Hidden Treasures - tell me your foraged finds!

[CuriousEats]

My Wild Food Foraging book arrived on Friday!
We went to our local NT garden yesterday which is normally pleasantly dull, but its like a 4th dimension has just opened up and I'm seeing stuff everywhere!

Tell me what wild food you've found!

Obviously, it goes without saying, do your own research and don't eat anything you're not 100% sure of the ID.

Hugh Fearnley-Thing 😂its a right mouthful of a name isnt it. I can never remember it I can just about remember if I start with one of the radio satirist’s names for him - Hugh Fearlessly Wittering

Went to my grannys today and she had an overgrown scrambling rose absolutely loaded with hips so I've picked about 2kg of them, and then a spotted some quinces hiding in the same hedge, and then I found some barberries and a pyracantha absolutely loaded with berries!
My uncle and aunty live next door so I scrumped some of their apples from their apple tree.
I see some apple and rosehip jam, rosehip syrup, pyracantha ketchup, dried barberries and something quincy soming up 😃
Mums neighbours have got a bit old to go apple picking and their bramley trees are loaded too. I'm going to go and ask them if they'd like to swap some apples for some crumble and cake.

Anyone tried daisies? The whole plant is edible, and the leaves are particularly good in stews and soups. Somewhere between kale and spinach. Too tough IMO to be eaten raw, though the flowers are fine in salads.

I only harvest them from my lawn. I don't harvest anything that grows below knee height in populated public areas - too many dogs around!

DH insists on using Green Thumb so the lawn is laced with cocktails 😕
Do you eat the middle bit or just the petals?

All of the plant. The leaves are my favourite part, but it's all edible. Sometimes, if we have many daisies in the lawn, I just put whole plants into a stew.

Ooh. I've just got back into stews in a big way. I love how you can just leave them to tick away and the leftovers are so versatile. They are very relaxing to cook and perfect for this time of year.

I've just looked outside and I can see some flowers still on my Munstead Wood rose. Its got a strong english rose fragrance and I'm debating whether to put the petals in some rosehip syrup or maybe a quince jelly... opinions?

Neither! Layer lots of petals in a jar of caster sugar. About 1cm of sugar between each layer of petals. Next year you will have beautifully fragrant and flavourful sugar to use in the same way as vanilla sugar. Victoria sponge made with rose sugar is amazing. It's also wonderful in black tea.

That sounds lovely!

This is such a lovely thread! I am going to read properly, but - rowan jelly doesn't need to be dry or tart. It's all in the variety. They differ hugely and some are much sweeter and better for jelly than others. I make a rowan and quince jelly that I flavour with scented geranium leaves, and it tastes precisely like a slightly musky, grown-up turkish delight.

Got this in my garden. Didn’t eat it though

@MaxandMeg what does it smell of?

And can you get some clearer photos? Top and bottom? That one has come out fuzzy

@SarahAndQuack which Rowan varieties are better or is it rowussian roulette?!?
Do you use rose geranium for you jelly? I want to grow some next year. They smell so lovely and can be used in so many ways! I recently bought Stephanie Hafferty's Creative Kitchen book which uses them quite a bit.

I'm afraid for me it's the latter! I bet there's an educated answer out there, but I just found there were bid differences between the ones I foraged, so I went back to the nicer ones!

Quite fungusy. I only knew what it was because the head of Mycology at Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden visited and was in ecstasies about it.

@SarahAndQuack can you taste the difference raw or do you have to make the jelly first?

To my enormous shame, I discovered the difference because my DD (then aged about 16 months) was enthusiastic about some berries and not others. I have since discovered you shouldn't really eat rowan berries raw as they're a bit toxic! I am a bad parent.

But, yes, you can tell by taste IMO. The berries that are tight and rather mealy (a bit like hawthorn berries) tend to be sour. If they are larger and juicy, they are worth tasting - and then, if they are slightly sweet under the tart flavour, they're a good bet. This is pure anedata, but it seems to me the ones that are darker red and more translucent are better; the ones that are a pale orange and very opaque are not good.

@Bideshi Well chicken of the woods smells like chicken (apparently!) and Dryads saddle smells like melon and they're the only lookalikes I can see in my book from your photo. Do they ring any bells?

@SarahAndQuack do you think its varietal differences or just that the orangey opaque ones arent fully ripe?

Well as I said it was the head of Mycology at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh who alerted me to it so I imagine that’s right (his deputy was also with him and they were in agreement). It smelt quite strong but just kind of mushroomy in my perception. He asked me not to eat it because it’s so beautiful (!). We have lots of fungi in these parts including truffles for those who know how to look: not me.

My sil who is a chef gathers chanterelles (sw Scotland) and has them on the restaurant menu. My Chinese friend in Stirling uses Dutchmens Ears gathered from the Castle Rock.

@SarahAndQuack We went to Dunham Massey today, and I spotted what I thought were crab apples, but the leaves were wrong and when I split a fruit open, it was sweet, like a pink lady apple. After much googling, I found it was a variety of hawthorn. The fruits are much bigger than your standard hedgerow type, more like cherry sized, and the leaves are shaped a bit like a lime tree. I'm going to go back there and get some more for a delicious jam!
I got a little trug of mushrooms too, to bring home and analyse! Also some yellow stainers which I thought were field mushrooms before I saw the yellow!

Normal haw berries for comparison

@CuriousEats is that service tree? Or just another hawthorn? I'd love to know which one it is - it looks amazing!