Wild Food of the Month: February

Here comes No. 2 of the series wild food of the month. This month I'm featuring the primrose:

This photo was taken last year, as they are not in flower this year yet. I learnt about the edibility of this pretty herald of spring from afore-mentioned calendar from our local hardware store. It says both leaves and flowers are edible and suggests either throwing them into a salad or boiling them briefly and serve with olive oil, lemon juice and a bit of salt.

Now both these suggestions seem to be the standard in Italy for anything edible from the wild. If in doubt, add to salad or serve with olive oil and lemon juice. It does go on and further suggest adding the flowers to soups or an omelette, however I was after something a bit different, so googled for other recipes involving primrose.

During my search I came across this brilliant blog called "The Old Foodie" (http://www.theoldfoodie.com/) by an English woman in Australia. She has made it her mission to find a traditional food / menu for each day of the year. This became a bit of an obsession by the sounds of it and she has collected 100's of historical recipes and anecdotes in the process.

According to her, 5 February is primrose day and she published a couple of recipes for that. I couldn't collect primroses yesterday, because it rained all day. The recipe that I will have to try, but can't do quite yet is called Spring Tart and is taken from the Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary from the year 1733. It goes like this:

"To make a Spring Tart.Gather such Buds, in the Spring of the Year, that are not bitter, also the Leaves of Primroses, Violets, and Strawberries; take also a little young Spinage, boil them, drain them in a Colander; then chop them very small, and boil them over again in Cream; add to them Naples Bisket grated, and so many Yolks and Whites of Eggs as will make the Cream very thick, colour all green with the Juice of Spinage; season with Salt, Nutmeg, Cinnamon and Sugar, and bake it in Puff-paste or otherwayes."

The main reason I haven't tried this yet is that the violets aren't quite there yet. I saw one single solitary one today. Saying that, it does say the leaves, doesn't it? "Naples Bisket" I'm told is a type of sponge biscuit. So shall try this out very soon and let you know the result and quantities used.

For today we shall use some with everything else we gathered on todays wild food gathering expedition in a wholesome soup involving potatoes, lentils plus wild chicory...


...wild onions, daisies, borage, stingy nettles, salad burnett aaannd... I think that's all. Anyway, just to give you an idea of our walk today. After 24 hours of rain the air had cleared beautifully and the views were magnificient. It was one of the few days in the year when we could see Corsica clearly in the distance.

This a view back to our village:

and that one over towards the sea and the Gulf of La Spezia.

Unfortunately the photo doesn't do reality any justice, but it gives you an idea.

Of living cash-less and wild food of the season

Sorry it's been a while since the last post, but the weather has been so good, we've been working hard. It's been dry since the last post, quite cold at times, but spring-like whenever the sun makes an appearance. We've dug over more beds in preparation for spring and continued pruning the olives at Popetto. The last few trees are turning into real hard work, but we're slowly getting there.

There are a couple of things I want to talk about today. Firstly I read this article in the Guardian about this guy who has given up cash for a year, and no I don't mean he is paying everything by credit card! Here's the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2009/oct/28/live-without-money. Now we're not a million miles away from what he is doing, rarely being in posession of any cash. Unfortunately we still have to pay for electricity and phone bills and can't quite do without a car.
Well this man set up a "freeconomy community", which I've just joined: http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/. On this people list their skills and equipment to offer for free to other community members. Unfortunately there's no one near me yet who has also joined, so all of you, whether you live near me or not, join! This is such a great idea.

Today I am starting an at least monthly series on wild foods of the season. Our short cold spell is over and herbs are growing everywhere again, sending us on forages. Of course each region will have different plants or they will be ready at different times of the year, but I'll give you a glimpse at what we collect and what you can do with it. There's not a month without some wild crop or other which can be harvested.
So here we go, wild food for January: the humble daisy

In fact it can be gathered any time of the year when the ground isn't covered by snow. Both the flowers and the ground hugging leaves are edible. Simply throw them into a salad to add a mild camomile flavour. The leaves can be boiled briefly together with other greens or stirred into a risotto or soup. They are said to have a cleansing, detox effect.

The other plant we have started gathering is common chicory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory. That photo is actually a cheat, as it is flowering radicchio, which is a close relation to the wild chicory. The leaves of wild chicory are a bit similar to dandelion (another relation and of course also edible), but less indented. As with dandelion the younger the leaves the less bitter they are. In fact at the moment the tender young leaves are more sweet than bitter. This is explained by the fact that they contain a high concentration of inulin, which is a good sugar substitute for diabetics.

All plants of the chicory family are hostile to intestinal parasites, so drive out any worms you may have. How to eat them? Well of course you can add them to your salad as well to give a bit of a bitter/sweet edge to it, but the most popular way it is used here in Italy by just blanching them in boiling water for 1/2 minute or so, drain and serve with a dressing of lemon juice and olive oil as side veg.