Bilberry Pudding

Vaccinium myrtillus

Bilberry Pudding

A classic norhern recipe which sets the fruit in a kind of Yorkshire pudding.

4 tbsp flour

1 egg

1 large cup of milk

2 tbsp of brown sugar

259 g (8 oz) approx. of bilberries

Make a thinnish batter by beating the egg with the sugar and then slowly adding the milk. Stir in the sugar and the bilberries. Pour into a greased tin. Bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes.

Cow Parsley / WILD FOOD FOR FREE

Anthriscus Sylvestris

Cow parsley is the closest wild relative of cultivated chervil, and shares the same fresh, spicy flavour.

Cow parsley is the first common umbelliferate to come into flower in the spring. This is often enough to identify it, but it resembles other species, some of which are poisonous.

The most dangerous sources of confusion are fool's parsley and hemlock, and i include a table showing important differences between them. However, this is not a substitute for a well-illustrated field guide.

Hemlock also has an offensive, mousey smell when any part of it is bruised. Fool's parsley has unmistakable drooping green bracts growing beneath the flowers, giving them a rather bearded appearance.

Cow Parsley Up to 1.2 m Stout, pale-green, furrowed, slightly hairy

Fool's Parsley Up to 0.5 m Thin, hairless, ribbed, hollow

Hemlock Up to 2.1 m Stout, smooth, purple-spotted

Harvest/Pick

Pick cow parsley as soon as the stems have developed sufficiently to be identified. Later in the year it becomes rather bitter. It dries well.

Do not gather the plant from the sides of major roads as it will have been contaminated by car exhausts.

Uses

Small quantities of cow parsley make a lively addition to salads, particularly cold potato, tomato, and cucumber.

It also makes a good flavouring for hot haricot beans, and with chopped chives, tarragon and parsley, the famous 'omelettes fines herbes'.

A second crop of non-flowering leaves often appears in the autumm, remaining green throughout the winter. Those able to identify the plant from its leaves can pick some fresh for winter soups and casseroles, hot baked potatoes, and in the French country dish, cassoulet.

Bittercress Hairy / WILD FOOD FOR FREE

Cardamine Hirsuta

Hairy bittercress is a pleasantly tangy plant, fleshier and sweeter than watercress.

Harvest/Pick

Hairy bittercress is a one of the first edible weeds to be pickable early in the year.

Uses

The whole plant can be eaten, and has a pleasantly sweet, mild peppery flavour. It can be used in salads, sandwiches, and as a substitute for cress, and has an affinity with cream cheese.

The slightly more spicy leaves of lady's smock, or cuckooflower (another member of the Cardamine family, C. pratensis), can be used in the same way. A medium, hairless perennial, cuckooflower is a common and widespread species of roadsides, river banks, ditches and damp grassland. The name 'cuckooflower' is shared at a local level with a number of other spring flowers, as they were an indicator of when the cuckoo was first heard in the year. However, for Cardamine pratensis, the belief that the first flowering of the plant heralds the spring song of the cuckoo has been proven in a number of areas throughout the country, from Farnham in Surrey to Dumfries in Scotland. Flowers April to June.

Chickweed / WILD FOOD FOR FREE

Stellaria media

Gardens, cultivated and waste ground.

Widespread and common throughout Europe.

A weak annual which tends to straggle and creep before it has reached any height.

It has lines of fine hairs down the stem.

Leaves: oval, bright green and soft.

Flowers: throughout the year, tiny white star-like flowers with five deeply divided petals.

Chickweed is generally regarded as a bane in gardens, but try using the chickweed instead of composting it. Those without gardens should be able to find some by any field edge, even in the winter months, but avoid areas that may have been sprayed with weedkiller.

Harvest/Pick

The pale, soft green leaves of chickweed can be picked in almost any month of the year, except when there has been a hard frost. In fact they are often at their freshest in late autumm or early in the new year. They are one of the tenderest of wild greens, with a taste reminiscent of corn salad or mild lettuce.

The leaves are too small to be picked individually, so strip bunches of the whole plant; the stems are just as tender to eat as the leaves. Or choose the younger, greener sprigs more discriminately and cut with scissors.

(Avoid confusion with the stiff, hairy, mouse-ear chickweed, and the smooth, upright, red-stemmed petty spurge, which has a slight superficial resemblance to this chickweed.)

Uses:

Cooked Chickweed

Wash the sprigs well, and put into a saucepan without any additional water. Add a knob of butter or a spoonful of oil, seasoning and some chopped spring onions.

Simmer gently for no more than 2 minutes (any longer and both taste and texture will go and the chickweed begin to resemble strands of green string), turning all the time. Finish off with a dash of lemon juice or a sprinkling of grated nutmeg.

Winter of Early Spring Salad

Mix young chickweed shoots with equal quantities of dandelion leaves, garlic mustard and hairy bittercreess (for a hint of pepperiness). Dress with a light, sharp saled dressing made from sunflower oil and lemon juice.