ROBBY RECOMMENDSTHE kids and I are happy foraging for our treats.
Wild foods are often some of the most nutritious foods we can eat, supplying lots of important vitamins and minerals in quantities rarely found in our usual diet.
Although lots of leafy plants are past their best in autumn, late summer is one of the most abundant times of year for wild foods. Berries prevail. With a little bit of work the fruits can be stored as jams, syrups and wines, saving you money over the rest of the year.
Everyone must have enjoyed picking blackberries at some time. They are one of the most abundant and delicious wild fruits and are well worth the thorny challenge of picking.
Their taste is sometimes not so good after too much rain but pick them at the end of a few sunny days and they will taste amazing. The best way to eat them is straight off the bush, pick ten at a time and then stuff them all in your mouth at once.
Blackberries can be found almost everywhere, in cities and in the countryside, in hedges, overgrown gardens and allotments, scrubland and on the edge of woodlands. They are usually ripe from August to October but the earlier ones are the juiciest and sweetest, so get out there as quickly as you can.
Elderberries are ripe at around the same time as blackberries. These small, juicy berries are not particularly tasty raw but are pleasant when cooked.
Like blackberries, they can be added to apple pie. They can be added to blackberry jam to substitute for some of the blackberries. They, too, make a fine wine by themselves or can be mixed in varying quantities with blackberries.
The wild cherry, or gean, is common right across Europe. All of the cultivated cherries are derived from this tree, so, as you might expect, there’s a huge amount of variation between the fruit.
They can be anything from harsh, acidic, almost inedible little lumps to beautiful, succulent and sweet. You can only really tell by tasting them but, if you find a tree that gives you fruit you like, then you can visit it year after year.
Rosehips are a great source of vitamin C, successfully exploited during the Second World War, when it was made into syrup. These are the orange-red oval berry-like fruits found on wild rose bushes.
The seeds inside are quite irritant and kids have often used them as itching powder. It’s good to make syrup from them, straining out the seeds.
The wild strawberry can be found on hillsides, in woodlands, and on exposed land throughout most of the Island. It’s not uncommon to find either wild specimens or garden escapees.