Time to profit from mother nature's free food

URBAN FARMER: The woodlands, fields and hedgerows are laden with free food, so get out and grab some

WHILE THE pleasures and rewards of grow-your-own (GYO) are undeniable, it’s also nice to enjoy those moments when mother nature does all the hard work for us instead.

So now, while the fields, woodlands and hedgerows are laden with food for free, is the time for us urban farmers to take the opportunity to rob a little from her abundant larder.

Wild crab apples, elderberries, rowan berries, hazelnuts, sloes, blackberries, rosehips and haws are all now just ripe for the picking for anybody who wants them. Use them to make jam, jelly, gin, cheese, wine and syrups as previous generations did, and celebrate the wonders of what the ultimate forager, writer Roger Phillips, calls “wild food”.

Phillips’ book Wild Food – now a quarter-of-a-century old and one of the classics for anyone who wants to enjoy food this way – is beautifully illustrated by his atmospheric photographs and accompanied by an encyclopaedic list of excellent but straightforward recipes, along with tips on when, how and what to pick.

The other classic for those who want to read up on the subject is the nature writer, Richard Mabey’s book Food For Free, an equally indispensable guide to identifying edible plants, fungi, shellfish and seaweed and their uses, along with advice on when best to harvest and cook them. Both are available from www.amazon.co.uk for a combined price of £16.22 (€17.38) plus postage and packaging.

Of course, many urban farmers will already have some experience of foraging for wild food in this way, whether it’s childhood memories of blackberrying along sleepy country laneways, or hunting for the stout, white caps of field mushrooms in autumn meadows. But now is the chance to savour some of the more unusual flavours that foraged food has to offer, from hazelnut bread to blackberry water ice, sloe-and-apple cheese, and rowan jelly.

Rowan Tree

The rowan tree, or mountain ash as it’s also known, is a common sight both in the urban environment and in the wild, where its vivid crimson berries light up the landscape from early autumn until late winter (that’s if greedy blackbirds and thrushes don’t get them first).

But the berries have many culinary uses, including being made into ale, mead, wine and a jelly that Mabey describes as “a deliciously dark orange with a sharp, marmaladish flavour”.

Both he and Phillips give recipes in their books, and recommend picking the berries now while they’re ripe but not mushy. The fruit should be picked as clusters, with the excess stalks subsequently cut away and used as quickly as possible.

Crab Apple

In his recipe for rowan jelly, Mabey also uses wild crab apples, another abundant crop at this time of the year, to provide the pectin necessary to “set” or firm-up the jelly.

As children, my siblings and I collected the wind-fallen crab apples from nearby woodland to make a delicately delicious rose-pink jelly, and I can still remember the sweet, spicy smell of the boiled fruit as we strained the juice in an old muslin bag.

We were never adventurous enough to try making crab-apple cheese, as Phillips suggests in a recipe that also includes sweet cider and various spices. He also gives recipes in his book for crab apple wine and a fermented brew called Verjuice, which was used in medieval times as a substitute for lemon juice and is still popular in France. Hunt for this small deciduous tree in old hedgerows and along the edges of established woodland. It’s also worth keeping an eye out in late spring, when the tree is in full blossom and so at its most conspicuous.

Rosehips

Another flowering native of the Irish hedgerow is the wild rose or dog rose, Rosa canina. Its brilliant red hips are very visible just at this time of year and are used to make the restorative rosehip syrup, which is particularly rich in Vitamin C (20 times that of oranges). In fact, so rich in Vitamin C is the syrup that during the second World War, the British Wartime Ministry for Food published the recipe as a means of helping war-rationed citizens avoid scurvy.

But the syrup is not just medicinal, it’s tasty too. Phillips recommends it as a sauce on ice-cream while Mabey suggests using it as a flavouring for milk pudding or simply diluted as a drink.

Of course, if you prefer your drinks to be of a more alcoholic nature, you can also use the fruit to make rosehip wine. Phillips advises waiting until the hips have been softened by the first frosts before harvesting them, but don’t leave it longer than the end of this month, after which time they’ll have gone off.

Elderberry

When it comes to foraging for wild food, there can be few plants more useful than the Elder, Sambucus nigra. Earlier this year in mid-summer, the frothy, creamy-white umbels of this deciduous shrub could be seen in abundance along our native hedgerows and roadsides, and are delicious used to make cordial, lemonade and even elderflower champagne.

Now, in October, the elder’s branches are instead laden down with inky black berries that can be used to make wine, jelly, pickle and syrup, or simply added to a home-made apple pie to add colour and piquancy.

The more adventurous urban farmers, however, might be tempted by a recipe that Mabey gives for Pontack sauce (apart from elderberries, the ingredients include ginger, cloves, onion and mace) which he suggests as a savoury accompaniment to liver.

Blackthorn, Hawthorn & Whitethorn

The earlier-flowering brother of the hawthorn is the blackthorn or sloe bush, whose dull white flowers appear in March and April. Although it’s the wild ancestor of the modern plum, the sloe berry is neither sweet nor edible in its raw state; in fact, Mabey calls it the “tartest, most acid berry you will ever eat”. But soaked in sugar and gin for several months, the fruit makes a deep pink gin that is very palatable – be warned, however, it’s also very potent.

The blue-black fruit should be picked just after the first frosts have softened or “bletted” the berries (wear gloves as protection from thorns), and sloe gin made in October will be ready for drinking just in time for Christmas.

The dark red haws or berries of the Hawthorn are also visible in every hedgerow at this time of year, as well as on the lone “fairy tree” or Sceach Gheal, as it’s called in Irish. These solitary bushes were always respected by the Irish farmer, as it was (and still is) considered very unlucky to cut down a tree that had such strong associations to the fairies or the “otherworld”. This is why it’s still not uncommon to see a lone specimen flourishing in the middle of a carefully cultivated field. The berries, or haws, of the fairy tree (also known as the May tree) can be used to make both wine and jelly.

Hazelnuts

This small deciduous tree is another common native of our woodlands and hedgerows, and is easily identified by its large, toothed, rounded leaves (these are beginning to yellow just about now) and its pale yellow catkins. Its tasty nuts begin to ripen from mid-September, which is when the birds and squirrels also begin to raid them, so be quick.

Adventurous urban farmers might be tempted to try Mabey’s recipe for hazelnut bread while the sweet-toothed will love the two truly delicious-sounding recipes that Phillips gives, one for hazelnut meringues and the other for hazelnut nougat.

Home-made nougat and crispy meringues, pink gin and elderberry wine . . . you’ve got to admit that it all sounds like an urban farmer’s dream. And that’s just a small sample of the foods we can enjoy from mother nature’s table. What’s even better, given the challenging economic times we live in, is that the ingredients are for free. If that doesn’t tempt you to put on your foraging hat and go wild for the day, then I’m not sure what will.

* Thoseurban farmers interested in making their own jams/jellies should take a look at the Lakelands website (www.lakeland.co.uk) or phone 00-44-15394-88100, which sells everything from preserving jars to jam pot covers, waxed circles, labels, jelly strainers and thermometers. They even stock some nattily striped, cellophane jar covers. They'll also post to Ireland, albeit with a small surcharge.

* If you'dlike to find out more about making your own wine, the Organic Centre in Rossinver, Co Leitrim (www.theorganiccentre.ie) is giving a course entitled Winemaking with Phil Weal this Saturday coming. Another course worth considering is Steven Meyen's Introduction to Hedgerows on November 21st. For bookings and more information call 071-9854338 or e-mail info@theorganiccentre.ie.

* The OPW'sVictorian walled kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. The gardens are open daily from 10am to 4.30pm

* Nextweek Urban Farmer in Propertywill cover sowing green manure

Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer