Wild Foods

For hundreds of years wild plants have been used for food and medicinal purposes. Some were thought to have magical properties; they were used in protective charms and such. Nowadays, relatively few have been cultivated, even though many are still valuable resources. However, they can still make interesting and delightful additions to everyday meals.

Why Wild Food?

Lots of wild foods are high in vitamins and make good leaf vegetables similar to spinach. They are versatile in that many can be eaten raw and cooked. In some cases, all or almost all of a plant can be used - leaves, roots, stem, petals, flowers and berries. There are no flavourings, colourants or preservatives in a wild plant and there is a less chance of it containing pesticides or artificial fertilizers.

Guidelines to Wild Food Collection:

• Make sure you know what you are collecting (be especially careful with fungi)
• Never collect rare or protected species. See The Conservation of Wild Creatures and Wild Plants Act 1975 (UK)
• Don't overpick - take a few berries/leaves from a number of plants rather than stripping one bare
• Pick young and undamaged leaves
• Berries and fruits should be ripe but not over-ripe
• Nuts should not be too green
• Do not collect plants along cultivated field edges or roadsides ((icky car fumes!!))
• It is best to eat/use as soon as possible after collecting

Beech:

Oil, flour and 'coffee' can be made from the nuts. Young leaves used as vegetable.

Bilberry:

Berries

Blackberry:

Berries can be eaten, made into jam or made into an excellent wine.

Broom:

Seeds and flowers make a drink. Flowers are good in salads.

Burdock:

Roots dug early in year and young stems can be cooked, eaten raw or candied. Scrape off outer coating.

Chickweed:

Used as a salad (pick in early summer), vegetable or in soup. Good to mix.

Coltsfoot:

Leaves can be candied or used to make a cough mixture. Flowers can be used in cakes, etc.

Crab Apple:

Apples for cooking, wine making and jam/jelly, etc.

Cranberry:

Berries

Dandelion:

Blanched young leaves used in salad or cooked. Roots can be roasted to make a 'coffee'. Wine from young leaves.

Deadnettle(red and white):

Young leaves and flower heads cooked as a vegetable

Elder:

Fruit and flowers used to make wine and drinks. Berries to make jellies/jams and wines (which can be quite potent!).

Fat Hen:

Leaves can be cooked like spinach

Fennel:

Seeds, leaves and stems all have an aniseed flavour

Garlic Mustard:

Young leaves taste of mild garlic, cooked as a vegetable.

Garlic (Wild):

Leaves have a strong garlic flavour when eaten raw.

Hawthorn:

Leaf buds in savoury suet pudding and salads. Flowers and berries also edible

Hazel:

Nuts.

Horseradish:

Roots used to make relish.

Mallow:

Young leaves cooked as a vegetable - they exude a gelatinous substance which can used to make a soup named Melokhia.

Meadowsweet:

Leaves and flowers can be used to make drinks

Mint:

Used as herb or flavouring

Stinging Nettle:

Young leaves in soups (lots of vitamins A and C, iron, calcium and potassium)

Plantain:

Very young leaves cooked as vegetable or eaten raw.

Rowan:

Berries used in jellies, puddings and wines.

Sorrel:

Young leaves eaten in salad

Sweet Chestnut:

Nuts roasted or boiled

Sweet Voilet:

Flowers and leaves can be used in puddings and wine

Watercress:

For salads (lots of vitamin C!)

Wild cherry:

Berries

Wild raspberry:

Berries

Wild strawberry:

Berries

Wild rose:

Leaves used in herb tea. Hips (for rosehip syrup) and petals are also edible. Back to The Apothecary