Bush Tucker for me is exactly that, food found on a bush, or maybe stunted tree, easy reach material. I am not going to be bringing down any deer with a rifle or blasting bunny with a shotgun or well aimed stick.
Although I claim if necessary I’d strangle a pig with my bare hands to get hold of p0rk-chops, its an idle boast, the local butcher has nothing to fear.
As for fungi, I like the advice of one expert, “all fungi are edible, unfortunately some only once”
I let the food chains worry about those details, nothing is tasty enough to die for.
I like the idea you can stroll out into the woods and eat yourself to death. In an increasingly sanitized world this cannot be controlled. The chemist is no longer the place to blithely buy poison to kill of friends relatives and most of the village, or drug yourself up to the eyeballs, such luxuries went the way of the Victorians, but you can wander into the woods and collect the means of death and destruction, it looks like a mushroom, even tastes good.
I am not suggesting for one minute buying poison or narcotics from a chemist was a good idea, or that killing your relations with mushrooms is a legitimate plan. But it’s the same concept that allows cars to do more than 70mph despite the fact they are not allowed too. It is good to know the option is there, we have not all been reduced to barcodes in a governmental plan.
My autumnal project is photographing as many different fungi species as possible. They move less than butterflies so I am looking forward to this more relaxed pace. The downside being, this has the potential to be exceptionally geeky if not controlled. There might be over 1million forms of fungi yet to be recorded for example. Apparently there are 22,000 types in the UK. Most are brown and tediously tiny, nearly sub-atomic by the looks of them. So I am going to have to set suitable limits on this project to stop myself ending up staring at lumpy sticks through magnifying glasses and trying to pronounce Latin words longer than my arm.
Lets get back to the main track.
The only reason I watch Bear Grylls is to rock with laughter as he scoffs down some disgusting looking item which is wriggling. The only things he eats that looks worse is the stuff not wriggling.
Just lately other blogs have been waxing most lyrical on the lovely blackberries to be found. I don’t live in the Siberian wastelands so I could not wait to feast my eyes and tastebuds on this most child friendly of berries.
One of a number of things seems to have gone wrong. These succulent berries are a product of fevered minds or fisherman’s tales, is one possibility. The other is I simply have been rather unfortunate in having failed to find a decent batch, or finally berries aren’t what they used to be.
I am discounting the third option, global warming is to the environment what aspirin is to medicine. It’s the answer to everything but its damn boring hearing about how it cures all.
There might be some fevered minds out there in the outdoor world, but a conspiracy on this scale seems unlikely.
Frankly, its too early for blackberries, so I am not too concerned yet. But those red miserably hard looking berries are going to have to seriously improve. I did eat a few of the darker juicier variety but found maggoty wildlife had beaten me too most of them. This was much to close to a Grylls experience for my liking.
Other blackberries flattered to deceive, they looked the part but tasted foul.
I have hopes though, it was a grand year for strawberries. Wimbledon fortnight is always more enjoyable when watched with a large bowl of strawberries just picked from the garden. They taste great and even better when stacked up against the mad expense of the things on centre court. Strawberry jam will be enjoyed long into the year.
It was a bumper year for rabbits too, so the rest of the garden was eaten long before it reached my plate.
Earlier in the year I walked past a pea field, and I have to admit some sampling went on. Not on an industrial scale, a few pods were experimentally popped, untimely ripped, but peas can barely do wrong.
This looks to be a good year for sloes, they are everywhere. Described as eating a fruity deodorant stick, these astringent horrors I steer well clear of. These are in the theoretically edible category, along with my leather shoes.
I have spied some abandoned apples and pears on some walks, they have looked pretty meagre efforts but maybe the latest batch of weather will have done them good. I shall be keeping a keen eye on what goes on there.
Carrots are seen with their heads above the soil now, I resisted the urge to free them from earthy grasp. I admit it was because the farmers windows were very much in evidence. Cultivated crops are straying somewhat from the remit though. It is about like walking into someone’s kitchen raiding the fruit bowl and claiming to be living off the land. Maybe Bear G would consider this TV material, but not for me.
The real success this year in terms of wandering along footpaths have been cherry plums. The tastiest most juicy fruit hanging in large groups, often by quiet roadsides. Nobody seems to care about them. I make them feel loved and wanted. They are loved and wanted.
I saw an elderly woman collecting them in a churchyard to make jam with them to sell to the churchgoers. This seemed a time honoured traditional sort of thing. I fondly imagined the right to pick the berries having been handed down the female line of her family for multiple generations. Those generations, now feeding the tree on which the fruit comes, slumbering happily, tradition maintained. No doubt total nonsense but it enriches the inner landscape which, when it comes to the crunch, is all you actually have.
So I wait eagerly to see if blackberries are edible soon and on a longer term scale I noticed Sweet Chestnut trees heavy with prickly casings.
Last year was a miserable sweet chestnut year, even by the lowered expectations you need due to the English climate. They were small and spongy and overfilled with wriggling grubs, a lot of effort was expended for not a lot of eating. So I have my fingers crossed in that regard.
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