Wildfood School - Media Coverage
BBC CREW FILM WILD FOOD COURSE ON EDIBLE PLANTS
Read what Jude Barrnad wrote in the Cornish Guardian on 18th May 2006
Cuckoo flower, ribwort, chickweed, goosegrass, shepherd's
purse, sneezewort, ivy-leafed toadflax, sorrel and cress are all edible
and all can be found in abundance along the banks of the River Fowey in
Lostwithiel.
But their days of peaceful proliferation may be about to end. Special
courses run by the town's resident wild food expert, Marcus Harrison,
are raising their profile and now his master class on nature's bounty
is being made into a feature for BBC One weekend rural affairs
programme, Countryfile.
Around two dozen local residents turned out for the class which was
filmed by the BBC. As they walked along the river in Coulson Park
Marcus explained there are more than 150 edible plants in Britain, not
counting mushrooms and fungi.
According to Marcus, if you were able to identify them all, there would
hardly be a hedgerow, wayside or patch of wilderness that did not have
plants that could be foraged for consumption.
However that does not mean that the uninitiated can go and forage for
food without a full understanding of what they are looking for.
"Never consume a wild plant unless you are absolutely certain it is
edible," said Marcus. "There is a real risk in eating unknown foliage.
And even though a plant is considered safe you may still be allergic to
it. Before eating anything you should try a little bit first, wait 30
minutes and only then if you have not reacted, go ahead and eat the
rest."
Food contamination is also a risk to the forager. Pesticides, busy
roadsides, landfill sites, and brackish water can poison plants and
make them dangerous to eat. But with these warnings out the way, Marcus
pointed out the wealth of edible plants which have been forgotten by
the supermarket age.
"Many of the plants we now regard as wild were once cultivated as
crops," said Marcus. "Over the years some have come to be considered
more commercially viable than others and the less successful plants,
though often delicious, are now seen as nothing more than weeds."
Course participant and Lostwithiel resident Terry Brigstock expressed
surprise at how many plants could be eaten.
"It's the first time I have done anything like this. Some of the plants
Marcus told us about grow in my garden. I shall certainly stop using
pesticides to kill them now I know they can be eaten."
As the group fanned out looking for edible morsels, neighbour Nina
Perrin explained her plans for cooking sorrel.
"I am going to experiment and see if I can't make it into a sweet and
sour sauce. I am told that you just saut?? it in butter and add some
sultanas. We'll see. The beauty of picking wild plants is that they
haven't been contaminated by additives, so it's healthier for you. You
can trust what you're putting in your mouth.
Marcus attributes much of the increasing interest in his courses to a
growing sense of disenchantment with supermarkets.
"More and more people tell me they are fed up with supermarkets where
everything is uniform and tasteless.
"People like a challenge and foraging for food is a real challenge.
It's also a link with our past, and in this day and age when many of us
are so divorced from the land, it's a real treat to be reconnected with
it and the way people did things in the old days.
"The reason that foraging died out is probably more down to time and
lifestyle than anything else. It does take more time to go out and pick
greens. Many people now live in built up areas and don't have the
access to fields and hedgerows. But the beauty of Cornwall is that you
really don't have to travel far to find places where an abundance of
wild, edible plants grow.
"When people come back into close contact with the land, they also
begin to look at the landscape and the environment and question where
our food comes from. This all helps raise awareness about the food we
eat."
The Countryfile team filmed the Lostwithiel master class for several
hours. Co-presenter Adam Henson interviewed Marcus as well as many of
those taking part. "It's great talking to people here," he said. "You
get a strong sense that with supermarkets driving what we eat, people
are looking for alternative food solutions. To learn that great-tasting
food can be found in almost any garden is brilliant.
"I run a rare-breeds farm up in the Cotswolds and conservation and the
natural world are very close to my heart. This corner of Cornwall is
not just beautiful, it is also at the spear-head of the movement that
is re-educating people about food. That's fantastic."
The programme will be shown on BBC One on Sunday, May 28 at 11am.