Name: Fascinating Fungi Walk @ The Scottish Wild Food Festival, Stirlingshire
Availability: InStock

Description

An exploration of the fascinating and fabulous world of fungi at Scotland’s Wild Food Festival.

September is high fungi season in Central Scotland and this event is designed to make the most of it. Over about 1 km of easy walking over 2 hours you will explore the fungi around the Festival site, learning about fungal ecology, identification skills, and some of the food and medicinal uses of wild mushrooms.

Ticket price does not include admission/parking for the Wild Food Festival, which must be purchased separately – see link below.

About Mark your Guide

Your host for the walk will be Mark Williams of Galloway Wild Foods. Mark is a passionate mycophile, wild gastronomer and professional wild food educator, who has been teaching about wild mushroom identification and edibility for over 30 years. Mark is a font of knowledge and enthusiasm on wild fungi, specialising in making this often daunting subject fun and accessible to novices, while providing solid foundations for a lifetime of discovery, enjoyment and worry-free wild eating. Mark writes widely on this subject and works closely with leading mycologists, landowner/conservation organisations such as The National Trust and Scottish Natural Heritage.

Check out Mark’s free online wild fungi guide here

Read, listen, watch more about Mark Williams and Galloway Wild Foods

Please note that we will be exploring all aspects of fungi, on and around the festival site. The location has an interesting and diverse mycota from which to learn, but is not full of basket loads of choice edibles!

Mark Williams, showing the key ID features of a deadly webcap.
Image ©Mindy Coe Photography

About The Scottish Wild Food Festival

Set in the spectacular surroundings of Tir na nOg, the Scottish Wild Food Festival encourages people of all ages to step outdoors and learn about local wild food. With dining experiences, foraging walks, wild cocktail making, bushcraft, talks and demos, workshops, live music and a marketplace there really is something for everyone to get their teeth into! Explore, eat and relax in our main festival hub or take a walk round the grounds – beautiful woodland trails packed with wild food surprises around every corner.

The Scottish Wild Food Festival was launched in 2019 as part of the Forth Valley and Lomond LEADER project, Wildwonders, which aimed to encourage a greater connection with foraging and wild food in the region as well as international exchange. Over a year long course of tuition and mentoring designed and led by Mark Williams of Galloway Wild Foods, local individuals and businesses learned how to sustainably incorporate wild foods into their businesses, and took part in an international exchange with similar festivals in Latvia and Finland. After a very successful first event in 2019, and a pandemic pause for 2020, the event moved to our new venue for autumn 2021 and expanded to a weekend format. This year’s festival will pack even more into two days in the woods!

Visit the Scottish Wild Food Festival Website

Mark with overseas foragers at the 1st Scottish Wild Food Festival

Fascinating Fungi Walk @ The Scottish Wild Food Festival

Location: Scottish Wild Food Festival, Tir Na Nog, Balfunning, Balfron Station, G63 0NF. Map etc here.

Date: Saturday 17th September 2022

Start time: Arrive in time for a 10.30am start. (Festival site opens at 10am)

Finish time: The walk element finishes at 12.30 pm – allowing lots of time to explore further festival events during the afternoon. Your ticket for this walk also includes priority seating/tasting at my wild mushroom cookery demo running 12.45pm – 1.15pm (right after the walk)

Fungi Foray Tickets: Adults £50 Children aged 12 to 16: £25 (Please note: fungi identification can be complex and this event is recommended only for children with a keen eye for detail)

Wild Food Festival Tickets: Tickets for the Wild Food Festival must also be purchased in order to attend this event. I recommend booking your festival and parking tickets at the same time as you book tickets for this event, as it may sell out. The festival has lots of free and paid events to entertain you for the rest of the day or weekend. Festival info and booking here. (Early bird tickets from £16pp)

Expect: Up to 1km gentle walking on well made paths, occasionally steep, over 2 hours, with wild & fungi-themed tasters en route, followed by an edible wild mushroom cookery demonstration.

Fascinating Fungi

Learn:

The important role fungi plays in nature
How to go about identifying important families and species of fungi
How to home in on the most rewarding edible species
How to recognise dangerously poisonous species
Medicinal and utilitarian uses
Sustainable harvesting practices
Preservation and cooking techniques
Key resources for taking your personal learning forward
Other autumn woodland wild foods

The cookery demonstration after the walk will be open to all festival-goers, but ticket holders for the walk will have priority seating and tasting.

Bring:

Essential: Stout footwear, weather-appropriate clothing, drinking water

Optional: A small basket or cloth bag, notebook, camera, fungi field guide if you have one. If you make any foraged delights at home and would like to share them with the group, please bring them along!

Please read the IMPORTANT INFORMATION tab on this page before booking and again before setting off for the event.

Please note: I do not recommend this event for children under 12 years old. Sorry, this event is unsuitable for dogs.

Please read the following information before booking a Galloway Wild Foods event.

The general event location is provided in the event description. For general information on visiting Galloway for events, see here.

Detailed event information, including exact meeting place, will be sent to the email address you provide on booking. It is important that you add mark@gallowaywildfoods.com and markleewilliams@googlemail.com to your email contacts/whitelist or the information email may get caught in your spam filters.

The information email will be sent in the week before the event – sometimes as little as 3 days prior to the event. There is no need to badger me for it – I will send it! If you haven’t received it by within 3 days of the event, check your spam folders. If it isn’t there drop me an email – mark@gallowaywildfoods.com.

Galloway Wild Foods is under no obligation to refund, rebook or reinstate vouchers for no-shows or cancellations within 14 days of the event. If I can refill the place at short notice, I will pay a full refund (or reinstate vouchers) less 10% to cover admin & PayPal fees.

If you cancel or amend a booking giving 14 days or more notice, you will receive a full refund (or reinstatement of voucher) less 5% to cover Paypal fees.

In the unlikely event that an event is cancelled by GWF you will receive full refund, exchange or voucher.

Galloway Wild Foods is not liable for any travel, accommodation or other costs you might incur if an event has to be cancelled.

The only weather that causes events to be cancelled is dangerous wind. In these instances you will be notified as early as possible.

Please provide the following information for all members of your party in the “Additional Information” box on the payment page :

Relevant medical conditions
Mobility issues
Eating restrictions – differentiating between preferences (e.g. vegetarian), intolerances (e.g. gluten intolerance) and serious allergies (e.g. peanut allergy), and clearly stating if an allergy is potentially life-threatening. All requirements can usually be catered for, but these differentiations are required for risk assessments.

Please ensure that all members of your party come suitably dressed for the weather, season and event.

On all walks, for your comfort and safety, walking boots/wellies, waterproofs and spare clothes are necessary. I always recommend wellies for coastal foraging events – you are likely to get wet feet if you don’t have them!

Please bring your own drinking water.

Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing a camera, notebook, field guide, small basket/cloth bag. Feel free to bring along any of your own wild food preparations to share and talk about.

Some events are not suitable for dogs. Please check with me by email if you wish to bring a dog on an event.

Please contact mark on mark@gallowaywildfoods.com if you have specific questions that are not answered here, or if you are running late on the day.