Orache doesn’t always get good reviews in foraging guidebooks, but I rate the varieties I encounter very highly – both as a salad leaf when young, and as a spinach substitute when mature. The tender young leaves, to my palate, are wonderfully sweet with nutty overtones and a hint of salt…
These spectacular and unmistakeable little winter and early spring fungi are quite common in damp, mossy deciduous woods with plenty of windfall.
This is a delightful, easy-to-come-by plant that can be cooked like spinach, added to stir-fries etc, but is at its best raw. I love to employ its earthy flavour in winter salads with pickled fish, beetroot and elderberry vinegar, though it works well as a mild “bulker” with sharper-tasting leaves in spring…
After first encountering this unusual and delicious brassica in the Scottish highlands, I was delighted to stumble on it again in my favourite bit of Galloway swamp – 10 minutes from my house…
One of the great pleasures of foraging is discovering exciting flavours in the common and innocuous-looking plants around us. Sea arrowgrass never fails to raise squeals of surprise and delight when we encounter it on my guided coastal walks.