30 Days Wild | Day 12 - more foraging fun

For day 12 of 30 Days Wild, I tried some more wild plants that I'd foraged. As I was at work and already had a packed lunch with me, I had scoped out the canal towpath for potentially edible treats to add to my usual box of salad. I didn't have my copy of Food For Free with me, but a bit of Googling confirmed that a few of the plants I'd thought I could try were indeed edible. I went out just before lunch and collected a few leaves of Ground Elder, Greater Plantain and Ribwort Plantain.

Ground Elder (Aegopodium podagraria).

Greater Plantain (Plantago major).

Ribwort Plantain (Plantago lanceolata) among other stuff.

My harvest!

I tried to find young, fresh leaves, with varying success given the time of year, as these are supposedly the tastiest. Back at my desk, and after a good wash, the leaves were added to my salad!

Salad of haricot beans, lentilles vert, cherry tomatoes, potato, asparagus and celery with Ribwort Plantain, Greater Plantain and Ground Elder.

My favourite was the Ground Elder - it had a very pleasant, mild peppery herby flavour. Will definitely eat it again! I wasn't so sure about the plantains, they were slightly tougher and more bitter but maybe that's because the leaves weren't young enough. I would give plantains another go, perhaps earlier in the year, to see if younger growth tastes any different.

30 Days Wild | Day 8 - munching on Dandelions

For day 8 of 30 Days Wild, I wanted to nibble on some wild ingredients that I'd found in nature. As I didn't really have time to go off foraging anywhere (still revising!) I had a look in our garden, which is fortunately heaving with Dandelions. Although my plant ID skills are slowly improving, there's only a few which I know to be edible that I'd definitely be confident actually eating - gotta be careful! However I didn't think I could go far wrong with Dandelion :o) I'd already made a salad for my lunch so it was just a matter of washing and adding the Dandelions to it.

Having an exciting lunch box makes lunch more fun.

Salad of potato, black beans, anchovies, carrot, celery, tomato, Dandelion, olive oil, lemon juice and black pepper.

It turns out the flavour of Dandelion leaves is not particularly to my taste! They are quite bitter, luckily the strong flavour of anchovies in my salad balanced it out somewhat, but I'm not sure I will eat Dandelion again. However I have enjoyed various other leaves a lot more when I've briefly tried them while out birding, e.g. Wild Garlic, Wood Sorrel, Garlic Mustard.....foraging for wild ingredients is something I'd like to get more into, after all who doesn't like free food? When I have a bit more free time I am going to peruse my copy of 'Food for Free' more extensively. For now though here is the start of the section on Dandelion....

Can't believe I've been calling it Dandelion all these years, when I could have been calling it Bum-pipe, Stink Davine or Lion's Teeth....what a wasted opportunity!