Name: Low Spring Tide Coastal Foraging & Wild Food Picnic B, Galloway, SW Scotland
Availability: OutOfStock

Description

A guided forage exploring coastal spring greens, seaweeds, shellfish, succulents and herbs.

Spoot clams

Coastal foraging in the spring offers perhaps the best range of healthy, gourmet wild foods of the year. Both novice and more experienced foragers will find this event inspiring, fun, and hugely informative.

Over the course of the walk, you will receive expert tuition on how to find, identify, mindfully harvest, preserve, cook and enjoy 30+ wild edibles. Highlights include shellfish, seaweeds, coastal succulent plants and maritime herbs. This is a fun, informative and truly memorable afternoon and evening. Wellies are essential.

Note: The late timing of this event allows us to catch a very low spring tide which allows us an excellent chance of harvesting razor clams. Check out the video I made of doing this with my dog!

As with all Galloway Wild Foods events, this walk is guided by Mark Williams who has been teaching about foraging for over 25 years.

Read – watch – listen to more about Mark’s events

Time/Date: Friday 3rd April 2022, 4.00pm – 8.30pm. The walk is timed for a super-low tide to maximise our encounters with seaweed and shellfish. It will finish after sundown.

Meeting Place: The exact location will be emailed to ticket holders during the week before the event – but you should plan to be near Gatehouse of Fleet in the postcode area DG6 4UE. More info about visiting and staying in Galloway here.

Expect: About 1.5 miles of gentle walking over mixed coastal terrain. The route is suitable for anyone of moderate fitness who is comfortable moving over rocky foreshore, slippery rocks and muddy sand flats.

Learn how to harvest laver, make laverbread, and eat some on the beach!

Learn: Seaweeds, shellfish and maritime plants: Finding, identification, poisonous lookalikes, mindful harvesting, expert tips, folklore/traditional uses, modern gourmet/medicinal uses, nutrition, processing, recipes, cooking tips. Inevitably, the wider politics around foraging and food will come up too.

Covid 19 Policy: Please see here for the latest GWF policy around events, social distancing and what happens in the event of cancellation due to C19 .

Eat/drink: I think it is important to bring the wild foods we encounter to life by not just talking about them, but by eating and drinking them as we learn about them, so I come with a hefty bag of lovingly prepared treats and tasters to share throughout the walk. These are not only tasty treats, but serve to illustrate how to uses the wild foods we are exploring. This has become more difficult to do since covid, but I still bring some carefully considered foraged tipples & tasters that can be safely shared, and a wild food tasting picnic to enjoy during the event. All dietary requirements can be catered for, and these can be noted when booking.

Wild cookery and foraged cocktails on the shore

Bring: Wellies (essential – you will get wet feet if you don’t have them), waterproofs, warm clothes, water. It can get pretty cold by the sea in April so bring plenty of layers. Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing camera, notebook, field guide (plants), small basket/cloth bag. If you make any foraged delights you wish to share with the group, please bring them along!

Places are limited and events usually sell out fast – booking is essential.

Gift vouchers are available here

If you already have a gift voucher it can be used to pay for this event (in whole or in part) at the checkout.

Seaweeds laid out to reflect tidal zonation

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.