Foraging for food

Arch said:
Spotted a couple of daisies on the green today. Dandelions can't be far behind. Nearly time for dandelion jam!
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I am really interested in the dandiliion jam you are talking about. Do you have a recipe you could share? We get our fair share of dandilions around here and this would probably be easy for me to make.
 
The only kind of foraging i have ever done really is at the beach, i used to enjoy collecting cockles, then taking them home to eat. Cockles are small salt water clams which you collect by raking them from the sand at low tide. They were in abundant supply in Devon where i used to live.

I wonder how safe they really are to eat collected straight from the beach, i always used to boil them and then season them with vinegar and pepper, so i assume they were OK as i boiled them, i never suffered any ill effects but i would worry these days about the amount of pollution that is pumped in to the sea, you can't be too careful with seafood.
 
worldmachine said:
The only kind of foraging i have ever done really is at the beach, i used to enjoy collecting cockles, then taking them home to eat. Cockles are small salt water clams which you collect by raking them from the sand at low tide. They were in abundant supply in Devon where i used to live.

I wonder how safe they really are to eat collected straight from the beach, i always used to boil them and then season them with vinegar and pepper, so i assume they were OK as i boiled them, i never suffered any ill effects but i would worry these days about the amount of pollution that is pumped in to the sea, you can't be too careful with seafood.
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The worst thing that could happen from eating seafood at the beach is Red Tide, which is poisonous to us humans. I learned that the way you test seafood for this is to collect the food from the beach and then stick your tounge on it and wait for 10 minutes. If you tounge does not go numb after touching it to the meat after 10 minutes, no risk of Red Tide is present.
 
worldmachine said:
The only kind of foraging i have ever done really is at the beach, i used to enjoy collecting cockles, then taking them home to eat. Cockles are small salt water clams which you collect by raking them from the sand at low tide. They were in abundant supply in Devon where i used to live.

I wonder how safe they really are to eat collected straight from the beach, i always used to boil them and then season them with vinegar and pepper, so i assume they were OK as i boiled them, i never suffered any ill effects but i would worry these days about the amount of pollution that is pumped in to the sea, you can't be too careful with seafood.
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I've been cockle raking at low tide on the flats between Brownsea Island and Sandbanks which contains the most expensive real estate in the World,we boil them up pick them with pins and pickle the excess
i was never sure about foraging shell fish but as long as you know the local area ,I've also scuba dived for scallops and free dived for crabs,and i have also bacon trapped crayfish the vermin of the fresh water
 
it never ceases to amaze me about dandelions. They are a wonderful source of vitamin C, and yet to do everything we can to eliminate them from our lawns. Free food just pops up in the back yard, and we throw it out! i wish I could figure out more ways to use them...
 
I don't have much experience with the countryside although I had been to the mountains upon the initiative of my husband. He knows so many food items that are growing wild in the mountains. In fact, some are even growing here in the city. Here is one such edible leaves from the Kamuning tree also known as Alibambang in some provinces. The young leaves can serve as ingredients to soupy dishes of meat or fish.

See the photo, that's the alibambang leaves or kamuning leaves...
IMG_4100 alibambang RESIZED.jpg
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
can you explain?
Here nettles are best eaten when the leaf is young and fresh with no holes in it because the older leaves have a build up of an acid in the leaves which is fatal in high doses (but we are talking kilos of nettle leaves a day here). to the best of my knowledge and certainly from having eaten them for the last 20 years, nettles can be harvested at any time of year - the key is to keep the crop going by constant cutting and forcing the nettles to produce new growth. this however does mean that the nettle stem is not long enough to make cordage or fabric from in the autumn/winter months because you need nettles that are meters high for that, but for eating you need to keep fresh growth which means constant cutting back. Nettle seed on the other hand is best a certain stage and best when dried out - so it is less potent again at anytime of the year when the plant has finally produced some.
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Perfect antidote Mytholmroyd World Dock Pudding Competition
 
Another thread on here had me wondering, does foraging come down to local taste?
I'm thinking of mushrooms here. A variety sold at the local market and available to pick on some pick your own & in the wild over here, would kill "you stone dead" else where.
That last part from a person brought up on the land and who has worked all his life on it. He refused to touch them and even washed the frying pan, the minute I'd finished with it.
 
classic33 said:
Another thread on here had me wondering, does foraging come down to local taste?
I'm thinking of mushrooms here. A variety sold at the local market and available to pick on some pick your own & in the wild over here, would kill "you stone dead" else where.
That last part from a person brought up on the land and who has worked all his life on it. He refused to touch them and even washed the frying pan, the minute I'd finished with it.
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Not quite getting this. Are you saying that your local market was selling wild mushrooms which were deadly poisonous, according to your friend? If so, then surely he must be wrong or there would be a number of mysterious poisonings in your neck of the woods. Oops, I'm back to writing about poison (forgive me, those of you who will not understand the reference).
 
morning glory said:
Not quite getting this. Are you saying that your local market was selling wild mushrooms which were deadly poisonous, according to your friend? If so, then surely he must be wrong or there would be a number of mysterious poisonings in your neck of the woods. Oops, I'm back to writing about poison (forgive me, those of you who will not understand the reference).
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No, both are edible. Its just the difference in views of what is & what isn't poisonous.

Poison reference is research for "Death at the dinner table", a novel. Its claimed.
 
buying foraged foods is a nasty subject you need to a be sure what it is and how it has grown and how it was picked,you don't want a wild girrolle cross contaminated with poisonous spores
 
classic33 said:
No, both are edible. Its just the difference in views of what is & what isn't poisonous.

Poison reference is research for "Death at the dinner table", a novel. Its claimed.
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Blimey! You can't have a difference in views about whether certain wild mushrooms are or aren't. That's a route to disaster. Regarding the 'novel'. Its still a work in progress. But I'm learning a lot from this forum.:wacky:
 
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