If foraging conjures up images of bimbling along tranquil hedgerows, gently picking berries with a gentle sun on your back, then picking rock samphire may disabuse you of the notion. Though it does occasionally grow on the foreshore, its preferred home, clinging to precipitous coastal cliffs, makes for anything but bucolic harvesting.

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.

One of the very best ways to taste the vibrant shoots, leaves, and flowers of spring is in wild sushi. Many of the fresh, zinging flavours and health-giving properties of green plants such as wild garlic and sea kale are lost in cooking. Rolling them in nori seaweed sheets with sticky rice and serving with condiments is easy, great fun and makes for the most spectacular finger-food I could imagine.

The flavours and textures of some wild foods can be challenging to our modern palettes. We have got used to the easy sweetness of tame vegetables, while importing piquant spices from abroad to make them more exciting…