Autumn Foraging – Why I love It

WHAT IS MY FAVOURITE TIME OF YEAR TO GO FORAGING?   

For me I’d have to say Autumn.  You might be thinking ‘Ok, but isn’t autumn when the plants start to die back and trees shed their leaves?   Isn’t spring or summer much better when plants are young and everything is more green and abundant?’  Well, you are partly right, prime foraging is between April and October, but it does depend on what you want to harvest.    

Late summer / early autumn you can forage Blackberries, Hawthorn and Elderberries.  All of these are so good for preventing colds and keep you healthy during the winter.   

Early autumn is also time for harvesting apples.  You can usually find an apple tree along an old country lane or in a layby somewhere as someone’s thrown a core out the car window and it’s planted a tree!      Wild foraged apples always taste much better.     

And then there’s the chestnuts, (from the Sweet Chestnut tree – NOT conkers from the Horse Chestnut tree).  OMG they’re amazing, especially when roasted outside over a fire.   Chestnuts have actually shown to help with your heart and blood and so not only are they super delicious they have health benefits too!   

Our diets nowadays are made up of so much carbohydrates which in the wild is not always the easiest to find or harvest.    Your best bet is usually roots but they can take a lot of digging and you could expel more energy through that than it’ll give you.      But it almost couldn’t get any easier than chestnuts, all you’ve got to do is pull out of the shell and cook. 

And then my all time favourite harvest of the year is a real treat for all foragers.   They hide under the forest floor and then after a decent rainfall and sunny spell out they pop, erupting from beneath the leaf litter, you can almost watch them grow: I’m talking about……The mushroom. 

However we’re always told as kids “Don’t eat mushrooms that you find, they can be poisonous and they’ll kill you.”    And that’s true but there are lots out there which are edible, you just need to know what you’re looking for.     

I’m definitely not the kind of person who just says “Yeah that looks like an edible one, I’ll eat it”.   NO DEFINITELY NOT.   I’ll come home and try to identify it, see if there’s any look-a-likes that are deadly and then also ask a friend of mine who’s a pro forager for her diagnosis. Then after that if I’m happy it’s edible I’ll eat it.  Once I picked something that looked like an edible one but after a bit of research I found out it was poisonous.  It wouldn’t have killed me, it would have just made me sick and so I got rid of it.    

I’m just going to say it now: DON’T EAT ANY WILD FOODS YOU’RE NOT 100% SURE ABOUT.  IF IN DOUBT LEAVE IT OUT.   

The main two mushrooms that I look out for are Field Mushrooms and Shaggy Parasols.  

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The Field Mushrooms are basically the same as the ones you get in the shops, they look the same, taste almost the same, just much better and smell like your well known button mushroom.    However there is a poisonous look-alike: the Yellow Stainer.  It’s almost identical but when cut the flesh turns yellow.   Although it won’t kill you, you don’t want to eat it.     

Then lastly is the Shaggy Parasol, these are quite different, there’s a picture of them in the slide show.   They have a very rich intense flavour almost like marmite, well that’s how I describe them anyway, they are delicious, so good.    I could give you loads of recipe ideas.  

Being able to find, forage, identity, cook and then eat wild mushrooms you find is an incredible confidence boost and builds both your self confidence and your confidence in your ability.     But always remember guys don’t be reckless with things like this, and don’t even try it if you are not 100% positive. 

Thanks for reading this guys, let me know what your favourite things to forage are if you enjoy it and if you want some wild mushroom recipes to cook over the fire or at home them email me at juniorsurvivoruk@gmail.com.