What's been your biggest mistake while foraging?
That would have to have been a
joint mistake between myself and my girlfriend at the time. Amongst several
species of fungi that can be confused, two stand out as they are both very
common; yet with sufficient care nobody need be poisoned or put off from
gathering the edible variety: horse mushroom (Agaricus arvensis) and the yellow
stainer (Agaricus xanthodermus) – the former is good to eat; the latter is
poisonous, causing alarming but non-fatal symptoms in most people. Apart from
the smell - horse mushrooms have a faint almond-like odour whereas yellow
stainers smell of ink, one of the main characteristics used to distinguish
between the two for the purpose of identification, is that when cut down the
middle with a sharp knife, the yellow stainers flush an immediate canary yellow
at the stem base whereas horse mushrooms do not. Hence, for identification
purposes, it is always important to keep the stem intact. My girlfriend had
harvested both varieties of fungi from the same habitat – gathering the horse
mushrooms with the stem intact whilst harvesting the yellow stainers without
the stem (because they had become maggot ridden). These were all presented to
me mixed together in the same basket. I checked the intact stems of the horse
mushrooms to make sure they weren’t yellow stainers – they weren’t of course,
and assumed that all the other mushrooms were of the same variety. To our great
misfortune, vomiting and diahorrea told a completely different story.
Can anyone forage?
That would depend on how loosely, narrowly or broadly you
wish to define both the terms forage and food, and whether or not
you have a personal interest in the use of metaphor – as I do! . Generally, one
of the great things about foraging – everything else being equal, especially in
terms of good mental and physical health, as well as common sense – is its
radical equality in respect to opportunity. The potential to forage exists in
both town and city, and in fact sometimes greater biodiversity can be found
within cities – especially on so-called wasteland and sites classified as brown
field, than within certain parts of the countryside – this is particularly true
of the Brighton area!
Other important qualities – although not necessarily qualifications would
include an effort or natural ability to constantly view the world with
child-like enthusiasm, approach it with a sense of discovery, and be creative!
Why is foraging so popular right now?
The modern purveyor of freaky facts, fictions, fads and fun – of the Neil
Postman ‘Amusing Ourselves To Death’ variety, the mass media, has certainly had
a big influence in that regard. Of course, general media content isn’t
formulated in a cultural vacuum, and no doubt forging’s growing popularity
comes as a natural extension or complement to other existing and growing
trends: organic food; slow food movement; a return to seasonal and local food
consumption; a growing environmental awareness and a need, quite simply, to get
out more – but in rewarding, nature engaged and enjoyable ways!
How did you get into it?
I got into it initially through an interest in butterflies and moths when I
was about 7 years old. Hence, the following entry on a recent blog on my
website entitled ‘The last Supper’ – the title actually refers to the 31st,
and last day, of a month-long eating only 100% wild food experiment (http://www.wildmanwildfood.co.uk):
“At the moment I'm struggling to write a book on wild food. With in that, my
aim is to record at least all the butterfly and moth species whose larvae feed
on the wild food entries I've included - if not a whole wealth of other
creatures large and small. In a more ecologically aware age it is surely time
to go beyond the current growing awareness of wild food plants - an awareness
divorced from the broader ecological and environmental picture; an awareness
that, in seeing wild food plants purely in utilitarian terms vis-à-vis human
consumption, risks creating a situation where the last supper really does have
an end-of-days biblical resonance for a whole host of insect species. We need
more foragers with acute ecological and naturalistic sensibilities such as Richard Mabey and less of the
let's-strip-the-countryside-and-deliver-to-swanky-London-restaurants breed.”
Who couldn't you have done this without?
It’s very hard to say, perhaps nobody, perhaps everybody. Certainly the
phrase ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ seems incredibly apt here. Those
giants are not only our Mesolithic Stone age hunter gather ancestors but, in
more modern times, people like Euell
Gibbons - edible wild
plant expert and author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Richard Mabey – perhaps
this country’s best and foremost nature writer and author of the classic Food
for Free, Hugh Fearnely Whittingstal – an inspirational man, Ken Fern of Plants
for a Future fame – name of book and website, my long suffering family, and a
whole host of other people I meet or am in contact with.
Best thing you've ever foraged?
I once cycled from my home in Herne bay to Dartington College in Totnes
over two days – camping over night in Winchester. I was knackered and couldn’t
bear the thought of cycling back – but I didn’t have any money for the train.
On the last day of my visit I was walking up the road to the college when I
noticed some mushrooms in the leaf litter at the side of the path. I can’t
remember what they were or even if I ate them. Nevertheless, they were the best
things I’ve ever foraged because lying next to them was a muddy £20 note. I got
the train back! Both fortunately and strangely such good fortune seems to befall
me with delightful regularity – which isn’t to say that I can’t be damned
unlucky sometimes.
What can you / will you never forage?
Ask a silly question………
As a rule I never forage for anything up someone else’s bottom, nose or in
their ear canals. I would like to say the same for said parts of my own
anatomy. As I said, I would like to say………
What's the funniest myth you've ever heard about foraging?
Unfortunately myths about foraging tend not to be the slightest bit funny –
unless you have a really warped sense of humour of the
all-mushrooms-are-edible-but-some-only-once variety, as inaccurate knowledge
and information in the guise of myth can have potentially deadly repercussions.
A case in point would be the two mushroom foragers I met on a woodland path
last year. They had a carrier bag full of mixed mushrooms selected on the basis
that, first and foremost, they looked nice and, secondly, both squirrels and
slugs had nibbled at parts of them so, they believed, they must be OK for them
to eat! This is utter nonsense and, in any case, absurd logic. Even assuming
squirrels and slugs react to foods in the same way as humans (which they don’t
– hence new medicines and cosmetics are not tested at the nearest slug or
squirrel lab!), surely you would want to see the very squirrels and slugs that
had in fact been feeding on those mushrooms to check that they were still
alive! This couple were lucky they met me because they had a mixture of the
deadly poisonous, edibility unknown and edible – all of which they had been
prepared to return home with and cook up. Heaven help us! Perhaps it did!
How do people react when you tell them what you do?
People in this country usually react with interest, often wanting to come
out on a forage or wanting me to check over their local patch with them to see
what’s available. Many Chinese people and various others from different
cultures assume that I must be very poor!
What are you thankful for?
I’m thankful for so many things. In one of her books – I think it was
Falling Leaves Return to Their Roots: The True Story of an Unwanted Chinese
Daughter, Adeline Yen Mah reflects on being thankful for various things in
life, and I totally agree with her. If I recall correctly – it’s 10 years or so
since I read it, she asks us to think about all the good aspects of our lives.
For each, whether it be a happy marriage, beautiful children, financial
security or a fulfilling job, she asks us to imagine it as being represented by
a zero ‘0’. She then goes on to say that good health is number one and that,
basically, if you don’t have this in the first place then all you are left with
is a big bunch of noughts. What a sobering thought!
What do you think about when you're in the forest?
All sorts of things – some trite and mundane, some inspired and lucid.
Yesterday I had the former kind; it would almost not be too far fetched to say
that I saw the light – especially if you consider light as variously
nuanced by its different meanings. This morning I received a copy of Slow
through the post; that’s the magazine of the slow food movement. The thoughts I
had yesterday in the forest chime and resonate incredibly with the words of
Nicola Perullo, writing in that magazine. He says, “Lightness is an ability to
see ever wider connections, partly through the tone and flavour imparted by an
awareness of our finiteness and partiality. A slow vision is a light vision
because it is not anthropocentric. It loosens and weakens the constricting mesh
of technocratic and economistic rationality. It makes us take responsibility
for ourselves and our community, driven not by the death instinct (the true
origin of the deplorable ideology of profit and competition, the bringer of
defeat and anxiety), but by the principle of pleasure, enjoyment and joy in the
‘perfection’ of our finite and imperfect human condition.”
What is the most unusual thing you've ever seen in the forest?
That would have to have been about 10 years ago when I discovered an
unconscious forager lying on the ground in the middle of the thickest bramble
forested depths of nowhere, having almost just stabbed himself to death with
his own knife! Unbelievably, this stupid shaven headed forager
had taken it upon himself to carry out an impromptu experiment with an Amanita
muscaria (Fly Agaric) mushroom. He had
wanted to see if rubbing a small amount of the peeled red cap onto the back of
his head would lead to any psychoactive compounds present being absorbed
directly into his blood stream, and was curious to know if this would have an
immediate influence upon perception. His insight: never ever to do such a
stupid thing again! He collapsed immediately, almost falling on his own knife,
and didn’t know whether or not he had lost consciousness for 2 seconds or 2
hours.
What's your tastiest bit of roadkill?
’Roadkill’: that’s soooo last week man (said with an American accent)! I
was out foraging last year with Guy Adams from The Independent; we were
collecting field blewit mushrooms next to a football pitch when Guy pointed out
a perfectly healthy looking (but dead!) lapwing a few feet from where we were
crouched picking. Somewhat bemused – as there were no roads near by, we
examined it to try and establish the cause of death: unknown. Then we looked
skywards for divine inspiration. We found it: death as an act of God; death as
an act of power lines?! I made lapwing and field blewit ravioli in a rich
tomato sauce – delicious!
Is it annoying having to forage in Winter?
Great sex, great food, great books and films, great music, great
conversations and so many other great things are so because they are not
defined by the monotony of ceaseless continuity but, rather, are punctuated by
the magic of stillness, of silence, by the magic of opposites and contrasts. I
love winter but only as one of the four great seasons.
What should Joe Public do to start foraging?
Open their eyes and smell the fragrant scent of wild foods dancing on the
autumn breeze!
