Archive for April, 2007
I’m slowly beginning to feel some level of confidence in being able to find a good variety of wild food. I’m eating plant leaves and flowers, tree leaves and blossoms, berries and small insects. I’ve recently started eating ants and have finally lost that squeamishness I used to get when eating insects. I’m sure I’d still get it with larger insects, but with the small ones I’m feeling like it’s a very natural thing to do.
Lime leaves (as in Tilia x europaea, not the citrus fruit) are very tender at the moment and have a very mild taste. Here’s a photo of a lime tree and a close up of a leaf:
April 25th, 2007
This was a first attempt at this kind of recipe and I was pleased with the results. The consistency was great, although I will definatly experiment a bit more with the spices:
- water from a young coconut (a bit more than half)
- flesh from young coconut (maybe a quater of the coconut)
- 1/2 red pepper
- 1 small avocado
- 1 stick of lemon grass
- fresh chili
- fresh ginger
- 1 tsp corriander seeds
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- dried basil (maybe 1 tsp, I didn’t measure it)
Everything except the avocado went into the blender and was blended up, then I added the avocado and blended a bit more. Depending on what your blender is like, you might want to grind the corriander seeds first (or use ground corriander which I would have done if I’d had any).
April 17th, 2007
Spring is here and wild food is appearing everywhere. Now is the perfect time for eating hawthorn leaves, they are young and tender and very tasty.
Hawthorn leaves are supposed to be good for the heart and circulatory system. (See info on PFAF website.) Later in the year, you can eat the flowers and in the autumn, the little fruits.
Borage is also in abundance now. Edit: Thanks to the comment from Katrina I’ve now correctly identified this as Green Alkanet, Pentaglottis sempervirens, which is a member of the Borage family, Boraginaceae.
The leaves are a little prickly, but once you get used to them, they are good to eat, they have a flavour some people say is like cucumbers. The flowers are also edible, great for adding a bit of colour to a salad.
April 17th, 2007
I’ve not posted in a while so I thought I’d give you an update on what’s going on. Issue 10 of The Funky Raw Magazine came out a couple of weeks ago and I’m really pleased with it, maybe it’s the best one yet. I love the cover artwork, called “Spring” by Merav Wheelhouse. In my wild foods article I’ve created a table which compares the nutritional data of some common wild greens with cultivated greens, with interesting results.
I’ve also started releasing the magazine as an eBook for only £2.50 (about US$5), particularly for people outside of the UK so you can save on postage… I’m starting to convert the back issues to eBooks, Issues 7, 8 and 9 are available now and the rest will be soon.
And the other exciting news is that the Funky Raw Festival will be happening again, at the same organic farm in Cornwall, Wednesday 22 to Monday 27 August (bank holiday weekend). Yoga, music, dance, wild food walks and delicious raw food in the cafe.
For any of you in or near London, I will be running another Raw and Wild Food Day, where I will be teaching you how to make all my favourite raw foods (including chocolate pudding!) and taking you on a walk to identify the wild greens growing around here (now is a perfect time for greens, there are so many.)
April 13th, 2007
I just got sent this about a 1 day workshop on how to grow your own fruit and veg, it’s in Lewes, East Sussex.
April 11th, 2007
