Wild Foods Diet

Whenever I do wild edibles presentations, I am inevitably asked how much of my diet consists of foraged foods. Of course, that greatly depends on the time of year. However, whether or not I create entire wild foods feasts or  merely graze from nature whilst out walking the dogs, I try to make sure that I include at least one wild ingredient in anything I prepare. Last weekend was a pretty typical example, and even though this is a sparse time of year for harvesting from nature, I still managed to find plenty of ingredients.

For breakfast on Saturday, I made a batch of scrambled eggs with chopped bittercress. In the afternoon, since the weather was lousy, I decided to stay home and do some baking. My wife suggested that I make apple turnovers. As usual, I used acorn flour to give them that unique nutty taste. They were so good, I didn’t expect them to last very long.

A friend stopped by while I was making them and watch me work as we chatted. He was fascinated by the acorn flour and asked whether I ever used it for making pancakes. That got me thinking – great idea for tomorrows’s breakfast.

My wife is a beef lover and had managed to acquire a couple of juicy shell steaks, which she prepared for dinner along with baked potatoes. My contribution to the meal was a salad made from Shepherd’s Purse, Chickweed and Lambsquarters, with a little sprinkle of Autumn Olive. Even though wild food is not my wife’s choice of cuisine, she is always game to try anything I make, and found the salad to be pretty tasty (particularly the Shepherd’s Purse). For dessert, we reheated a couple of apple turnovers and served them up with some fresh cream (yum!).

The next morning I cooked up a batch of acorn pancakes with raisins and Autumn Olive. They were light and fluffy and a little nutty tasting. Excellent with real maple syrup.

In order to keep my apple turnovers fresh I had put them into a tin with a tight fitting lid, and then left them out on the back porch (as there wasn’t room in our fridge). The following day, I decided to have one with my lunch and went out to get the tin. However, the lid was missing and the tin was empty. The darned squirrels had eaten every one, leaving not a crumb. When I told my wife, she laughed and said “Serves you right. You stole all their acorns, now they’ve taken them back from you!” I guess she has a point.