Foraging is a practise that has massively fallen out of the mainstream over the last few decades, as most people either don’t have time or simply don’t want to go rummaging through their local woodlands or hedgerows to find something to eat. There are even those that consider such an activity “below” them, arguing that finding your own food in the wild is an unnecessary practise and only suited to people who cant afford to buy their food from a shop.
But what exactly is foraging?
The practise of foraging consists of simply finding and gathering any type of food that can be considered wild, no matter what it is, from berries to cockles. if you gather something from the wild to eat then you have just foraged.
Today the practise is mostly reserved to people interested in bushcraft and survival skills and the occasional old-timer or green earth enthusiast, which is a great shame as thousands of tons of edible food drops to the floor and rots each and every year, most of which comes from invasive or pest plants like the bramble.
In the UK you only need to talk to your grandparents or anyone over the age of 60 to understand how big a part of life gathering from the wild was. There are stories of how people would flock to local parks and canals to strip the bushes of blackberries to make pies and jams, and during the second world war you could walk around an entire town without finding a single edible berry or root, so what happened to this culture of taking from the wild.
Convenience and attitude are the main culprits for the decline in foraging, with a quick trip to the supermarket taking preference over ripping things out the ground yourself, and others looking down their noses at those that choose to do so.
This is all good news for you though
If you’re here reading this in the first place then there’s a good chance your already interested in doing some foraging yourself, and with less competition this leaves more for you. I will use my own interest in making wine as an example, which is something i do each year. To make blackberry wine you need any were between 1kg and 2kg of fruit per gallon of water, and i like to go closer to the 2kg mark. I make it in 5 gallon batches which would require about 10kg of blackberries, and at the time of writing this that amount at Sainsburys would cost you £20 if you brought frozen, and fresh they are going for £2 per 150grams, making 10kg of fresh berries around £70.
An entire 5 gallon batch of wine costs me about £7 to make in sugar and yeast powders, producing at least 24 bottles of wine. The point is you only have things to gain from doing so, and no one should feel ashamed or nervous to go out there and forage their own food, and the ones who don’t are only missing out.
There are so many resources out there that tell you all about how to get started with foraging, but instead of just listing a ton of sites, theres a great list of sites full of foraging information at the Top 40 Bushcraft Blogs to Follow.