Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa)

AKA: Feaberry, Grozet, Goosegogs

Where: Hedgerows, woodland edges, damp soil. Throughout UK; rare in north Scotland.

What: Berries

When: May – July (early/mid summer)

The Gooseberry is a fairly infrequently encountered hedgerow denizen, but one that is well worth harvesting when stumbled upon. It does not technically grow wild in the UK, despite being ideal conditions for it here, and any that are found in the wild are escapees from domesticated varieties, usually the result of bird theft.

As a shrub, the Gooseberry can grow to 1.5m high, and occasionally taller. It is fairly innocuous in the hedge back, lurking with everything else, but it turns green earlier in the spring than almost everything else around it, which aids in identification. It has smallish broad and lobed leaves, each measuring 4 – 8cm, and which are a dark shiny green above, and a paler green below, with many fine hairs and very prominent veining; the leaves curl inwards in maturity (summer), and vaguely resemble hands. There are numerous very sharp spikes where the leaf meets the stem, and the stem, measuring some 1cm in width, is itself spiny, so some caution is urged when harvesting.

Flowers arrive in mid-spring/early summer, and are tiny, measuring less than 1.0cm, and made up of white petals surrounding a dash of red stamens, and surrounded by 5 sepals of a red-ish colour folded back (often, these are more noticeable than the flower itself).

The fruit, the target of the exercise, is spherical and broadly resembles a grape with a crown of dead sepals. Measuring up to 3cm across, it is a mid to pale green in colour, with clear light green veining and a slightly hairy surface. They taste sweeter the longer you leave them on the ‘vine’, but then, of course you are fighting nature (and other foragers!) for this choice morsel.

They can taste rather tart, so when cooking, add sugar accordingly – I personally prefer them sharp, so I add very little. They taste sort of fruity, white grape-like, subtle, but also large in flavour, with a sour finish. I love them, particularly in tarts, but you can make great sorbet, the classic gooseberry fool, and they go well in crumbles. They really compliment the taste of Elderflower, so creating a cocktail of white rum, Elderflower wine and Gooseberry can be fun! Try them in unexpected places - stuff a fish, make a Gooseberry sauce, or what about a Gooseberry salsa with chilli and garlic?

Gooseberries.

What's Happening?

Spring has sprung, and summer is properly here. The absolutely amazing weather seems to have brought out the best in wild food, and this year looks set to be a bumper crop of all sorts of goodies.

After last year’s dismal effort, the huge quantity of flowers in the spring seems to indicate that this year will be a extraordinary one for Bilberries – the bushes were literally groaning under the weight of the purple flowers, and they are now showing the green immature fruits growing nicely. Here is a description of the Bilberry.

Raspberries are similarly available in a plentiful supply. My usual bushes are not yet ripe – a few more weeks should see them emerge in their delicate glory. Keep checking your hunting grounds as they may be ready now and you don’t want to miss that boat. Here is a description of the Raspberry

Gooseberries! Wow! My local bush was, as of 3 weeks ago, growing nicely and full of life. I checked yesterday, however, and the whole thing was overgrown and all the leaves had been eaten by caterpillars. I did manage to salvage 8 Goooseberries, so not all was lost, but still, I’m not impressed! Next year I will do some weeding… or does that count as gardening rather than foraging? See post below for the details on Gooseberries. 

And ladies and gentlemen, the whole house once again smells of cat pee which can mean only one thing, the Elderflowers are in season. Get them whilst the going’s good… or not! They really seem to be everywhere this year, and one can smell them in the most unlikely places. Kate is making champagne again, but also a cordial, and is attempting to make a wine. We have a freezer full of the flowers too, so that should keep us going for a while! Recipe and description are here and here.

In other interesting news, I discovered a Medlar tree on my travels yesterday. I had thought the tree looked familiar when I first came across it in the spring, but I couldn’t place it. So, during yesterday evening’s ramble, I explored further and lo, the large leaves and the small emerging apple-like fruit gave it away. Here is a description of the Medlar. 

Elderflowers in full bloom.  

What was left of my Goosberry bush after the caterpillars!

Jack By The Hedge (Alliaria petiolata)

AKA Garlic Mustard, Hedge Garlic, Jack In The Hedge, Sauce Alone, Poor Man’s Mustard

Where: Shaded hedgerows, field and especially woodland edges. Throughout UK except Scotland. 

What: Leaf, Seeds

When: Leaf: spring and occasionally autumn. Seeds: August/September

This is an excellent, and thankfully common, plant with bags of flavour. Growing on a single, thick (up to 2cm), and hairless dark green stem, the plant can reach up to 1m in height. It produces numerous bright or yellowish green leaves – pointed in the upper part of the plant, and more rounded or kidney-shaped with rounded lobes and growing in a rosette in the lower part. The leaves are 3-7cm long, with deep veins running over the surface and with a sharply rounded toothed edge. The whole looks not to dissimilar to the Nettle (Urtica dioica) but the surface is completely hairless, and crucially, the leaves smell subtly of garlic when crushed. Interestingly, the plant is a biennial, and so if the autumn is warm and good, then a second crop of leaves may appear in September or October.

The delicate white flowers, made up of 4 petals and measuring just 7mm across, arrive April to June in small clusters at the top of the plant.

The seeds occur in summer in thin, four-sided, upright pods, each measuring 5cm and maturing to a greyish brown colour, and containing two rows of little black seeds 2.5mm long. The seeds can be crushed with oil to make a very nice wild mustard, or can be used as a flavouring for cooking.

Taste: both sets of leaves are good to eat, but the upper, pointier, versions are the better, I think. Tasting of garlic and mild mustard, but not overpoweringly so, they are excellent in a salad, or as a green. Try them in an omelette or cook with them, perhaps laid over a fish. I have made a rather good soup with the leaves, lentils, tomato and stilton. 

                                  Jack By The Hedge in early June.

                                      The Flowers in early June

                                        The leaves in early June      

Ey Up! We're Back!

Spring is once more here! 

With renewed vigour, we at The Forager's Guide will be updating this blog often and with great ideas and foragable food descriptions! 

We went for a walk this afternoon, just up the hill from the house and along the trackway above Glossop. I have to say, after last years marked dearth of Bilberries, given the number of flowers we saw on bushes, this year will be a bumper crop... bring it on!

Right now though, Kate is cooking a chickpea and potato curry, and I'm drinking a Strawberry, Apple and Grape wine we made last autumn from some 'reduced' fruit from Tesco and the last of the Wild Apples we foraged and which had started to go soft. I think I have the best of this deal! Cheers folks.  

Plum (Prunus domestica, etc.)

AKA Greengage, Bullace, Damson, Cherry Plum

Where: Woodland Edges, hedgerows. Throughout UK, but more common in south.  

What: Fruit

When: September – November

The Plum – fantastic fruits, versatile, and often occurring in huge quantities on single trees, they can be used 1000s of recipes, as well as being preserved for later use.

Now, there are dozens of inter-related species that come under the heading Plum, but for the UK, and our purposes of ‘wild food’, we will be dealing with the Greengage (Prunus domestica ssp. italica) - which is rarely found outside of gardens, but which can very easily escape, and the Damson (Prunus domestica ssp. institia) otherwise known as the Bullace, as well as the true Wild Plum (Prunus domestica). Also included here is the Cherry Plum (Prunus cerasifera) which differs very slightly, although there is no real difference in terms of the fruit. However, for the sake of simplicity (and at the risk of annoying plum fanatics the world over) I shall treat them as a single plant species, whilst noting any significant differences so that you can at least identify the species on which you are chomping.

Growing as a small tree (max. 9m) or shrub, the varieties of plum occur mainly on woodland edges and in hedgerows, and often near habitation (as escaped cultivars).

The pointed oval leaves appear alternately on the stem in spring time, often after the blossom has arrived, and measure a maximum of 6cm by 3cm with fine toothed edges. They are ribbed with a slightly hairy underside, and are a dark matt green in colour, though often by fruiting season they become a mottled yellowish and/or brown-red flecked in places.  The bark is a grey brown in colour, and smooth at first, though becoming cracked with age, and whilst most species are thornless, some aren’t, so check before climbing about.

The flowers occur in April/May time, though much earlier with the Cherry Plum tree, typically in March/April. They are a typical tree blossom: made up of 5 delicate white petals with a yellow centre, and measuring 2.5cm across, they occur singly, or in groups of up to 3, sometimes in huge quantities giving an explosion of white amongst the spring greens.

Now, the fruit. For most Plum trees, they arrive in September, and last into October, however, the Cherry Plum, comes much earlier, usually in July. They are typically smaller than cultivated varieties – usually about 6cm give or take – and are an oval or round shape, with the characteristic groove down the side. It has many different colours ranging from the classic dark purple plum colour, through red, yellow or green, an every combination in between. The skin is peeled to reveal a yellowish flesh that can either be quite tough or very soft, depending entirely on tree, variety, ripeness, etc. Similarly, they can be beautifully sweet and juicy, or horrifically astringent and sour – there is no way of knowing without trying; each tree will be uniformly of the same taste, so my advice is if you find a ‘good’ tree, stick with it, although you will be fighting birds, and other foragers for its bounty. All Plum trees, but especially the Cherry Plum, can produce a mass of fruit in great bunches so that they resemble vines laden with grapes, and will often break branches under their weight. Happy hunting!

What to do with them once you have collected them? Well, they make good eating on their own – as you would a normal plum. You could dry them completely in the oven or dry breezy place as one does with apple, etc, and eat them like that or add them to cakes, breads, scones, etc. Or you could partly dry them and add to a syrup to make prunes - love ‘em or hate ‘em, they will keep you regular! I have a recipe for a plum curry which I’m dying to try – it will either be amazing or… well, I dread to think! And of course, there is the ubiquitous wines and gins to try and make. Of course, the classic way of enjoying them is stewed in a pudding, or, even better, as a Damson jam. A big regret of mine is that I never got my Nan’s recipe for Damson jam – all I remember is that it was sweet, big on flavour, thick, and had huge lumps of Damson in it. Let that be an object lesson for you all – get the family recipes whilst you still can, for once they are gone, they are gone forever.

The mess below the tree - often a great way of identifying Plum trees!

Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus)

AKA: Wimberry, Blaeberry, Whortleberry, Huckleberry, Blueberry.

Where: Hilly areas, moorland, covering areas of heath - prefers acid soils. Particularly in North.

What: Berries only

When: July – September, occasionally later

The Bilberry. Ah, the Bilberry. What can we say about this shiny black berry. It is definitely my favourite fruit and I have great childhood memories of picking Bilberries in the hills above Macclesfield with my family. It is a relative of the larger North American Blueberry, but is superior in every way, especially flavour, and is criminally underused as a fruit, being relatively unheard of despite being relatively common – I still have people, smart worldly people, pull a blank face when I mention the Bilberry.

The Bilberry prefers acid soil and the hillsides and peaks of sandstone areas, and are much more common in the north and midlands, and especially in the Peak District and Cheshire Pennines where the environment is perfect. The bush is low, measuring up to a maximum of 70cm, and whilst can occur in isolated patches, is usually to be found in vast swathes. 

The leaf is small, measuring up to 1cm, pointed oval in shape with a slightly toothed edge, and is a mid green with occasional brown or black dots, quite thick, and has a prominent mid-rib. Taken as a whole, the plant is quite straggly looking and somewhat sparse, being tough and wiry like heather, with which it shares the same environment, and has thick brown stems, and green twiggy new growth with reddening tips.

The small (<1cm) delicate flowers arrive in spring (April/May) and are a pink, white, and purple mix, and, hanging down, they resemble lamps, drooping with a central dark stamen. These disappear by June, when the berries appear. Starting small and red, but gradually growing to 1cm and darkening to a shiny deep purple with a whitish bloom and a prominent calyx by late July/August, they resemble small blueberries of the kind you can buy in supermarkets. Although they are an autumn fruit, I have picked them in mid December before now, so keep checking your areas. Taste wise – oh man! Fruity, but with a depth, subtle and deep sweet, but also tart! Just pop a few into your mouth and taste for yourselves, but be warned their purple juice stains like nothing else… it’s like being tattooed! They are great in tarts and pies (a favourite of mine), as a jam, they make great sorbets and fantastic wines.

People often complain about the amount of work that goes into picking the Bilberry – a lot of effort for little gain. I say rubbish! You are not finding the good bushes! Keep looking, and you will find the ones that are literally dripping with fruit. That’s no to say that picking isn’t backbreaking at times. There are Bilberry pickers – like combs with a collecting box underneath – but you end up losing more than you collect, which seems incredibly wasteful. No, far better to grin and bear the back pain… it will make you appreciate the wondrous bounty all the more!

Dog Rose (Rosa canina, etc.)

DOG ROSE (Rosa canina)

AKA Wild Rose, Briar Rose, Dogberry, Sweet Briar.

Where: Hedgerows, especially in woodland and wasteground. Throughout the UK. 

What: Petals, Hips.

When: Petals = May – July. Hips = August – November, potentially later. 

Roses have come and are now going, leaving behind Rose Hips of all shapes. These are to be seen all over (especially the large Japanese Rose) and all are edible.

Also included in this section are the less common Field Rose (Rosa arvensis) and Japanese Rose (Rosa rugosa). There are many varieties of Wild Rose throughout the UK, all of which conform to the same basic description, and all of which are suitable for our needs, but the Dog Rose is probably the most commonly encountered.

Often lurking within a hedgerow, mingled with other hedge dwellers, the Rose sits fairly innocuously until spring when it bursts into life with the flowers for which it is justly famous. Growing to a height of 1.5m, but can be larger, it drapes itself over the surrounding plants and trees with a long trail coming from a thick central stem, both hard and covered in sharp hooked thorns.

The leaves of the Dog Rose are oval to a point with a finely serrated edge, bright green upper and pale green underneath, and measure up to 3cm in length.

The flowers begin to show in May and becomes common in June to August  and are made from 5 petals. In both the Dog Rose and the Field Rose, the flowers are white with pink tinged edges and yellow stamens in the middle and up to 2cm wide, the Japanese Rose is a dark pink to purple with a pale purple centre and are slightly larger (up to 3cm). The petals are very delicate, especialy from July onwards, and can be gathered with just a tap. Add them to salads or ice cream for a delicate aroma, or they can also be made into rose petal water, or even Turkish Delight.

From August onwards, following the shedding of the petals, the hips grow from the remains of the flowers, leaving a crown on top of the brigt red bulbous fruit. Up to 4cm long, and oval or rounded in shape, they are very difficult to miss in the Autumnal hedgerow, and can last until Christmas, although by this time they become slightly dog-eared and tired looking. Beware of the small, and very sharp, spur that lurks beneath the leaves by the hip. The hip itself is fairly soft and when split reveals a hollow filled many seeds and covered in tiny hairs. A word of caution; these hairs are a powerful irritant and need to be removed before the hip can be eaten. This can be done on an individual basis, individually, simply scraping out the centre, thus leaving the hip intact to be used as a fruit proper, or more efficiently by boiling and mashing the hips. Rose hips contain more Vitamin C than any other native plant, as well as truck loads of other really good vitamins and minerals, and werer recommended by the Ministry of Health during WWII as a way of combating concerns about scurvey. The main, and most famous, use for the hips is the delicately flavoured Rose Hip Syrup, but they do have other uses – pies for example, or used with other fruits in a variety of different ways. Note that the Japanese Rose hips are much larger than those of the Dog or Field Roses, and consequently produce larger yields of fruit.

Lookalikes: Nothing that is easily confused with the Dog Rose, although certain ornamental flowers can have berries that are superficaly similar to hips. As always, just make certain of the identification.