Foraging

every year we mean to go to epping forest and collect shrooms (apparently there are swathes of boletus in parts, but we never get round to it, maybe this year?

There were blackberries at the back of my peg last time I went fishing but never got round to stuffing my face strangely

My "foraging" is usually done at predefined places. Strawberry picking at a local farm, apple picking at a local orchard. I'd like to go mushroom hunting, but I'm too scared and don't really know what's good, bad and magic.

I've come to realize that if I were lost in the woods, I'd end up eating tree bark and dirt...

that's not foraging, it's shopping ;o)

Blackberries from all over the place here, but that's about it. Growing up in the midwest, we used to "forage" young field corn for roasting in campfires, but also could find tiny wild strawberries in various vacant lots and scuppernongs from along the railroad tracks. Morels from the woods behind our house. Hickory nuts. And my sister and I successfully tapped a few maple trees one year, for about a cup of sweet sap.

We roam the neighborhood looking for people offering free herbs from their gardens. I guess. Actually, dumpster-gleaning is very popular in this town, but it's not really my thing.