Raw Rob: Raw food, wild food & consciousness » Wild Food

Arbutus unedo – The Strawberry Tree

Rob — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 21:30:17 +0000

I first came across Strawberry Trees (Latin Arbutus unedo) when I was living in Spain, over 5 years ago. They have them in Madrid because the city’s coat of arms is a bear picking a tree strawberry. But they are tall and I never managed to reach one of the fruits (although also I might not have been there at the right time of year, they are ripe in November and December.)

When I lived in London, I found one in someone’s garden near Epping Forest and found a few ripe fruits on the ground on the street. They were delicious, with a flavour and texture like apricot jam. I always wanted to find another tree to eat more.

A few days ago we found a few Strawberry Trees on the island of Cres (Croatia), most of the fruit wasn’t ripe although we found a few good ones. Then yesterday we saw loads of trees with ripe fruit along the side of the road so we found somewhere to park and found some trees away from the road with loads of ripe fruits. I ate loads, when ripe they are so delicious. Ripe ones are generally dark red and very squashy, generally we found the best ones were on the ground under the trees.

But a little while later I started feeling ill. Thankfully not too bad, just a bit of nausea, but it did go on for a good few hours. We got the ferry back to the mainland and I felt really bad during the journey, thankfully it was only a 20 minute crossing.

So I did some more research, and some people say the when the fruits are over-ripe they start to form alcohol and you can get drunk from them. I didn’t feel like I was drunk though. Interestingly Jolita was fine, although she probably didn’t eat as many as me.

So if you do find a Strawberry Tree, go easy on them!

Wild Food Books Review

Rob — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 22:54:30 +0000

This article was originally published in the Spring 2009 issue of the Funky Raw magazine.

I regularly get asked what books I would recommend about wild foods, so here are my thoughts.

Lets start with the classic British wild food books are Food For Free and Wild Food.

Food for Free, by Richard Mabey, comes in several versions; one with colour photos, one with hand drawn illustrations and a pocket version (with less plants). I have the edition with colour photos, some of the photos are good, but many are not clear – if you already know the plant they help to jog your memory but are not for identification. This edition also devotes a lot of space to recipes (cooked, so not of much interest).

Wild Food by Roger Phillips covers sea food as well as plants and devotes even more space to cooked recipes so I’ve not purchased this book.

The Neighbourhood Forager by Robert K Henderson is an American book which has a lot of useful detail about a smaller number of wild foods but not great images for identification. Most of the information is also relevant for the UK.

As the number of wild food books available is limited, I started looking at other books about wild plants. I found that the books below work well in conjunction with a specific wild food book, or the PFAF website (www.pfaf.org) where you can look up whether a particular plant is edible or not. It even gives an edibility rating – some plants are edible but are hard to digest or don’t taste good so this gives a quick evaluation.

Wild Flowers of Britain by Roger Phillips is an excellent identification guide. Each plant is photographed on a plain background so you can see it clearly. This book is not specifically about edibles, although it does mention that some plants are edible.

This is probably my favourite book for identifying wild plants, and it looks like you can get second hand copies quite cheaply on Amazon now.

Wild Flowers by Neil Fletcher is very good for identifying plants, each plant has a photo of the plant, a photo of the plant in it’s habitat, a closeup of the leaves and a closeup of the flower plus text explaining identifying features.

Another quick tip to help with identification – if you go to www.images.google.com and enter the plant name you will get lots of photos (although this is not always accurate, always double check before eating anything!)

Travelling in our van

Rob — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 18:05:19 +0000

Our exciting news – we moved out of our flat in London into a camper van:

We’re currently travelling in France, looking for an area we would like to live, where we can buy land to set up some kind of raw food retreat/holiday centre. I will try and keep this blog updated with our progress, photos and of course all the wild food we are finding.

We have found quite a few wild strawberries, but the other day Jolita spotted what looked like a massive patch but on closer inspection we realised that they weren’t strawberries:

And here’s a real wild strawberry to compare:

When I next got access to the internet, I looked it up and found that it is called Mock Strawberry, False Strawberry or Indian Strawberry, Latin Potentilla indica (formerly Duchesnea indica and it is stilled listed as this in some places). It is edible, so next time we found some I tried one – it has almost no flavour and it is white inside just like real strawberries.

Edible beech nuts from Epping Forest

Rob — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 08:13:00 +0000

I was walking in the forest when I heard a pitter-patter sound, like the sound of water dripping from the leaves after it has rained. But it hadn’t rained recently so I stood still and watched to see what was falling. Beech nuts! I’ve seen the empty outer shells before but never the actual nuts – I think the squirrels get them if you’re not quick.

The individual nuts were falling out of the outer shells onto the ground. I picked up a nut and found that unlike most nuts it was very easy to open with my finger nails. The nut looks a bit like a pine nut, and surprisingly it also tasted a bit like a pine nut.

I’ve done a little research and found that beech nuts (also called beechmast) are high in tannins and shouldn’t be eaten in large quantities. Soaking them for 8 hours or more and then rinsing them removes some of the tannins and probably makes them easier to digest.

We opened and then soaked the ones we collected and made pesto with them, not quite as creamy as when made with pine nuts but still delicious.

Spring is here, collecting wild greens again

Rob — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:55:15 +0000

Spring is here and the wild greens are back! It’s been a particularly bad winter for wild greens which makes it even more exciting to go forraging again. In the last week I’ve been picking garlic mustard, wild garlic, wild leek, dandelion, plantain, sow thistle, sheep’s sorrel, chickweed, hawthorn leaves and possibly more.

Here’s a photo I took of some sheep’s sorrel. It’s got a strong lemony taste. It’s not good to eat in large amounts due to it’s high oxalic acid content, but because of it’s strong flavour you usually only want to use it in small amounts mixed into a salad.

Wild fruit: Rose hips and Hawthorn berries

Rob — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 06:20:15 +0000

Here in London, the rose hips are ripe! They are one of my favourite wild foods, they taste great and if you read my post last year on the subject, you will know that rose hips are full of vitamin C.

There are a couple of indicators of ripeness:

they go a bit squashy and possibly look a bit wrinkled
the colour changes, ripe rose hips are a bit less shiny than the hard unripe ones

Rose hips have lots of seeds which are hairy and can be irritating to the throat. After picking, it is possible to pull the end off and squeeze all the seeds out at the same time, although this doesn’t always work. I do find that when they are properly ripe the seeds are not irritating.

Also still around at the moment are hawthorn berries. These taste a bit like avocado and are supposed to be good for your heart.

When picking wild food, always make sure you have the right plant, especially with red berries. With hawthorn berries, check the leaf shape to make sure you have the right tree.

Edible Wild Flowers – Colour and nutrition for your salad

Rob — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:25:24 +0000

Spring is here, brining with it lots of wild flowers, many of which are edible. Here is a selection I found yesterday. Click on an image to enlarge.

Hawthorn flowers are a good flower to start with, they don’t have a strong flavour. White dead nettles are another easy flower, not too strong and can be quite sweet. They are not related to stinging nettles so they won’t sting you!

Dandelion flowers can be a bit bitter and can take a bit of getting used to, but I like them now. Wild garlic (ramsons) flowers have a delicious sweet garlicky flavour while Jack by the hedge flowers have a stronger flavour – garlic and mustard with a little bitterness.

As always, take care when picking wild food and make sure you are certain about what you are eating.

Spring Flowers

Rob — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:35:03 +0000

The wild garlic (ramsons) is just coming into flower. The leaves are great in salads or made into pesto.

The flowers are delicious, they have a strong garlic flavour with a nice touch of sweetness and creaminess.

Tulips are beautiful, this is taken in Nunhead Cemetery. According to Twinkel’s article in the latest Funky Raw magazine they are edible but somehow they look too good to eat!

I don’t know what this is but it is very pretty. It’s in Peckham Rye Park.

(Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Wild Garlic Pesto

Rob — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:48:39 +0000

I like making pesto with basil, but it’s not really in season at the moment, so I used some wild leaves I collected. I used mostly wild garlic (pictured) (Edit: this is not actually wild garlic, it’s Wild Leek. Photos of wild garlic here.), a few chives and a few sorrel leaves. I ground up a couple of handfuls of pine nuts, then added the leaves and some flax oil and blended. It had a strong flavour, delicious on a green salad of dandelion leaves and other wild greens.

David Wolfe on eating Ants

Rob — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:34:48 +0000

There has been a lot of speculation on this topic, I think it’s the first time I’ve heard David Wolfe say he eats ants. His viewpoint is pretty much the same as mine. Related articles:Why Walking Barefoot is Important David … Continue reading → Related articles: