Wild Food

Sussex foraging masterclass

It’s a sunny evening in the South Downs of Sussex. The outlook is good, unless you happen to be a snail confronted with a sliver of garlic and a white wine shower. As I chew over the results of just such a meeting, the fireside crackling away to the accompaniment of idle chatter between strangers, life certainly looks good. Even the snails look good. Now that’s something you don’t hear much these days.

WideWorld has just arrived at a beautiful hideaway: Safari Britain, a collection of bell tents and yurts, nestled in the elbow of a remote chalk valley, where we’ve been invited to take part in a evening course on wild food. The menu might alarm even the curious, but the setting is relaxing enough to put the camp’s complement of guests – ranging from the local vicar to a BBC film crew – at their ease.

Safari Britain is part of what you could say is a new trend in camping in UK. Not luxury in the static-caravan-sense, but certainly a step up from most tourist-packed sites. Each bell tent has an ample foam mattress, wind-up lantern and real sheets and duvets. The communal yurts are devoted to a laid-back lounge and well-stocked kitchen. And smack in the middle is a giant fire pit that’s just crying out to be sat around.

Even the bathrooms are a bit of a masterstroke: a composting loo with a view over the fields to a stone folly (using the field glasses strung over one the framed prints in the loo, you can even make out the car parked over there), twinned with a delightful wooden cubicle shower beneath a spreading beech tree. There’s a wood burner for heating water, meaning hot outdoor showers in the morning.

But all this is just the trimmings. What Dan, co-owner of Safari Britain, really loves to do is educate his campers. Really. With courses as diverse as bat-spotting and life drawing (they assure me that a Serbian gym instructor can be provided to pose in a yurt wearing nothing but oil), they’re trying to claim back camping with a purpose. Tonight, that purpose is scoffing the stuff you find in the surrounding hills.

Dr William Milliken, author of Flora Celtica and an expert in British wild food, takes us up and around the downs, spilling out gems of knowledge and handing out various leaves, petals and stems to chew over.

“The downs aren’t really much of a larder,” he warns. “More of a lunchbox, really.” Despite 6000-odd years of grazing and only 3% of the land remaining uncultivated, there’s still a fair few things out there to eat. There’s also some rather choice facts to accompany his walk too. Like how the German army wore uniforms made of nettles in WW1 because it made a cheap, strong cloth. Or taking a wild plantain leaf and laying it in a cut to stop it bleeding. Even the fact that dock roots are far more effective for rubbing on nettle stings than the leaves.

It’s fascinating stuff – in just a couple of hours, I’ve swallowed and enjoyed around twenty native species of plant that would normally be avoided. The hit of the evening is the lowly and much-maligned thistle: strip off the spiky bits and what you end up with is a stick of sweet-tasting celery. Another hedgerow classic, the Hogweed, also results in a hit: the unfurled fronds make a mouthful that’s like a cross between Brussels sprout and a parsnip. Ursula, a local who’s come along, squints as she clamps gnashers to a sprig of hawthorn leaf. “Bitter,” is her report. “Not much sweet stuff in the wild,” explains our instructor.

The walk swings back to the campground and a fireside meal of Roman proportions. Local anchovies with wild sage leaves and nasturtiums; elderflower champagne; snails in garlic and white wine; nettle soup with bacon; rabbit; even elderflower fritters to finish, that we picked just minutes earlier. The adage goes that anything tastes good in the open air. Well, it may be true, but there wasn’t a single scrap going back to the kitchen on the night.

If you want to learn more about Safari Britain’s courses, go to www.safaribritain.com

Wild food for beginers

Nettles

“You can eat these, or even thrash yourself with them to relive pain,” Will tells WideWorld. “The roots can be used for dyeing too.”

Field maple

“The sap of this tree makes a sugary concoction you can mix up and drink.”

Cowslip

“The small round leaves make for good eating.”

Salad Burnett

“Thin pickings perhaps, but great in salads.”

Wild Thyme

This purple-flowered little plant grows among grass and is really fragrant.”

Cats Ear

“Look for the furry fronds of this plant.”

Plantain leaf

“You can eat this leaf, or lay it in a cut for a styptic effect – it stops bleeding and really does work.”

Dock

“Research shows that the root, not the leaf, is most effective for relieving nettle stings.”

Elderflower

“The flowers of the elder tree can be eaten raw, cooked or made into a cordial to drink. Pick the flowers after the sun has been shining on them, when the anthers are still a bit orange. You can’t eat the leaves of the tree, but they do repel flies if you rub them.”

Rose petals

“These are generally edible and really tasty, with a delicate flavour.”

Daisies

“Most varieties are edible, even the large oxhide daisies”

Hawthorn

“The leaves of the hawthorn have been eaten for thousands of years, and some people still call them by their old nickname ‘bread and cheese’.”

Silverweed

‘You’ll recognise this straight away due to the colour. If you dig up the roots you can eat them like tiny parsnips.”

Thistle

“Take the younger, tender shoots and strip off the sharp bits to reveal the inner stem and eat like celery.”

Hogweed

“Not to be mixed up with some similar-looking plants – be careful what you pick. Hogweed has lumpy offshoots from the main stem that you can pick and eat raw – a more substantial mouthful than many other wild foods.”