I bought a book about foraging, primarily because when we go motorhoming I want to be able to become more self-sufficient.
However, it's more for the middle class forager, as all the recipes are for jams, sauces, tinctures or salves.
I want to be able to forage for something that tastes like a cabbage and sustains me in the same manner. Something that's fairly abundant, but hasn't yet hit the supermarket shelves. Something that's hearty and rib-sticking - not some poncey cordial that takes a week to make, or a garnish to a bloody salad.
While we were away at Parlock last weekend, someone had ditched a perfectly good BBQ and placed it in the campsite rubbish area. It was dirty and filled with burnt sausages - the staple of the male Fire God, badly cooked.
It's essentially a hibachi, much like the one I made out of fire bricks. Perfectly salvageable, so I cleaned it up and took it home.
It looked brand new and was obviously bought just for the holiday and then thrown away. Such a waste of money and symptomatic of our disposable society.
We're not great BBQers when away. Our strategy is to take as much of home with us while away and live in decent luxury after a hard day of walking or cycling - not surviving on hideous food that's either semi raw or burnt to a crisp.
We do, however, occasionally BBQ, but not like the vast majority of people, where the man of the household takes over the cooking and makes shit food while not stepping near the kitchen at any other time of the year. Hay takes care of the cooking; I take care of fixing things, like bikes - it works perfectly. In the months when the sun goes out earlier, we eat a sumptuous meal by candlelight, watching all the men flashing up their BBQs while their wives look on in resigned disdain.
Hay's BBQing usually comprises fish and accompanying vegetables, such as aubergine, courgette or peppers that are blackened on the grill, not some supermarket sausages that are mainly filler, or patties of pink goo that are advertised as burgers. I leave BBQs well alone, as they're essentially a pink job.
3 comments:
The thing about foraging is it's more or less a full-time job. As you say, picking a bit of this and that is not going to sustain you for long. Proper foraging like our Neolithic ancestors takes hours everyday, eating as you go. You can collect nuts and store them over winter. You can collect mushrooms (if you like living dangerously) and dry them for later use. But unless you intend spending most of your motorhome getaways looking for and eating nuts and berries, you're going to be very hungry. We've de-natured and de-wilded the countryside so much that even the birds are finding it hard to survive.
Don't waste your time looking for weeds to eat - what you need is roadkill with a few chips. Baldrick's Rat-au-van springs to mind.
"something that tastes like a cabbage" Back in the day we found fields of cabbage handy. And fish traps. Pigeons via an air gun etc.
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