Category: wild food

Having completed almost a full year of local gleaning and browsing I thought I’d round off this series with one of the best of all wild foods – one that can be found widely, if rather sparsely, across most of the country. If they are not quite a match for the taste of wild strawberries…

I used to think of the Bilberry (often Blaeberry north of the border) as an upland plant – something available for browsing in high summer when crossing wide expanses of heath or moor. In recent years I’ve found it along local hedge-banks and within deciduous woodland in the dairy and sheep country of the lowlands,…

This is a delightful plant, especially at this time of year when there is every chance it will be dripping with irresistible red berries. It has the sharply-serrated, trifoliate leaves typical of all strawberries, and delicate white flowers which give way to the perfect, albeit tiny, red fruits. In all respects it is a diminutive…

Pignuts are umbellifers (in the carrot family) and are like miniature versions of the more familiar Cow Parsley. To help confirm the identification, look closely at the finely divided leaves, especially those towards the base of the plant. If you grow your own carrots you may notice the similarity in leaf structure. In favoured meadows…

This is a common and widespread bracket fungus often found in the summer on dead or dying deciduous trees. It can grow to a huge size, perhaps as large and heavy as any British species. The problem is the large and easy-to-spot specimens are not much use as food as they quickly become tough and…