The book is finally out!

Just a short post, to let everyone I haven't told yet know, my book finally is available to order!

This is the blurb on the back cover:

A guide to over 130 of the most common edible and medicinal plants in Western Europe, aimed at the long‐distance or casual hiker along the main pilgrim routes through Western Europe. The author has had some 40 years of experience in foraging and though a Dutchman by birth, has been at home all over Europe including Germany, Ireland, England and for the last 8 years in Italy along the Via Francigena pilgrim route, where he feeds his family as a subsistence farmer, cultivating a small piece of Ligurian hillside along permaculture principles, and by gathering food from the wild. 

You can order it directly from the publisher, from Amazon (for those in the US) or send us an e-mail to order directly from me on tuscanytipple at libero dot it. 

Close to the Edge

 "A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace,
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar,
Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.
And assessing points to nowhere, leading ev'ry single one.
A dewdrop can exalt us like the music of the sun,
And take away the plain in which we move,
And choose the course you're running."

Todays post starts a little unusually with some 1970's prog rock, I picked a short version of Close to the Edge by Yes, I'll explain the relevance in a minute...

I'm talking about permaculture again and wild food foraging.  What's that got to do with THE EDGE I hear you ask.  Having traveled a little to other parts of Italy recently in the name of permaculture, a friend coined the new term 'permaculturing around', I realised that I am in a very privileged position in living in an area with an enormous variety of edible plants.  I find some 150 different species of edible and/or medicinal wild plants during the course of a year within an hour's walk from my home.  I had always put that down to the favourable climate of Italy in general compared to the more northern climes where I grew up, but it turns out that we live on a special place within Italy and I started wondering why.

One of the main objectives of permaculture is that we observe nature, see how ecology works and then apply those principles to our designs, because nature does not need any outside intervention and is therefore self-sustaining.  Wild food foraging is a great exercise in observation.  You start to look around you much more and seeing things you normally miss.  Soon you start realising that certain plants prefer certain conditions such as micro-climates, soil conditions, the way they often associate with other plants and how those plants can in fact be an indicator of existing conditions.  One of the main observation you start making is that you find the greatest biodiversity on 'edges'.

It makes perfect sense of course once you start thinking about it:

If you go into the middle of a forest there is only little light available so you won't find many ground covering plants, whilst in the middle of an open field you will find that certain herbs and grasses will quickly dominate the scene.  However if you look at where the two meet you will find the greatest biodiversity, not only of plants, but also of animals.  There is more light available then in the woods, also the forest acts as a windbreak, catching seeds and organic material on the edge and animals normally at home in either of the two environments will occasionally come to the edge where they can feast on the greater diversity of the plants.  In addition a number of species evolve that specialise in colonising the edges of different biotopes, meaning that on the edge there is a greater variety of life than the combined sum of the two.  This is known as the 'edge effect'.

There are many more examples for the edge effect.  Where water meets land, land animals come to drink, fish catch flies, predators eat both and frogs are happy inbetween.  There are aquatic, semi-aquatic and land plants meeting at the same place and all the animals that go with them.  This happens next to lakes:

...rivers

...and of course by the sea.  Then we have have mountains meeting valleys:

or the edge of a path.  Water runs off the path giving an opportunity for many plants to flourish on the side of the path.  Sometimes the seeds hitch a ride with whoever goes along the path:

Or you may even have several edges meeting at the same time, such as wood, land and water.

Any birdwatcher worth their salt knows that the greatest variety of birds are found in river estuaries, where the river meets the sea.  There are seasonal 'edges': spring and autumn edge around the poorer seasons of summer and winter.  In short edges is where things tend to happen in nature.

Now coming back to where I live.  Within a radius of about 25km as the fly crows... the cry fl...flow cries... around here we have two major mountain ranges of up to 2,000m altitude, the Appenines and the Apuan Alps, we have the Ligurian Sea and the sheltered Gulf of La Spezia, 2 river valleys meeting just below us, the Vara and the Magra, which combine to exit into the Mediterranean and we have extensive woodlands all around us.

If you imagine flying towards us, as you come in from the sea, which is in a general southerly direction of us, you follow up the wide river delta and the hill we live on is the first one you encounter, rising up to 300m.  Should you fly further upriver along either river, you will find the valleys narrowing directly afterwards, giving rise to a much more continental climate within only a few kilometres.  Uphill from us, you'd be flying above a complete cover of chestnut and oak woods.

So we get all the species of all those different biotopes as well as the edge species, cormorants and eagles, saltwater fish and freshwater fish, woodland edge species and plants that like growing in the open, migrating birds such as bee-eaters and passing flamingos and all that goes with it.  And of course aforementioned wild plants.

And that's the reason I live at such a privilegded place.  Also the farmers around us are mostly small-scalle subsistence farmers growing crops mostly for own consumption.  That means few chemicals are used, there are many edges between relatively small plots of land, vegetables are interplanted within vineyards and olive groves, little machinery is used and a lot of natural ground cover plants are allowed to flourish amongst the cultivated fields.  Sometimes cultivated crops are allowed to go to seed and sow themselves out, becoming part of the general flora.  Examples are alfalfa, which is sown as nitrogen fixing cover crop like this one on the edge of a wall:

this Jerusalem artichoke, which has long seized to be a cultivated crop in Italy since the introduction of the potato in Italy:

or this sow thistle just on the edge of a pavement in downtown Milan, surviving on the little dirt which accumulates by the side in a little crack away from the pounding feet of pedestrians:

"Down at the edge, round by the corner,
Not right away, not right away.
Close to the edge, down by a river,
Not right away, not right away."

 If, incidentally you are wondering what that Yes song is all about, apparently it was inspired by Herman Hesse's novel Siddharta, a story telling the life of a young Brahmin in India during the time of the Buddha.  He spends his whole life trying to find himself and the meaning of life until he finally settles down as a ferryman by the edge of a river, where he finds peace and wisdom by observing the ever-flowing, ever-changing yet un-changing river.

 "Crossed the line around the changes of the summer,
Reaching out to call the color of the sky.
Passed around a moment clothed in mornings faster than we see.
Getting over all the time I had to worry,
Leaving all the changes far from far behind.
We relieve the tension only to find out the master's name."

It's all a bit cryptic, but good song anyway...


So how can we utilise the EDGE effect for ourselves.  First of all when going out foraging look for edges, that's where you are most likely to find a great variety of plants.  Keep your eyes peeled next time you are out on a walk.  Secondly when designing a garden create edges.  I designed my pond with as much edge as possible, not just one simple round or oval, but with a wiggly outline, narrow bits and wider bits.  The more edge, the more biodiversity.  Instead of planting your veg in straight lines, try wavy lines.  That way you can also fit more plants into the same area.  Plan vertical as well as horizontal to maximise the space and create edges.  Hedges aren't called that for nothing, they make excellent edges which encourages wildlife and biodiversity which will benefit your garden.


The edge effect also works within human society.  On the edges between different social groups, various sciences, age groups mingling etc is where we can learn most.  Look over the edge of your own horizon to open it up.  Where philosophers meet physists new knowledge arises, when the young listen to the old and vice versa we learn from each other.  And aren't those people who live on the edge of society, those who don't follow every trend like sheep, the ones who will ulitimately change the way we behave, think and live?  I certainly hope so.  


On that philosphical note, let's all move away from the comfortable centre and become 'cutting edge' and there's hope for the human race yet.

The Off the Wall Wildfood of the Month

Sometimes you just feel plain stupid.  You walk past a plant hundreds, nay thousands of times, before you realise not only that it's edible, it's tasty too and extremely good for you.

There was me yesterday putting the finishing touches to my book, checking through various reference books to see if I missed anything glaringly.  So I picked up a slim volume written by a local guy on the edible greens of the Lunigiana and the Val di Mara, i.e. our local area, and I came across a plant known as Parietaria in Italian (parietaria officinalis).  It looked kind of familiar so I googled it and found out that in English it's called Pellitory of the Wall, which I had never heard of either.  The German name of 'Aufrechtes Glasskraut' didn't enlighten me either.

Then I started reading up on it, and woah!  Not only is that stuff edible, but it has huge health benefits too.  But first I had to go and find one, so I said to Eddie the Beagle, I said: "Eddie, we're on a mission!".  So I put my shoes on, donned my camouflage gear, explorer helmet, butterfly net and hunting rifle, put my trusted hunting beagle on his lead and stepped through my front door into the great wilderness.  It took me a total of about 10 seconds before I spotted the first one simply growing out of our own wall!

and some more:

I looked at the reference book and at the plant... I think they may have taken the photo on my very front door you know, it was a definite match.  As the name suggests it grows along and out of walls.  It's common throughout most of Europe with the exception of Iberia and Britain apparently.  The leaves are maybe 5cm long coming off creeping red stalks and if you look closely at the inconspicuous flowers you'll see the family resemblance: it's part of the true nettle family.

"Now what do we do with Pellitory of the Wall?" I hear you ask.  Well actually pretty much the same as you would with stingy nettles.  The taste is similar too.  Just use the leaves and young shoots and boil them for a side veg, add them too soups or risottos or any other way you'd use green veg for.  A Torta di Verdura, vegetable tart would be nice too I reckon.  It has a mild flavour, but it doesn't fall apart too quickly when cooked.

And as for health benefits?  To quote from my own book:  "This plant has long been valued as an excellent diuretic, increasing urine production to clear the system.  Combined with stingy nettle the effect is increased.  Drink an infusion of 2 tablespoons of dried herb per litre of water 3 times a day or make an infusion and take 40 drops three times a day.  This  is helpful to combat metabolic illnesses, including obesity, diabetis and cellulites, rheumatic illnesses, such as gout and arthritis, illnesses of the urinary tract, including gallstones and kidney stones as well as renal inflammations and cystitis and illnesses of the circulatory system, such as high blood pressure and water retention.  Externally is used as a wound dressing as disinfectant."

We shall gather a whole load and dry some.  Cousin Bart has some arthritis and maybe it'll help him some.  The only word of caution, Pellitory is one of the main contributors to hayfever when in flower.  If you are a sufferer it maybe wise to avoid direct contact, i.e. let someone else do the picking.  Even I got a slightly sniffly nose yesterday when cooking with them and I don't normally suffer allergies at all.

A busy month

 

Happy Easter to you all.  It's been a busy old month.  First of all I was busy finishing my wild food book for the end of March.  I have sent off the first draft, but additions have been requested, so it will continue to keep me busy for a while.

Susan's mother died in the middle of the month and we went to belfast for the funeral, keeping us away from home for a week.  She was 97 and had a long fullfilled life.  Of course we were busy with the usual spring preparations of sowing and planting during the month and last but not least I had to organise the guided wild food forages.  

If on that subject I may have a brief rant: It is really annoying, infuriating if not to say downright bl&%$£y rude to agree to come to an event with strictly limited numbers to then cancel with less than 24 hours notice or even none at all, unless you have very good reason.  Rant over.

Saying that, those who did attend the 3 events had a whale of a time and we were lucky with the weather all around.  It's a great time of year to foraging, before the farmers start strimming their fields and with all that lush green coming out everywhere.  Here a few impressions of plants we found:

 Asparagus.  This was taken on the last forage when champion asparagus spotter Carmelo had grazed the route almost bare.  Incidentally the 'mock asparagus' that all the locals here identify as hop shoots are actually the shoots of black bryony.  All other parts of the plant a poisonous, but the shoots are edible and good.

 Borage

 Mint

 Wild strawberries

 Wild onion







Wood Sorrel

Many fruit trees were in bloom adding to the pleasure of the roam:

Returning back to base the team got to clean the salad ingredients:

...and sat down for the feast:

This was the menu: 

...and this is what it looked like:  The antipasti:

The Borage ravioli with wild garlic pesto and wild sage and butter

 

The wild asparagus and black bryony shoot frittata:

 

with a mixed salad:

and finally the spring tart:

and even Eddie, the Beagle had some company:

All photos courtesy of Carmelo Gallo and Tom Connally.  I have a camera again, but the courier company somehow manage to loose the battery re-charger that went with it.  I'm now waiting for a replacement.  

Anyone else wanting to participate in one of these please let me know.

Wild food walks near La Spezia

This is mostly adressed at people who live in easy reach of us.  After 8 years of tasting my way through the wild greens of our surroundings and my book on the subject nearing completion, I finally feel confident taking a group around on a guided foraging walk.

The idea is meeting up in Ponzano Superiore and I'll show you around some of my favourite haunts followed by a gourmet multiple course meal prepared by my cousin Bart.  The provisional dates (depending on numbers and weather) wil be: Sunday, 18th March, Saturday 31st March and Friday 6th April.  We'll set off about 10 am and wander around the hills.  At that time of year, apart from it being the height of the asparagus season, we should spot at least 50 different edible species.

The menu will include one or two antipasti, two primi, a soup and some borage stuffed ravioli with butter and wild sage, a secondo of an asapargus frittata with a wild food salad and some wild greens, finished off by my legendary Spring flower tart.  All accompanied by a glass or two of wine.

The cost will be €17 a head all inclusive.  Participants will need to bring decent walking shoes, a basket / bags to collect stuff in, a knife and a trowel.  Numbers are strictly limited, so let us know as soon as possible if you want to participate.

For those who are not nearby and can't come, here one more morsel.  Some of you may remember that about a year ago we went on a wild food walk organised by the local council.  Below was one of the things we had found, but I hadn't caught the name of it properly and hadn't been able to find out what it actually was.

Well I have finally been able ti identify it.  It's known as common brighteye or French scorzanera.  The leaves make an excellent lettuce substitute as they have no trace of bitterness, in fact they have a certain sweetness.  The roots look like min-parsnips and can be crunched raw or cooked.  A really valuable find amongst all the bitter tasting salad crops.

Quick Update: It occurred to me that I should have put a contact e-mail here as well so you can book.  It's heikover at libero dot com.  Should you see this blogpost after the event, get in touch anyway and I'll see what I can arrange.  The middle date, the 31st, is now booked out, but there are still spaces available on the other 2 dates as of today (6th March).

Update 12 March: Due to a grievance in the family I have to cancel the event on the 18th March, appologies for those already booked.  I'm thinking of re-scheduling for Sunday, 1st April as the event on the 31st March is slightly over-subsribed anyway.  I know it won't suit everybody who signed up for the 18th, but hopefully we'll get 2 walks done that weekend. 

Navel Wort

I have let the wildfood of the month series lapse a bit, but as we are still holed up indoors due to the unusually cold weather I may as well do another one of them that I had originally planned for last year but kind of missed the window: Navel Wort (umbilicus rupestris), also known as penny-pies or wall pennywort.

This photo was taken in April last year, which really is already a little late in the season for this delicious herb  When they turn reddish like this they get a slightly unpleasant bitter taste.  They grow mainly on rough stone walls and are quite abundant around here even as early as January.  There were lots of them around before our current coldsnap, but now they have disappeared on most but the sunniest walls.

They are thick, succulent leaves about the size of a large coin and the shape of a human navel (hence the name)  Here a better idea of the size of them:

You pick them off the wall and just pop them in your mouth, just like that, and they have the most refreshing crunching juicyness to them.  If you've been walking for a bit and have run out of water, just a pop a few of these for an instant revitaliser.  If you find quite a few of them, and never graze them bare, take them home and pop them into a salad or I could imagine them added to an energising vegetable juice.

Not only are these things tasty, they are also good for you.  Culpeper used to call it 'kidneywort' because of it's beneficial influence on the waterworks in general and the kidney in particular.   The juice applied externally is said to combat acne if you have any teenagers suffering from that ailment.  It generally has a cooling effect on anything it is applied to, both internally and externally.  I imagine it would help relieve insect bites, but alas it's not available when insects are around...

I have no doubt there are other benefits, but best of all it's really tasty and free!

Toadflax

I'm doing an online permaculture course at the moment and I'm reading Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway as part of that.  Both highly recommended and free.  If you want to try the course, just click on the link above and ignore the FBI copyright notice, it will go after a minute or so.

Anyway, the first rule of permaculture is to observe.  Observe nature and see how it works, so you can copy it and observe your plot of land to see what wants to grow there, what are your general conditions.  So, the other day I took a leisurely stroll through my terraces on a sunny spring-like day, taking note of what I saw.

I have already identified many edible and medicinal species on our land before and, as our land is to 50% vertical, I let most weeds grow on those parts.  I really only use half my land for planting, i.e. the horizontal parts.  Species of 'weeds' I picked up on this at this time of year included: dandelion, primroses, sorrel (loads and loads), borage, wild parsley, wild leek, goosegrass, oregano, yarrow, wood sorrrel, wild strawberries, mallow, corn cockle, fennel, wild beet to name but a few. 

But then there was this pretty yellow flower pictured above (in flower now!) which I couldn't immediately identify.  Always the intrepid explorer I picked some leaves and a flower, rubbed them together and had a sniff... Not much smell to it.  So I popped a flower in my mouth and boy(!) it was delicious.  It has a really nice sweet flavour to it.  I thought to myself something so tasty couldn't be poisonous, so I ate some more.  Back home I checked out my herb books and identified it as common toadflax.  It's nowhere described as an edible, but it does have medicinal properties aiding in bladder problems and also liver complaints.  Although I have seen it described as mildly toxic (hey so is Tequila!), I have not noticed any ill effects on me.  I shall sprinkle a few onto future salads I reckon.  Hurray for edible weeds. 

Of Roots

It's Blog Action Day once again.  Some of you may remember I participated last year talking about water.  This year's theme is food.  Now I racked my brain long and hard what to write about, because essentially this is what this blog is all about, food.  I write about it all the time, about growing it, foraging for it, preparing it, sometimes even eating it.  So how do I get a new angle on it.

Well two current news got me on roots, both literally and figuratively.  Unfortunately I appear to have mislaid my camera, so the images today have been nicked, apologies to anyone claiming copyright to these pics...

As one of the new things I have experimented with this year in the garden is a root vegetable known by it's Italian name of scorzanera.  I don't normally do well with root crops so I set aside a deep pot filled with quite a rich turf in it and sowed a few plants.  I didn't know what the end result would look or taste like.  Well as for looks (I did have a photo on my disappeared camera...):

 

This is it.  They are very slow growing.  I sowed them back in April I think and only just now harvested them.  

Once peeled I seemed to remember my Mum trying to feed me these things unsuccesfully.  However that doesn't mean much, because I was the world's fussiest eater as a kid.  (Incidentally this just shows you it's all in the mind, because as I grew up I became the world's unfussiest eater.)  Anyway, I seemed to remember my Mum cooking them in a creamy sauce, so that's what I  did, and I as I didn't have a huge amount I threw a handful of chicory leaves in with it and served the lot over some cooked potatoes.  Very nice and I shall try growing some more next year.

The other root story is quite an embarrassing one, I know you will laugh out loud about this Mr. H

My blogger friend Mr. H in Idaho has often mentioned growing Jerusalem artichokes on his land, or as he prefers to call them, sun roots.  He's asked me if I had ever tried growing them, as they are a very easy to grow root crop.  I told him, that I had never seen the tubers to start the plants of with for sale in Italy and didn't think they were known to Italians.

Now currently we have a helpXer staying with us, who incidentally is not exactly from Jerusalem, but from Israel.  As we went on a walk with the dog the day before yesterday, showing her some of the wild foods growing around here, she pointed at these tall yellow flowers asking me whether they were sunflowers or Jerusalem artichokes:

I said I was sure they weren't sunflowers, and I didn't think they were Jerusalem artichokes as they grew wild everywhere including on a wilder corner of our land.  She said it did look like the latter though, and if we did have some on our land, we should dig for the roots and have a look.  And lo and behold... this is what we dug up:

I peeled a bit there and then and tasted it... Hmmm!  Really juicy and tasty even raw.  So here we go, Mr.H, no need to send me any tubers I just cultivate some of the wild stuff that grows abundantly all over the place!  I now understand too why you call them sunroots.  I don't think you have ever shown us a picture of the pretty flowers.

A quick word about food in general and roots in the figurative sense.  We should all go back to our cultural roots eating in season and re-learning to find and use the wild foods that nature gives us so abundantly for free both for the good of our planet and for our own health.  Now wasn't that all beautifully summed up and brought to a conclusion, (if I say so myself... ;)).

PS: I now found my camera and replaced the above images with my own,,,

The Solution

I better tell you about the solution of last weeks 'wild food quizzzzzzzzz'
Greater plaintain.  Edible, but not very tasty.  Mostly used as a medicinal herb for a variety of maladies including liver cleansing.

 Colts Foot: Leaves can be cooked and eaten, but contain a liver damaging alkaloid and should therefore only be consumed in moderation.  The yellow flowers appear before the leaves and disappear again before the leaves come out.  A tea made from the flowers and leaves relieves coughs

Ribwort plantain, or as I call it, pointy-leafed plantain.  Used the same way as greater plantain.

Golden Rod.  An aromatic herb, a tea made from the flowers and leaves helps with various maladies of the water system, i.e. cistytis, kidney trouble etc.

Oak.  Acorns themselves are edible, but need repeated boiling to reduce the bitterness so are not really an option.  Young leaves are edible though and a palatable wine can be made from them

Comfrey.  Again not recommended for those with liver trouble and should be consumed in moderation.  My favourite way of eating comfrey leaves is covered in a tempura batter dipped in soya sauce.  The health benefits of this plant probably outweigh potential harm caused by alkaloids.

Wild strawberry.  Also the leaves are edible and go into my spring tart alongside primroses and sweet violets.

Some kind of mint.  Could be catnip.

Stingy nettles.  They don't need much an introduction

Walnuts.

Oregano

Clover

Fennel.  Easily confused with dill if you only see the picture.

...and....(drum roll...), well done Tanya, butcher's broom.  The berries aren't poisonous as such, but will give you the runs.  Young shoots are edible like asparagus.  The seeds can be made into a coffee substitute.  But the main function is medicinal.  The roots used internally and externally are a cure for varicose veins and hemorhoids.

 Nobody got the bonus plant, but hey, maybe it's just a useless weed, although there aren't many of them...  Well done to those who had a go.  Tanya, Mr.H and Ruth all managed 11 right!