Frenette, I live in Brittany and and have been given a bottle of frenette an alcoholic/wine drink, made from Ash, I can’t find out which part of the Ash it’s made from [ would guess young leaves] can anyone help please

I love wild garlic and the seasonis approaching. Does anyone know anywhere in or near London where one can pick it?

Oh, nearly forgot! The bible of wild food is “Food For Free” by Richard Mabey. It is required reading for anyone interested in wild food. It isn’t a field guide however, so you will want one of those as well, just to avoid any confusion over correct identification.

The sorrel referred to above, rumex acetosa, is a wild version of French sorrel. It is related to dock. The wild version is called sheep’s sorrel.
The three-leaved plant known as wood sorrel, the one like a shamrock, is oxalis acetosa. It is not related to sheep’s sorrel or garden sorrel, but shares a similar flavour.

Neither is poisonous and both are good to eat. However, they both owe their sour flavour to the presence of oxalic acid. This makes them unsuitable for those with rheumatic problems, kidney or bladder stones, pregnant women and very young children, all of whom should eat sorrel only sparingly.

Wood sorrel is a much less common plant than sheep’s sorrel, so sheep’s sorrel makes a better choice of wild food IMO. Both are good food though, as an addition to salads, for sorrel soup (very nice) or to act as a foil for fatty meat or oily fish.

So is that French sorrel or wood sorrel, the one that look like a shamrock, more interested in eating the latter? Is that ok or poisonous?thanks

I`ve just discovered a lovely little book called “A Hedgerow Cookbook” by Gleenie Kindred. Tracey it does has a small section on nuts and seeds, not too many recipes but well worth a look.

Thats one thing I miss about the countryside is picking the wild foods, my mum used to live in a place called Talysarn (near Dorothea quarry) and in the summer time there are whole hillsides covered with wild strawberries, its amazing I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else before.

Excellent, thank you for this we have a large wood behind our house, the children and I now spend a lot more time over there gathering food (not much gets back home).

Thanks for the recipe John – it looks great!

Hi, you can also make nettleade

1 hatfull of nettle tops
450 gram/ 1lb brown sugar or honey
1 orange
1 lemon
3/4 cookpot full of water

1) put nettle tops and sugar in the cookpot add the water and simmer for 15 minutes

2)cut orange and lemon in half and squeeze into cooling liquid
then add the squeezed halves

3)when cool strain and enjoy

you can also make

gorseade,cloverade,cowslipade,dandelionade,elderberryade,and elderflowerade

[…] first shots of young nettles, Urtica dioica, are very good for cooking both soups (see recipe in wild food post) and tea. According to several sources it is also good nutrition, and a source of iron, calcium and […]

Sorry, just seen it is Jade who wrote this one…… sorry to call you Margaret!

Tracy

Hi Margaret

Me again! Can you recommend a recipe book for preparing some of these foods? (or have you written one!?)
We do have Food for Free…. we would like to know things like how to bake with chestnut flour etc! Have you tried it?

Tracy

In the U.K. wild blackberries can be harvested even in quite urban locations. Going berry-picking wasn’t what I expected to do when moving to London but it turned out to be lots of blackberry around :-)