Foraging Perspectives: Foraging in 1950’s Russia
December 2, 2020A reminiscence exploring culture, food and foraging in rural Russia in the 1950’s, by Eslande Goode Ramos
A reminiscence exploring culture, food and foraging in rural Russia in the 1950’s, by Eslande Goode Ramos
This amazing little seaweed packs an extraordinary flavour that you really have to taste to believe. I’ve fed it fresh to food lovers who reacted with such amazement, delight and determination to have more, that I expect they are now to be found living in coastal caves as ragged pepper dulse junky hermits…
These little tendrils of joy delight me with their quiet insidious clamberings over the less subtle denizens of the hedgerow. Suck the flowers for a tiny, yet hugely rewarding sweet nectar hit, then chew to enjoy generous pea flavours. The delicate leaves and tendrils from the end of the stems make excellent garnishes, in the vein of “microherbs” so popular with chefs nowadays. Only these are nicer. And free.
Prior to flowering, lesser celandine is one of the milder spring leaves, so good for bulking out salads of more pungent leaves like hairy bitter-cress and ramsons…
In bleak midwinter, when mycophogists start to look hungry and haunted by the paucity of pickings, velvet shank (Flamunilla velutipes) can put a glint back in their eye. It grows between November and March, when, in Scotland, there aren’t so many other mushrooms about…