Name: Spring Coastal Foraging D, Galloway, SW Scotland
Availability: InStock

Description

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

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 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. We will finish the walk eating foraged picnics and admiring the last of the sunset.

Spoot clams

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: Monday 26th April 2021, 3.00pm – 7.30pm. The walk is timed for a super-low spring tide to maximise our encounters with seaweed and shellfish.

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: 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 . This event is fully risk-assessed and very low risk in terms of transmission.

Spoot clam and wild herb sushi

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, and usually come with a hefty bag of lovingly prepared treats and tasters to share. This has become more difficult to do under social distancing, but I still bring some carefully considered foraged tipples and tasters for during the walk and full individual picnic box brimming with wild seasonal delicacies for after. Expect seaweed dashi broth, coastal sushi, pickled and fermented greens, laverbread, foraged cocktails and lots more. All dietary requirements can be catered for, provided you let me know when you book.

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 March 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.

This information applies only to events booked on this website. When booking events involving GWF anywhere other than on this website, the terms and conditions of the vendor apply, which may be different from the following.

Galloway Wild Foods is under no obligation to refund or rebook for no-shows or cancellations within 2 weeks of the event.

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

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 :

Medical conditions
Mobility issues
Eating restrictions – differentiating between preferences (e.g. vegetarian), intolerances (e.g. gluten intolerance) and serious allergies (e.g. peanut allergy). 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.

My very friendly, calm dog occasionally accompanies me on guided walks. He is not a distraction, and often adds to the entertainment as he tends to like to copy my foraging antics! If you have a specific aversion to dogs, please check with me before booking – I don’t necessarily need to bring him. The one thing that makes him more of a handful is other dogs (he will constantly want to play with them, especially if they are ladies!), so please check in with me first if you might like to bring your own dog.

Please contact mark on mark@gallowaywildfoods.com or 07900 692 478 if you have specific questions that are not answered here, or if you are running late on the day.