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Sophie
Pierce |
Writer and Broadcaster |
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Don’t miss out
on autumn foraging, says Sophie Pierce “Here we go
gathering nuts in May” goes the old nursery rhyme, but now is the best time
to be out foraging. It’s something for parents and children to do together,
something that both can enjoy, and it has a real point to it - bringing
delicious food home to eat. On getting back
from the summer holidays, one of the first things I did with my two boys,
aged 7 and 4, was scour the local woods for mushrooms. And what a
great year it is. They seem to be
everywhere. Of course it’s
not just mushrooms, but all sorts of delicious fruits, including
blackberries, bilberries, elderberries, sloes and crab apples. And don’t forget the nuts – hazel and sweet
chestnut are the easiest to find. Searching for
wild food definitely brings out the primitive hunter-gatherer instinct. This is especially true of mushrooms, which
can be hard to find. We, as a family, are always desperate to find a penny
bun or cep, a particularly delicious mushroom. We are lucky to have found a lot in our
local woods this year. It goes without
saying that you must exercise caution when gathering mushrooms, because some
are poisonous. This is why it’s such a good idea to go mushroom-hunting with
your children; you see the whole expedition through their fresh eyes. Buy yourself a
comprehensive reference book – Roger Philips’ ‘Mushrooms’ is excellent - and
set about the trip as a learning exercise.
Take the book with you, and set your children off to find as many
mushrooms as they can (without picking them).
If all goes
well, you should soon hear some excited screams as they discover their first
fungi. You then need to look them up
in the book. Don’t pick any mushrooms
unless you are absolutely certain what
they are. It is better to come home
empty handed, than with something you’re not quite sure about. Anyway, it can be great fun just looking for the mushrooms and trying
to identify them – and everyone learns something along the way. Of course the
best way to get become an expert mushroom hunter is to go with someone who
knows what they’re doing. Many fungi
forays are organised all over the
country by local wildlife trusts and other groups. At least
everyone can identify a blackberry.
Taking the children off out on a beautiful autumnal day, armed with
bags and plastic boxes, is enormously satisfying. Don’t be afraid to incentivise them with a
reward for the one who collects the most.
On getting the
berries home, it’s then fun to cook them together. It can just be something simple like putting
them in a pan with a little sugar and water, and maybe a few chunks of
apples, and then making a crumble to go on top. If you’re a bit more ambitious you can make
jam or ice cream. You can even
get school involved. I remember when I
was at Junior school, on regular occasions in the Autumn term we would all be
told on Friday to go off blackberrying at the weekend. On Monday we’d bring them in, and the
school cook would make them into a pudding for lunch. With more and more schools going back to independently
run kitchens, this is something more children could enjoy. Other berries
including sloes, bilberries and elderberries are also all there for the
picking. They tend to go into more
adult end products like wines, but if you’re into using them then your
children can have fun picking them. We
got them picking rowanberries last
weekend, which my husband then turned into jelly. The great thing
about these autumnal forays is that children can see exactly where food is
coming from – and that it’s something that is an integral part of the British
countryside and doesn’t only live on a supermarket shelf. They can see it
growing in its natural state, and they learn valuable lessons in the process
of picking it and then cooking it. Foraging gives a country walk purpose and
interest. And, to quote
Richard Mabey, who has written a whole book on the subject, what could be
more satisfying than getting food for free? Books * Food for
Free, by Richard Mabey, Collins 2001 * Mushrooms and
Other Fungi of Britain and www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/thingstodo/fungi_forays.html www.mycologue.co.uk/resources.html |
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