Foraging forumagers

A handful of chanterelles from my walk today. Always good to go off the beaten track

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Bullaces are ripe

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What’s this then?

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Maybe a crabapple?

Cut it open. Is the flesh apple-like or jammier like a plum?

Apple like. Actually tastes quite appley

👍

Any idea what this is? Had a hazely-looking nut inside.

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Cobnut

Orly!?!? I’ve always thought cobnuts were just hazelnuts? Whenever I see them for sale they don’t have these shells.

turkish hazlenut
there are quite a few of these trees down the back streets of forest gate

Cheers! That looks like them. Maybe have another wander through the Asda car park where I found them soon. At least the squirrels probably won’t get them.

Cobnut, hazelnut, meh samesies. They sell them in these shells in Olis on Walworth Rd. You're lucky the squirrels haven't had 'em.

Interesting, so green and preserved in oil? Middle of a supermarket carpark is fairly safe from squirrels. They also get fed regularly by folks in the nearby park so maybe they’re just a bit lazy.

Not oil, Oli's. It's a shop on Walworth Road.

Haha. Thanks for the correction.

Never heard of a cherry plum, worth collecting?

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i picked 5 or so for a 14mile ride yesterday, kept the whistle wet and the saliva flowing. nice sharp citrus if under ripe, juicy and tasty and sweet when ripe.
there are quite a few trees on tottenham marshes if you want to pick enough for some jam.

👍
Agree, sharp but in a good way. Will return.

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Myrobalan.

Often form a mid-ride roadside snack, returning from Windsor,
when in season.
Have also made a cracking chutney, that enlivened Winter carbs,
and brought back memories of sunnier Summer days.

Loads of those tiny plums around here. Colours range from yellow, pink, bright red to deep purple. They make great jam 👍

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Also got my sloe gin going. Bit early for the sloes but I’m probably not going to get another chance to collect any this year. Recipe on the side in a 1 litre bottle. I like my sloe gin quite ginny and not too sweet.

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Nice, how long before it’s usually ready?

They normally say wait until Christmas, so 2-3 months 👍

Haven’t noticed many sloes here yet. Usual advice is to wait until the first frost and then pick, or if you can’t wait, simulate that by putting them in the freezer before they go in the mix. Then wait as long as you can. Flavour develops with time and we’ve got some from 2015ish that I’m looking forward to opening as fruit-in-bottle-aged sloe gin.

Usual advice is to wait until the first frost and then pick

Thing is, we don’t get a frost until something like December. By then, everything has been bare for many months. Same with medlars, they’re looooong gone by the time there’s a frost.

I did actually freeze my sloes this time. I don’t usually, but I wasn’t sure when I was going to get a chance to bottle up so I temporarily put them in the freezer for storage.