Foraging

evoke

Hey All,
Do many people forage around the country side in galway? I started looking in to it. Tried to get a good book on it but the books in the book store are english ones so i do not think all is applicable to ireland.

Would be interested to meet a group that does this.

What i do myself at the moment

• Pick wild garlic
• Blackberries
• crab apples

snubbleste

Is this like dumpster-diving?

evoke

no it is picking wild food. There is a lot around us that we could eat it is just most of us do not understand what is around us.

snubbleste

I pick up seaweed occasionally but way outside Galway.

evoke

well that is foraging

jkforde

I haven't made it out foraging yet but I got given a book recently called Wild Food and it's a really nice publication with really tasty and easy meals made with foraged ingredients. The authors are based in Wicklow so everything is Irish based.

http://www.obrien.ie/book1065.cfm

bonzodog2

Where are you finding blackberries and crab apples in early May?

edit: It will be elderflower season in the next few weeks

evoke

bonzodog2 wrote: »

Where are you finding blackberries and crab apples in early May?

Not finding them at the moment but jst saying what kind of foraging i have done before.

bonzodog2 wrote: »

It will be elderflower season in the next few weeks

Just started reading up on elder berries. Will start picking them soon. Just checking up recipes.

jkforde wrote: »

I haven't made it out foraging yet but I got given a book recently called Wild Food and it's a really nice publication with really tasty and easy meals made with foraged ingredients. The authors are based in Wicklow so everything is Irish based.

http://www.obrien.ie/book1065.cfm

That book looks really good. That is exactly what i was looking for. It lists all the food you can eat in ireland ountry side.

List seems small but ireland is a small country.

Wild Food reveals the secrets of how to indentify, pick, preserve and cook the wild foods that grow in our hedgerows, woodlands, hillsides or seashore. Foraging through the seasons: nettle, wild garlic, dillisk, carrageen, sea beet, samphire, sorrel, elderflower, hawthorn, sea lettuce, wild strawberries, bilberries, chanterelle, field mushrooms, blackberries, cep, damson, rowanberries, crab apple, herbs, elderberry, rose hips, hazelnut and sloe.

bonzodog2

evoke wrote: »

Just started reading up on elder berries. Will start picking them soon. Just checking up recipes.

Its the flowers that are out soon, good for wine and cordial, the berries don't come till autumn.

Also, hazelnuts, sweet chestnut, bilberries.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1514
Survivalism & Self Sufficiency might give you some tips.

evoke

well that forum looks cool. There is a bush craft course you can do in westport. My friend is going there in June. Interested in meeting other foragers. Will start off with the book.

Andrea B.

Does it include roadkill?

MadYaker

I hit a tasty looking cat a few days ago.

Mrs OBumble

[

evoke wrote: »

our hedgerows, woodlands, hillsides or seashore

Aren't most of those in private ownership?

What's the story with just taking food items that you find on council property? There was another thread here recently suggesting that it wasn't cool to do so with firewood (ref Merlin Woods),

And I know it's illegal to use a metal detector above the high-tide mark.

So am struggling to see how foraging would be ok ...

padraig71

Your best bet right now is nettles - in season, easy to find and very nutritious. Pick only the tops, wearing washing-up gloves, then blanch with boiling water to remove the sting, chop up and cook like spinach. Nettle soup is always popular, but my favourite way of eating them is in a tortilla with potatoes and eggs.

belcampprisoner

http://www.veriditashibernica.org/a-food.html

_Whimsical_

Andrea B. wrote: »

Does it include roadkill?

Foraging is very "in" these days. Even big restaurants use foraged foods now and put it on the menu that some ingredients are foraged.There was a tv show on last week about a man on the East coast now making a living out of foraging everyday for local Michelin star restaurants.

I don't think it's the most accessible of hobbies though , you'd definitely want to know what you're doing and what you're picking. On Masterchef and other cookery shows they regularly mention foraging for Samphire. It only grows in coastal regions so it might be worth looking out for in Galway.

Amik

Great thread!

I always shake my head when I see someone buying a tiny container of 8-10 blackberries for 3 EUR when they're so plentiful around town. I often gather them when they're in season. Been thinking about making jam with rosehips this year.

Someone brought me some wild garlic last week that they picked in Doughiska.

Das Kitty

We used to forage for sloes (somewhere in Renmore, near a shrine to Our Lady) when I was little. My mother loves the face imploding sourness of them straight off the thorn. I'd much prefer them made into jam or gin these days.

We also used to go on a little drive in search of blackberries. Usually out past Spiddal, down the narrow roads towards the sea. They still grow there through the stone walls. I think I'll start that myself again once my son is old enough.

We went for dawn mushrooms for a couple of years too. Lovely big flat caps. We'd either fry them for breakfast when we got home or make mushroom ketchup.

Wild strawberries and vetches wouldn't really provide a mouthful, but you'd nibble on them as you found them.

A few years we went winkling out in Connemara, but I wouldn't chance that in a fit these days.

My granny had Elder in her garden and used to make elderberry wine. Gorgeous.

There's a damson tree in Luimnagh East near Headford that's laden with damsons every year. Most of them end up on the road, and no one minds if you pick them. They are absolutely delicious.

Seaneh

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

[

Aren't most of those in private ownership?

What's the story with just taking food items that you find on council property? There was another thread here recently suggesting that it wasn't cool to do so with firewood (ref Merlin Woods),

And I know it's illegal to use a metal detector above the high-tide mark.

So am struggling to see how foraging would be ok ...

Foraging in public parks and woodlands is completely legal, as is taking felled/dropped wood (once it's not a coilte run, commercially harvested forest, but that's not public land, it's state owned commercial land). Chopping wood down yourself is a no no.
Picking berries, fruits, fungi or leaves (wild garlic etc), which grow wild, is completely fine.
As for shoreline foraging, there is more than enough publically accessible shoreline in Ireland (especially in Galway and Clare) for picking periwinkles/seaweed/etc, funnily enough, very little of the shoreline is on private land and even the parts that are on private land are accessible to the public because all foreshore is state owned, and it's on the foreshore that you'd be foraging.

As for use of metal detectors above the foreshore, that has nothing to do with land ownership, it has to do with laws about conservation of archaeological sites, and has no relevance to foraging or the legality of it.

Amik

Coincidentally I saw a couple gathering dandelion leaves during lunch hour in the Terryland Forest Park, 3 or 4 shopping bags full!

StonedRaider

sea spaghetti and scallops...yumm

SweetJeebus

I used to pick clover flowers, dandelion, bilberries and nettles(leaves in the spring and seeds in the summer/autumn) when I lived nearer the countryside. Don't know where to look closer to the city

I have a book called 'Wild Drugs'...Very misleading name But it's really informative on what you can pick and where to pick it!

evoke

SweetJeebus wrote: »

I have a book called 'Wild Drugs'...Very misleading name But it's really informative on what you can pick and where to pick it!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Drugs-Zoe-Hawes/dp/1856753107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368001123&sr=8-1&keywords=Wild+Drugs

that book seem to be about healing powers of herbs

SweetJeebus

evoke wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wild-Drugs-Zoe-Hawes/dp/1856753107/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1368001123&sr=8-1&keywords=Wild+Drugs

that book seem to be about healing powers of herbs

It has information on where to gather edible flowers, leaves, roots, nuts and berries, aswell as herbs.

It lists their therapeutic uses and nutrient content, but you can just ignore that part if you're not into it It's great for finding out where to find wild food, and what time of the year it grows/when to pick it, etc.

Borderline

Hey, does anyone know how far out from Galway you'd have to go to get clean enough water to pick seaweed? I'm living in Salthill and want to go by bicycle

roseagra

Just as a heads up I was out picking wild strawberries the other evening, yes they are tiny so you only get a small return for your effort but man are they tasty, so much more flavour than the cultivated types.

My father has arrived a few evenings with sorrel and some lovely mackerel the other day.

I'm watching out for other stuff at the moment, I'm not sure if I saw bilberries over in renville the other evening, not a berry I'm familiar with.

Amik

Anyone aware of any Black Elderberry growing in the area? Had a great harvest from the tree near my house and wouldn't mind finding one more.