Any foragers about?

[natura]

I've just started learning to forage and am sitting here now with an almost fully-foraged breakfast of sauteed rosebay willowherb, nettle and wild garlic, a poached egg, and cleaver water with elderflowers.

I'm so enjoying the process of learning, but I feel very much a beginner!

A quick search on here showed very few posts on foraging, so I wondered – are there any fellow foragers about who might want to join forces on a thread? Share knowledge and tips, as well as celebrate great finds or recipes?

I'd love to learn as much as I can from people month by month, rather than getting overwhelmed by books...

I did pick a piece of toast up from the kitchen floor, does that count?

We get lots of wild garlic in our local park, i made pesto from it. 😋 Wondering if there are any St George mushrooms there, I've found them before. I do like a bit of a forage.

I am not a fan of foraged food. I have come across too many “expert” foragers who have poisoned themselves…

I don’t find most foraged food that appetising. There is a reason why we don’t cultivate them 😂 Nettles and willowherb are grim but I will concede that wild garlic pesto and elderflower cordial are tasty. It’s also fun and free… Just be careful. You don’t want white bluebells in your wild garlic pesto.

The Wild Food cookbook (not the guide) by Roger Phillips is pretty good. It’s a golden oldie but you can pick it up secondhand. Free Food by Richard Mabey, the botanist who wrote the Flora Britannica identification guide, is a good guide.