens’ eggs. What better way of cashing in on such a meaty hoard than the unjustly infamous nut cutlet?






© Marcus Webb/FLPA






© Robert Canis/FLPA

To make hazelnut bread, grind a cupful of young nuts, and mix with the same amount of self-raising flour, half a cup of sugar and a little salt. Beat an egg with milk, and add it to the mixture, beating then kneading it until you have a stiff dough. Mould to a loaf shape, and bake in a medium oven for 50 minutes. Hazel leaves were used in the fifteenth century to make ‘noteye’, a highly spiced pork stew. The leaves were ground and mixed with ginger, saffron, sugar, salt and vinegar, before being added to minced pork.

Nut cutlet

50 g (2 oz) oil

50 g (2 oz) flour

500 ml (1 pint) stock

75 g (3 oz) breadcrumbs

50 g (2 oz) grated hazelnuts

Milk or beaten egg for glazing

Salt and pepper

• Mix the oil and flour in a saucepan. Add the stock and simmer for ten minutes, stirring all the time.

• Add the breadcrumbs and grated hazelnuts. Season.

• Cool the mixture and shape into cutlets.

• Dip the cutlets into an egg and milk mixture, coat with breadcrumbs and fry in oil until brown.







© David Hosking/FLPA

Lime Tilia europaea (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Common in parks, by roadsides and in ornamental woods and copses. The lime is a tall tree, up to 45 m (150 ft) when it is allowed to grow naturally, with a smooth, dark brown trunk usually interrupted by bosses and side shoots. Flowers in July, a drooping cluster of heavily scented yellow blossoms. Leaves are large and heart-shaped, smooth above, paler below with a few tufts of fine white hairs.

The common lime is a cultivated hybrid between the two species of native wild lime, small-leaved (Tilia cordata) and large-leaved (T. platyphyllos), and it is now much commoner than both. It is one of the most beneficent of trees: its branches are a favourite site for mistletoe; its inner bark, bast, was used for making twine; its pale, close-grained timber is ideal for carving; its fragrant flowers make one of the best honeys. Limes are remarkable for the fact that they can, in bloom, be tracked down by sound. In high summer their flowers are often so laden with bees that they can be heard 50 m (160 ft) away. The leaves make a useful salad vegetable. When young they are thick, cooling, and very glutinous. Before they begin to roughen, they make a sandwich filling, between thin slices of new bread, with unsalted butter and just a sprinkling of lemon juice. Cut off the stalks and wash well, but otherwise put them between the bread as they come off the tree. Some aficionados enjoy them when they are sticky with the honeydew produced by aphid invasions in the summer. In late June and July the yellow flowers of mature lime trees have a delicious honey-like fragrance, and make one of the very best teas of all wild flowers. It is popular in France, where it is sold under the name of tilleul.

Tilleul

Gather the flowers whilst they are in full bloom, in June or early July, and lay them out on trays or sheets of paper in a warm, well-ventilated room to dry. After two or three weeks they should have turned brittle and will be ready for use. Make tea from them in the usual way, experimenting with strengths, and serve like China tea, without milk.


Sloe, Blackthorn Prunus spinosa (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Widespread and abundant in woods and hedgerows throughout the British Isles, though thinning out in the north of Scotland. A stiff, dense shrub, up to 6 m (20 ft) high, with long thorns and oval leaves. The flowers are small and pure white and appear before the leaves. The fruit is a small, round, very dark blue berry covered when young with a paler bloom.

The sloe is one of the ancestors of cultivated plums. Crossed with the cherry plum (Prunus cerasifera), selected, crossed again, it eventually produced fruits as sweet and sumptuous as the Victoria plum. Yet the wild sloe is the tartest, most acid berry you will ever taste. Just one cautious bite into the green flesh will make the whole of the inside of your mouth creep. But a barrowload of sloe-stones was collected during the excavation of a Neolithic lake village at Glastonbury. Were they just used for dyeing? Or did our ancestors have hardier palates than us? For all its potent acidity, the sloe is very far from being a useless fruit. It makes a clear, sprightly jelly, and that most agreeable of liqueurs, sloe gin.

Sloe gin

The best time to pick sloes for this drink is immediately after the first frost, which makes the skins softer and more permeable. Sloe gin made at this time will, providentially, just be ready in time for Christmas. Pick about a pound of the marble-sized berries (you will probably need a glove as the spines are stiff and sharp). If they have not been through a frost, pierce the skin of each one with a skewer, to help the gin and the juices get together more easily. Mix the sloes with a quarter of their weight of sugar, and half fill the bottles with this mixture. Pour gin into the bottles until they are nearly full, and seal tightly. Store for at least two months, and shake occasionally to help dissolve and disperse the sugar. The result is a brilliant, deep pink liqueur, sour-sweet and refreshing to taste, and demonstrably potent. Don’t forget to eat the berries from the bottle, which will have quite lost their bitter edge, and soaked up a fair amount of the gin themselves. And try dipping the drunken sloes in molten chocolate first. As an alternative, try replacing the gin in the recipe above with brandy or aquavit.






© Nicholas and Sherry Lu Aldridge/FLPA







© Bob Gibbons/FLPA






© A.N.T. Photo Library

Wild Cherry Prunus avium (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






Widespread and frequent in hedgerows and woods, especially beech. A lofty tree, up to 30 m (100 ft) high, with shining, reddish-brown bark and an abundance of five-petalled white flowers in the spring. Leaves are alter-nate, oval, sharply toothed. The fruit is like a small, dark or light red, cultivated cherry.

The wild cherry is a beautiful tree in the springtime, and again in autumn when the leaves turn red. The fruit can be either sweet or bitter. It used to be sold occasionally in London on the branch. These are the best fruits to use for cherry brandy. Put as many as you can find in a bottle with a couple of teaspoons of sugar, and top up with brandy. It will be ready after three or four months. Another wild cherry product is the sticky resin that exudes from the trunks, especially if they’re damaged in some way. This has been used by children and forestry workers as a kind of chewing gum. It has, like most gums, more texture than taste.







© John Eveson/FLPA

Bullace, Damsons and Wild Plums Prunus species (#u80d314a3-1941-58f3-a37c-6dbb4ab38b0d)






The true bullace, Prunus domestica ssp. insititia, may be a scarce native of old hedgerows, but the majority of wild plums found in the countryside are either seeded from garden trees or are reverted orchard specimens. Fruit blue-black, brownish, or green-yellow, and usually midway in size between a sloe and a cultivated damson.

Wild plums are ripe from early October, and, unlike sloes, are usually just about sweet enough to eat raw. Otherwise they can be used like sloes, in jellies, gin, and autumn puddings (#u505cbe3c-aa69-5c1e-b869-ba8d9d8dbfd5). Wild plums make excellent dark jams, and the French jam specialist Gisèle Tronche has pointed out how the addition of a little ground cumin seed and aniseed can improve conventional recipes. Alternatively try her late autumn, wild fruit humeur noir, which she describes as having ‘the colour of a good, healthy, black-tempered funk’.

Wild fruit jam

Crush together 800 g (2 lb) of stoned dark damsons and 200 g (8 oz) sugar, and leave overnight. Boil together 200 g (8 oz) of elderberries and 600 g (1½ lb) of blackberries for ten minutes. Add the damsons, another 600 g (1½ lb) of sugar, a tablespoon of cider vinegar and the juice of one lemon, and bring to the boil again. Cook for about an hour, until the desired consistency is reached. Pour into jars, leave to cool, and then seal.

Lamb and plum tagine

2 medium onions

50 g (2 oz) butter

1 tsp cumin seed

1 tbsp finely chopped root ginger

a few threads of saffron

3 cloves of garlic

1 tsp cinnamon

1 kg (2 lbs) organic lamb, shanks or small leg

500 g (1 lb) wild cherry plums, or damsons

water, stock or white wine

sloe or damson gin (optional)

In a casserole or thick saucepan, sauté the onions in the butter with the cumin seed, for about 10 minutes, until the seeds have burst and the onions are golden. Add the ginger, saffron, crushed garlic and cinnamon. Cook together for a couple of minutes. Fry the lamb in the mixture quickly, turning it so that all sides are slightly browned and well coated with the spices. Add half the damsons, and about a cupful of water, stock or white wine. Cook gently in an oven at 150°C/gas 2, for 2 hours, checking the level of the liquid once or twice. Fifteen minutes before the end, add the remainder of the damsons and a small glass of sloe or damson gin – if you enjoy the almond taste given by plum-family stones. The liquid should be appreciably thicker at the end (give it a sharp boil for 5 minutes on top of the stove if not), and the lamb coming free of the bone.


Crab Apple Malus sylvestris (#ulink_de4bc2b1-2ba4-5445-a841-fcb26ade330c)






A small deciduous tree, frequent in woods, heath and hedges. Leaves are oval and often downy. White or pink blossom appears April – May, and a yellowish-green fruit from July.

Most of the apples growing wild in the countryside are not true crab apples, but what are known as ‘wildings’ – that is, apples that have sprung naturally from the discarded cores of cultivated varieties. Apple varieties and species cross-fertilise very readily: this is why apple trees must be propagated by grafting if they are to stay true, and why it has been possible, over the last few centuries, for breeders to raise more than 6,000 named varieties. So don’t despise wilding apples. They are often sweet enough to eat raw, and here and there, for instance, in a hedge by an old orchard, you may find a descendant of an obsolete variety such as Margil, which still has some of its parents’ characteristics. True crab apples, which tend to be confined to old hedges and open woods, are best used for tart jellies and for pickling. They can be identified by their spiny branches, and by the smaller, harder and greener fruit. Use them not only by themselves, but mixed with other wild fruits for jellies or ‘hedgerow jam’; blackberry, elderberry, wild plums and hazelnuts are good companions. Alternatively, pickle the apples, unpeeled, in spiced vinegar as an accompaniment to roast pork. Thrown in the pan with the meat, they will burst and baste it with their juices.

Uncooked apple and pear chutney

This is a recipe developed by my brother David from an Australian version, which in turn seems to have originated in the East End of London, to judge from its rhyming-slang nickname ‘Stairs Pickle’. It’s unusual in being uncooked.

450 g (1 lb) sharp apples

450 g (1 lb) firm pears

25 g (1 oz) root ginger

2 cloves of garlic

450 g (1 lb) raisins

450 g (1 lb) white sugar

600 ml (1 pint) cider vinegar

2 tsp of salt

1 tsp chilli powder

Peel and core the apples and pears, and finely chop the root ginger and garlic. Mix them thoroughly with all the other ingredients, cover and leave in a cool, dark place for 3 days. Bottle the chutney in sterilised jars. It will be ready to use in about a month.






© David Hosking/FLPA






© David Hosking/FLPA

Apple cheese

Crab apples may be used to make an apple cheese, though wilding apples may produce an even better result. Wash, core and roughly chop about 900 g (2 lbs) of fruit, and simmer in 300 ml (½ pint) of water. Once the fruit is soft, purée by pressing through a sieve. Add 450 g (1 lb) brown sugar to each pound of purée, and pinches of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves, bring to the boil and simmer until very thick. Bottle in the usual way. When cool it should have the consistency of a soft cheese.

Apple mash

potatoes

cooking apples

butter

seasoning

Use potatoes and apples in the proportions of two to one by weight. Peel and halve the potatoes and bring to the boil. After about 10 minutes add the peeled, cored and chopped apples. They’ll both be cooked in another 10 minutes. Drain, return to the saucepan, add a few slivers of butter and some salt and pepper, and pound with a masher or fork. Do not add any extra milk, cream or oil, as there is plenty of liquid produced by the apples.

Jugged celery and windfalls

This is a wonderful old country recipe, gathered by Dorothy Hartley. It can be used as either a starter or a vegetable with pork or lamb.

For 2 people

equal weight of windfall apples and celery, say 250 g (½ lb) each

2 cloves

muscovado sugar

4 rashers of bacon or ham

Wash and trim the apples, but leave their skins on. Chop roughly and stew them with a couple of cloves and a spoonful of muscovado sugar in as little water as possible, until they are a firm pulp. Put a couple of slices of bacon in the bottom of the tallest, narrowest cooking pot you possess, pile the apple purée on top, then pack in as many sticks of celery as you can. They must be in an upright position, as it is the apple juices running down the fibres of the celery that makes this dish. Spoon out any apple purée that overflows, trim the sticks level and cover their tops with 2 more bacon rashers, cut to fit. Then bake in an oven at about 180°C/gas 4 for half an hour. If you don’t have a suitable tall cooking jug, an ordinary casserole dish will do.


Rowan, Mountain-ash Sorbus aucuparia (#ulink_eb2ecf94-fea6-5919-ab6b-de7ec2ac97b6)






Widespread and common in dry woods and rocky places, especially on acid soils in the north and west of the British Isles. A small tree, up to 20 m (65 ft), with fairly smooth grey bark, toothed pinnate leaves, and umbels of small white flowers. Fruit: large clusters of small orange or red berries, August to November.

The rowan is a favourite municipal tree, and is planted in great numbers along the edges of residential highways, but you should not have too much trouble finding wild specimens. Their clusters of brilliant orange fruits are unmistakable in almost every setting, against grey limestone in the uplands, or the deep evergreen of Scots pine on wintry heaths. Unless the birds have got there first, rowan berries can hang on the trees until January. They are best picked in October, when they have their full colour but have not yet become mushy.

You should cut the clusters whole from the trees, trim off any excess stalk, and then make a jelly (#ulink_83b87910-2d91-5010-be5d-913f3352810e) in the usual way, with the addition of a little chopped apple to provide the pectin. The jelly is a deliciously dark orange, with a sharp, marmaladish flavour, and is perfect with game and lamb.






© Nicholas and Sherry Lu Aldridge/FLPA







© Derek Middleton/FLPA

Wild Service-tree Sorbus torminalis (#ulink_952c8e5b-b139-55b7-8e14-556709d48a33)






A relative of the rowan and the whitebeam, largely confined to ancient woods and hedgerows on limestone soils in the west and stiff clays in the Midlands and south. Up to 25 m (80 ft). Leaves are alternate, deeply toothed, in pairs. Flowers are white branched clusters, May to June. Fruit is brown and speckled, 12–18 mm (½–¾ inch).

The wild service-tree is one of the most local and retiring of our native trees, and knowledge of the fascinating history of its fruits has only recently been rediscovered.

The fruits, which appear in September, are round or pear-shaped and the size of small cherries. They are hard and bitter at first, but as autumn progresses they ‘blet’ – or go rotten – and become very sweet. The taste is unlike anything else which grows wild in this country, with hints of damson, prune, apricot, sultana and tamarind.

Remains of the berries have been found in prehistoric sites, and they must have been a boon before other sources of sugar were available. In areas where the tree was relatively widespread (e.g. the Weald of Kent) they continued to be a popular dessert fruit up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The fruits were gathered before they had bletted and strung up in clusters around a stick, which was hung up indoors, often by the hearth. They were picked off and eaten as they ripened, like sweets.

The tree is also known as the chequer tree, referring to the traditional pub name Chequers (the chequerboard was the symbol for an inn or tavern in Roman times). The berries were used quite extensively in brewing.

Chequerberry beer

I have the house recipe for ‘chequerberry beer’ from the Chequers Inn at Smarden, Kent. ‘Pick off in bunches in October. Hang on a string like onions (look like swarm of bees). Hang till ripe. Cut off close to berries. Put them in stone or glass jars. Put sugar on – 1 lb to 5 lb of berries. Shake up well. Keep airtight until juice comes to the top. The longer kept the better. Can add brandy. Drink. Then eat berries!’







© Derek Middleton/FLPA

Whitebeam Sorbus aria (#ulink_a73e5108-8a15-5b11-91a6-6daff28b3e65)






Locally frequent in scrub and copses in the south of England, and popular as a suburban roadside tree. Also a very striking shrub, flashed with silver when the wind turns up the pale undersides of the leaves.

The bunched red berries are edible as soon as they begin to ‘blet’, like service berries. In the seventeenth century John Evelyn recommended them in a concoction with new wine and honey, though they are rather disappointing.







© Bob Gibbons/FLPA

Juneberry Amelanchier lamarckii (#ulink_78fefb60-0e10-5b31-8148-fca5e7e3bcda)






An American shrub naturalised in woodlands in a few areas of the south of England, notably on sandy soils in Sussex. Up to 10 m (33 ft) high. Leaves alternate, oblong. Drifts of white blossom in April and May. Fruit purplish-red/black, 10 mm (½ inch) with withered sepals, in June.

The purplish-red berries rarely form in this country, but they are sweet to taste, and can be eaten uncooked or made into pies. In America they are sometimes canned for winter use.


Medlar Mespilus germanica (#ulink_c1d81065-615f-53d5-a322-079c96344a08)






A small, twisted deciduous tree, with long, untoothed and downy leaves. Large solitary white flowers appear in May. Fruits resemble large brown haws.

Medlar was, together with quince, mulberry and walnut, one of the quartet of trees that were usually planted singly in old herb gardens, often at the corners. They are now largely out of fashion in cultivation, and are probably not native in Britain. Yet the odd tree can still be found in old parkland and orchards, and, in the south of England, in hedgerows and woods near farms. These may be bird-sown, naturalised specimens; but fruit trees were occasionally planted out in these sites so as not to take up cultivated ground. Medlars are remarkable for their dark contorted trunks, their solitary white flowers which sit on the trees like camellias, and for the large brown fruits that start to fall from the tree in November. Although they were once recommended as a treatment for diarrhoea, they are wood-hard in this state and must be allowed to ‘blet’, or decay, before they are edible. Kept in a warm, dry place for a couple of weeks, the flesh browns, sweetens and softens to a consistency something like that of chestnut purée.

Medlar comfit

The bletted fruits make an intriguing confection served as they are. The slightly ‘high’, fruity flavour and granular texture make them ideal for serving with whisky. The flesh can easily be squeezed out of one end of the fruits if they are properly ripe. Alternatively, the tops can be cut off and the flesh scooped out with a spoon, then topped with cream and brown sugar to taste.

Medlar purée

Medlar purée makes a good filling for a flan or pie. Make a pulp by mixing three parts of medlar pulped through a sieve, one part double cream, a little sugar and the juice of two lemons, all whipped together until smooth.






© Derek Middleton/FLPA







© Roger Tidman/FLPA

Hawthorn, May-tree Crataegus monogyna (#ulink_630a99bb-a96a-5993-a16c-7f2f15882461)






Widespread and abundant on heaths, downs, hedges, scrubland, light woods and all open land. Small tree or large shrub, up to 6 m (20 ft) high. Leaves glossy green and deeply lobed on spiny branches. Flowers: May to June, abundant umbels of white (sometimes pink) strongly scented blossoms. Fruit: small round dark red berries, in bunches.

The young April leaves – traditionally called bread and cheese by children in England – have a pleasantly nutty taste. Eat them straight from the tree or use them in sandwiches, or in any of the recipes for wild spring greens. They also blend well with potatoes and almost any kind of nuts. A sauce for spring lamb can be made by chopping the leaves with other early wild greens, such as garlic mustard and sorrel, and dressing with vinegar and brown sugar, as with a mint sauce. The leaf buds can be picked much earlier in the year, though it takes an age to gather any quantity, and they tend to fall apart. Dorothy Hartley has a splendid recipe for a spring pudding which makes use of the buds, for those with the patience to collect large numbers of them.

Hawthorn berries (haws) are perhaps the most abundant berry of all in the autumn. Almost every hawthorn bush is festooned with small bunches of the round, dark-red berries, looking rather like spherical rosehips. When fully ripe they taste a little like avocado pear. They make a moderate jelly, but being a dry fruit need long simmering with a few crab apples to bring out all the juices and provide the necessary pectin. Otherwise the jelly will be sticky or rubbery. It is a good accompaniment to cream cheese.

Hawthorn spring pudding (Dorothy Hartley)

Make a light suet crust, well seasoned, and roll it out thinly and as long in shape as possible. Cover the surface with the young leaf-buds, and push them slightly into the suet. Take some rashers of bacon, cut into fine strips and lay them across the leaves. Moisten the edges of the dough and roll it up tightly, sealing the edges as you go. Tie in a cloth and steam for at least an hour. Cut it in thick slices like a Swiss roll, and serve with gravy.


Elder Sambucus nigra (#ulink_8e8287b4-57d7-54ac-a10d-7667bee7fee0)






Widespread and common in woods, hedgerows and waste places. A tall, fast-growing shrub, up to 10 m (33 ft), with a corky bark, white pith in the heart of the branches, and a scaly surface to the young twigs. Leaves usually in groups of five; large, dark green and slightly toothed. Flowers are umbels of numerous tiny creamy-white flowers, June to July. Fruits are clusters of small, reddish-black berries, August to October.

To see the mangy, decaying skeletons of elders in the winter you would not think the bush was any use to man or beast. Nor would the acrid stench of the young leaves in spring change your opinion. But by the end of June the whole shrub is covered with great sprays of sweet-smelling flowers, for which there are probably more uses than any other single species of blossom. Even in orthodox medicine they have an acknowledged role as an ingredient in skin ointments and eye-lotions.

Elderflowers can be munched straight off the branch on a hot summer’s day, and taste as frothy as a glass of ice-cream soda. Something even closer to that drink can be made by putting a bunch of elderflowers in a jug with boiling water, straining the liquid off when cool, and sweetening. Cut the elderflower clusters whole, with about 5 cm (2 inches) of stem attached to them. Always check that they are free of insects, and discard any that are badly infested. The odd grub or two can be removed by hand. But never wash the flowers, as this will remove much of the fragrance. The young buds can be pickled or added to salads. The flowers themselves, separated from the stalks, make what is indisputably the best sparkling wine besides champagne. One of the most famous recipes for elderflowers is the preserve they make with gooseberries.

Elderberries are useful as additions to a number of cooked recipes, in which any unpleasant aftertaste completely disappears.

The berries are ripe when the clusters begin to turn upside down. Gather the clusters whole by cutting them from the stems, picking only those where the very juicy berries have not started to wrinkle or melt. Wash them well, and strip them from the stalks with a fork. They are good added whole to apple pies, or added as a make-weight to blackberry jelly. (Both berries are on the bush at the same time, so if you are making this they can be gathered straight into the same basket.)

My favourite elderberry recipe is for Pontack sauce, a relic from those days when every retired military gentleman carried his patent sauce as an indispensable part of his luggage. Finally, one elder enthusiast enjoys eating, so to speak, the flowers and the berries at the same time, by making a sorbet from the fresh flowers, and serving it with another sorbet, made with the last year’s autumn berries – a conceit impossible before the days of the deep freeze.






© Chris Mattison/FLPA






© David Hosking/FLPA

Elderflower and gooseberry preserve

To make the preserve, trim off as much of the rather bitter stalk as you can, and have ready four flower heads for each 500 g (1 lb) of gooseberries. Top, tail and wash the gooseberries, and put them into a pan with 500 ml (1 pint) of water for every 500 g of fruit. Simmer for half an hour, mashing the fruit to a pulp as you do. Add 500 g of sugar for each 500 g of fruit, stir rapidly until dissolved, and bring to the boil. Then add the elderflowers, tied in muslin, and boil rapidly until the setting point is reached. Remove the flowers and pot in the usual way. (See for a few extra notes on jams and jellies (#ulink_83b87910-2d91-5010-be5d-913f3352810e) generally.) The flavour is quite transformed from that of plain gooseberry jam, and reminiscent of Muscat grapes. It is good with ice-cream and other sweets.

Elderflower cordial

This cordial will keep for six months, or you can freeze it as ice cubes or in plastic bottles (leaving room for expansion).

1 lemon

25 g (1 oz) citric acid

1 kg (2 lb) sugar

10 elderflower heads

750 ml (1½ pints) water

• Put the sugar in a large bowl and pour on the boiling water. Stir to dissolve.

• Grate the lemon rind, and slice the fruit.

• Add the grated lemon rind, lemon slices, citric acid and flower heads to the water.

• Leave for 24 hours, stirring occasionally.

• Sieve through muslin, pour into clean bottles and seal with screw-top caps.

Elderflower fritters

A perfect and delicately flavoured finish to a summer meal.

4 tablespoons flour

1 egg

1½ cupfuls water

Elderflower heads (retain short stalks for dipping)

Oil for frying

Fresh mint

Sugar for dusting




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