Foraging
Saturday 19th June 2021
Today we were able to go on a foraging course organised by the rural skills team Foraging and wild foods - Cotswolds National Landscape (cotswoldsaonb.org.uk). We were very lucky to have Rob Gould Rob Gould, Cotswold Forager leading the talk. It was up on Leckhampton Hill and we learnt so much in 4 hours, I can highly recommend it. I wouldn't necessarily actually go out and forage and eat all of them myself but there were a few things that seemed doable!
I do have a lot of elderflower at the end of the garden and he talked about a lovely recipe where you add the elderflowers to cream overnight and then serve them with strawberries - sounds easy and delicious. Nettle tea sounds like it is really good for you - not sure about the taste though! Of course the wild thyme smelled great and I can work out how to use that. And you can use any rose petals - from your garden or growing wild to make your salad look good or make a syrup. Our favourite was actually the hogweed. It has big seeds that have a spicy taste - you can definitely use them in stews. We also cut the leaf and flower buds (see pictures) and fried them in butter - they were great I can highly recommend them.
We also found a burgundy snail, in theory you could forage and eat it but actually they are protected so we put it back.
Attached below are pictures I took on the day.
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