Foraging forumagers

Made a load of cubes to freeze them up. They are amazing flavoured.

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Just started my first foraging of the year, lots of wild garlic from near Symonds Yat, made excellent pesto and some kimchi which should be ready to eat in a week or so.

Apart from more wild garlic, what else should I be looking out for this time of year?

Three-cornered leeks!

From looking these up on Wikipedia, I think there are millions right by my house. Any telltale signs, or similar looking poisonous things?

Wild garlic kimchi?

Yep. Put a little bit of red cabbage in too, but otherwise basically used this recipe:
https://tastethewild.co.uk/wild-garlic-kimchi/

My foraging neighbour has been posting pics of morrels & Japanese knotweed (!) dinner.

The J K has been contained behind fencing along the river for the past decade+ but has now sprouted on the riverbank footpath itself. I don't think this is a good thing, esp as it is not clear the authorities have the resources to prevent it spreading further.

When you pick the flowering stem, it’ll be triangular in section, white flowers, and it should smell like lovely sweet shallots :) we made a ton of frozen servings in ice cube trays for stocks and stews. Added a load to risotto stock, was lovely.
Anyway, if you do pick and eat them, just don’t die ok?

just don’t die ok?

Can't make any promises. Thanks for the advice tho

:)

Thanks, interesting. I didn't know you could use it in this way. Made without fish sauce, too.

Asking well ahead, what's the deal with eating acorns? I was always told you can't eat them, but they seem to pop up from time to time on Great British Menu etc. I'm trying to decide if they actually mean acorns or if it's something like when people say they're making bramble jam when they actually mean they're making blackberry jam, not making it out of brambles.

I'm thinking acorn coffee, which looks like it's actual roasted acorns. But I don't want to die of conker poisoning.

You can definitely eat them, there's a tree in Burgess Park but the squirrels are always too quick.

I made acorn coffee once and to be honest it was a waste of time. It's not unpleasant to drink but a bit nothingy and nowhere near as nice as real coffee or tea. I found removing the shells of the acorns an epic ballache.

(Isn't a bramble just another word for a blackberry, or does it mean the plant?)

There are a vanishingly small number of oak trees (in the UK) that produce edible acorns.
Ray Mears and his indefatigable mate Gordon from the Univ of Reading,
crushed, river washed, ground into a paste then stone baked to give a pleasing nutty nutricious
'bread'. There must be a youtube upload of the programme.
The prolonged river washing rinsed out the bitter tannins.

So is there an edible type and a non edible type?

Thanks for pointing out the three-cornered leeks! I made some pesto with a load that turned out really nicely

I've never encountered the 'mythical' no/low tannin acorns.
I think in that Ray Mears show he mentions stands of 'edible' Oaks in Italy.
Occam's Razor means I always assume a UK acorn is (without extensive) processing inedible.

Tea’s up! Fresh nettle brew.

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Does food you get free from outside people’s houses count? Got a bag of rhubarb from a ‘help yourself box’ and now have jam.

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Not foraging per sé, but can I eat these cabbage (?) flowers that have come up in my garden form last year's crop?

My brother tells me I can use them like purple sprouting broccoli, but I am not sure!

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I've eaten Kale flowers so I presume you can do the same. They can be bitter though.

Plum clafoutis tonight using plums found growing down by the river round the back of Staines Homebase. Emergency foraging happened. May be damsons, I don’t think I know the difference. Either way, they were a LONG way up and took a lot of stick throwing to get them down!

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RGRLOLWTFBBQ fruit picking machine out hunting. Got about 2kg of elderberries and about a kilo more of those plums/damsons - they’re a bit past their best now though, so might only be any good for jam.

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I need one of those, all the Damson trees round here are too tall