Ramson Pesto

Using the Wild Garlic leaves collected, make a very simple, but fantastically tasty, pesto sauce for pasta dishes or to add flavour to stews and soups.

Ingredients:

Generous Handful of Wild Garlic

Olive Oil

Grated Parmesan (or similar hard cheese)

Salt & Pepper

Lemon Juice

1)       Finely chop the Wild Garlic leaves, and add to a pestle or bowl.

2)       Add a teaspoon or 2 of olive oil, add salt, pepper, lemon to taste, and grind together to make paste.

3)       Add a good sprinkling of grated Parmesan and stir in.

This is the basic paste – I have deliberately left the quantities vague as personal preference plays a role, and it’s all about seasoning to taste! The pesto should be added immediately to pasta, stirring thoroughly through spaghetti for example, as it doesn’t keep longer than a few days - the Ramson takes on a bitter taste. Mix with left-over chicken or bacon, for example, or even halved cherry tomatoes, to create a more full pasta sauce, or just experiment as the garlic and parmesan taste goes with just about anything.

The pesto can be frozen very successfully – try using ice cube trays, as a single cube of frozen pesto does for a single serving of pasta, and it will keep for many months – certainly past the Ramson season, and perhaps into the next! 

Ramson (Allium ursinum)

AKA: Wild Garlic

Where: Shaded woodland, especially damp places. Common throughout the UK.

What: Leaves.

When: March – June

Very common, very plentiful, and very very tasty, the Ramson is a wonderful blessing to we happy foragers. Favouring the woodland clearing, and particularly damp areas (stream sides, ponds, etc), the Ramson often occurs in huge swathes; by mid-May it’s presence within a wood will be unmistakable, and by late June, it may be overpowering!

The leaves are fairly characteristic, up to 25cm long, emerging bright green and vibrant in March/April time from a single stem. Smooth and vaguely lined with a slightly coarse upper, and a smooth shiny underneath, they are thin, and taper, spear-like, to a point. These are what we want! Pick them, place them flat in a bag or basket, and use them fast – they don’t keep, and begin wilting almost immediately. The taste, though unmistakable and pungent, is more subtle than it’s more common and somewhat gauche cousin. It can be used as you would a regular bulb of garlic, but it can also be placed in a salad without fear of overpowering the other flavours. Generally, it is better to pick the leaves before they flower, as after the flowers emerge they become, I think, slightly bitter and insipid. The flowers themselves, incidentally also garlicky and edible, arrive in April onwards, and are white, 6-petalled, <1cm across, with a green centre and reddish stamens, and occur in large groups of 15 or more at the top of a single stalk. The root, also tasting of garlic, is available all year round, provided you can find the plant, but is in truth probably more trouble than they are worth.

All parts smell strongly of garlic, so there are no problems with identification, and although several species can be superficially similar to the leaves, it’s just a matter of crushing and sniffing!

I love Ramsons, I really do. Free garlic… c’mon, that’s excellent! 
Check out the recipe for a delicious Ramson Pesto in the next post.

Ramsons on the banks of Colden Brook, Hebden Bridge.

Close-up showing flowers (photo credit: Kurt Stüber via Wikipedia)

About ‘The Forager’s Guide’ - A Mission Statement of Sorts

Right then. What is this here ‘Forager’s Guide’?

Well, as the green subtitle states, it aims to be “The complete guide to the edible flora, fauna, and fungi of the UK… and much more”.

The simple concept behind this Blog, and indeed the whole Forager’s Guide project, is that there is simply masses of tasty and healthy food waiting to be foraged in the wild – a simple, easy to use guide and a little encouragement is all that is needed to get people out there.

A Green and Pleasant Land?

We in the British Isles live in one of the greenest and most fertile lands in the world, surrounded by many many edible plants, fungi and animals. Yet every weekend we are happy to spend a few hours in a sterile supermarket, picking up the same expensive meat and vegetables, with very few of us giving any thought to what is available in out native landscape. This is a shame, but there are two perfectly valid and understandable reasons for it, and of which, we are all guilty

The first, and probably the most pervading, is drilled into us from childhood – don’t eat what you don’t know. Now, this is actually good advice; although a good proportion of the wild plants and fungi are edible, many more are inedible (that is they contain no nutritional value or taste), and of those, a small, but significant, proportion are poisonous (having a negative effect on our bodies). But that does not mean that all wild food is deadly! This fear is a big one to get over – it is, in effect, a fear of the unknown, and it can only be overcome by knowing what to eat and when. Taking my daughter to school a few years ago, I heard one mother say to her child, who had innocently picked a Blackberry, “put it down, I could be poisonous”. Well, it could be, but it isn’t. It’s all about knowledge – and this is where the Forager’s Guide comes in.

The second is laziness! It is, of course, far easier to do the weekly shop. I admit that, and also use my local supermarket - one cannot, easily and conveniently, live off the land… and more importantly coffee does not grow wild in the UK! But really, we should all get out there and use the beautiful countryside around us! A simple walk in the local park will produce, depending on the time of the time of year, fruits, nuts, leaves, flowers, seeds, berries, and roots – all ready for the foraging. It also allows us to enjoy the country, and gives an excuse for a walk in the park.

We at the Forager’s Guide believe that it is important to get out and forage your own for the following reasons.

It’s healthy! Fresh, free range, and organic, it doesn’t get better! Eat immediately, or, by following the Blog or website, processing and storing. Plus, there is the added benefit of being outdoors, walking, hiking, foraging and, if you are like me, getting lost in the woods!

It allows an understanding where food comes from. Real food is not pre-packaged, plastic-wrapped trays of greens all the same, or perfectly uniform fruits, unblemished and clean. It has to be sought, found, uncovered, dug up, shelled, picked, harvested, plucked, cleaned, scrubbed, checked, and felt, smelt, and prepared.

It’s great fun. Out in the countryside, enjoying it, and, in a sense, reconnecting with it. We have been removed from the land by convenience and ease, let’s get back into it again! Rain or shine, winter or summer, it’s beautiful. Go on, go for a walk. Have fun, enjoy the outdoors, take a new path, explore, ask yourself “what’s down that path?” and remember – always take a guide and a bag or a box, you never know what you might be eating for dinner!

It’s immensely rewarding. Honestly. Sitting down and eating a meal containing ingredients found by you, tucking into a salad that was, 20 minutes earlier, growing innocently in a field, or helping yourself to a third glass of wine that you made yourself, or even spreading home-made jam onto your morning toast, it all gives a real ‘feel good’ sensation – triumph and satisfaction mixed with a sense of well-being… of course that may just be the wine talking!

The last reason... well, ultimately, it’s free food! It costs nothing to collect, and is there for the taking.

Go on then, what’s stopping you? 

Out there in the wilds, nature is providing... go ahead and enjoy!

Welcome to The Forager's Guide!

Ok. So this is the first post, of my first blog!

I'm hoping this all works!

I will of course be fiddling with this thing for weeks, tweaking and changing, so bear with me.

I will, as soon as I get time, go into more depth about the blog, the website, and all the other ideas I have, but right now this post is just to say "hello", and to tell you to watch this space.

Tim