Beech cups in a bowl, mostly split open after being left overnight. The bowl is a large fruit bowl with black dots and stripes on a white background. It sits on top of a tea towel with coloured illustrations of various fungi. There is a branch with leaves and a beech nut cup sitting on top of the cups in the bowl.

Harvesting, Preparing & Roasting Beech Nuts

A step by step guide to picking, drying, peeling, and roasting foraged beech nuts from the beech tree (Fagus sylvatica). It has been a bad year for acorns and sweet chestnut in Newcastle and Northumberland, likely due to the drought. The oaks are not producing acorns, and the few sweet chestnut trees I have seen…

Sliced foraged fruit leather laid out on a wooden chopping board sprinkled with sugar. Laid with two apples, rowan berries and whitebeam berries with the leaves, and a few frozen then thawed hawthorn berries.

Foraged Fruit Leather Recipe

Fruit leathers are an excellent way to preserve the abundance and variety of autumn fruit without adding much additional sugar, or any at all. Despite the ‘lack’ of added sugar, you can still use up the more bitter and astringent fruits by mixing them with sweeter fruits. The dehydration concentrates the natural sugars of all…

Picture of cooked mallow leaf with chickpeas in a bowl, with a large mallow leaf on the side

Andalusian Mallow with Chickpeas Recipe

When I first arrived in Granada in the middle of January a few years ago, I quickly started spotting common mallow (Malva sylvestris) growing all over the place, often forming wide sprawling mats of greenery on the edges of farmland and even inside the grounds of a ruined castle.

Hogweed Seed Cake Recipe

I remember hearing years ago of someone making a ginger cake but using hogweed seeds instead of ginger – it has been so long I don’t know who came up with the idea, but I finally got round to trying it out and the result is delicious.

Juniper – Medicinal Uses and Infused Oil Recipe

Juniper is famed as the principal ingredient in gin, which is named after the French for the tree genièvre. Although claimed by the British for their own, it began life in Belgium when juniper was added to mask the harsh flavour of a 50% strong spirit, and add a medicinal benefit. From this simple beginning

Gin and tonics made from foraged tonic water

Foraged Tonic Water from Willow Bark and Rowan Berries

While exploring ideas for wild plant based cocktails to serve at the end of a private foraging course, I came up with this recipe for a foraged tonic water that has the added bonus of being a great non-alcoholic drink on its own. Based on willow bark as a replacement for cinchona, it can be gathered and made in about an hour, and keeps well if you want to stock up on a batch. 

The Medicinal Roots of Cocktail Bitters

A brief history of cocktail bitters and the medicinal plants that make them. First printed in the book Kew’s Teas, Tonics and Tipples. According to its most basic definition, a cocktail is simply a mix of two or more drinks, one of which contains alcohol. This simple premise proves to be an endless source of intoxicating concoctions…

Photos of stages of Nettle & Feta Sigara Borek recipe

Nettle & Feta Parcels Recipe (Sigara Börek)

Nettles embody the vitality of spring – their small leaves pack a powerful sting and are filled with a whole range of vitamins and minerals, as well as being high in fibre and proteins. They are traditionally used as a spring tonic, providing a nutritional boost after a winter diet of dried meat and grains.…

5 Delicious Wild Winter Greens

Many people assume there is little wild food to be found in the winter months, but if you know what you are looking for there are still some tasty pickings to be had. Though the choice may be more limited it is still great fun to explore the apparently bare landscape and see what survives…