The rules of Foraging

Just recently I've had a number of people say to me that I should be running foraging classes. I'm very flattered. However, while it's true that I do have a good working knowledge of wild edibles, I'm not terribly comfortable about teaching others.  

That's because I'd worry that someone might misidentify a plant or fungus at a later date and get ill (or worse). Yes, of course I could always get them to sign an indemnity document agreeing that they cannot take legal action against me once they leave the course - some foraging teachers do that as a sensible precaution. But it's not the legal side of things that concerns me. It's knowing how guilty and sad I would feel if someone did get hurt. Frankly, I don't want that on my conscience. 

Unfortunately, while most wild edibles are fairly easy to identify, some are not. And a mistake can be deadly.

For example, common hogweed, yarrow and cow parsley (aka wild chervil) all look very similar and all are very tasty. But they also look like giant hogweed, which will leave you with terrible burns and blisters, and hemlock which could kill you. 

An experienced forager knows the difference. One foraging lesson in the woods with an instructor is not 'experienced' in my view.

Cow Parsley

Common Hogweed

Yarrow

Giant Hogweed

Hemlock 

You can see how similar the plants are. I can tell at a glance which is which. But it took me some time before I was 100% sure enough to eat any of them. 

The devil is in the details - the shapes of flower petals and leaves, the colours and structure of the stems etc. A few blogposts ago I talked about the difference between rosebay willowherb and hairy willowherb (see here). The differences are evident if you look closely enough. 

(Spoiler Alert - the clue is in the word 'hairy'.) 

Sorrel is another good example. Sorrel has a delicious sharp taste reminiscent of apple skins or citrus and makes a lovely salad leaf (we called them 'sour-sobs' when I was growing up in Cornwall). It's very common and grows almost everywhere but favours grasslands. The leaves are blade like and the larger leaves have pointed lobes where the leaf joins the stem. The leaves grow on a rather weedy rust-coloured stalk and the plant doesn't have much of a flowerhead to boast about.

However, the common wild arum lily (also known as Cuckoo Pint or Lords and Ladies) has superficially similar leaves ... and they are poisonous. 

But there are differences. The lily leaves grow much bigger than sorrel leaves and the backwards-pointing lobes are rounded. Also the veins stop before they reach the edge of the leaf where there is a margin - sorrel veins go out to the edge of the leaf. In addition, the lily grows a distinctive flower in Spring and a stalk with strikingly coloured orange berries in the Autumn.

They are really very different plants, but you can perhaps see how inexperience might lead someone to mistake younger lily leaves for tasty sorrel.

Things get even more complicated when we're looking at fungi as so many mushrooms and toadstools look like each other. Thankfully, very few will kill you but some will make you feel sick while others simply taste rank. 

Therefore, on this blog I will only be posting foraging examples where the plant is unlikely to be mistaken for anything else. After all, nothing much else looks like a blackberry or a beech nut. 

If an edible plant can be mistaken for another plant I'll only post examples where the 'other' plant won't do you any harm e.g. mistaking sloes for wild damsons.

If you want to build your knowledge, treat yourself to a good foragers' guidebook - there are plenty available - and subscribe to some foraging and wild food websites. I'd be wary of using plant identification apps on your phone as they have been independently tested and they're not that great (see here.)

Two YouTube channels I highly recommend are UK Wildcrafts and Wild Food in the UK. I'll also give a worthy mention for Atomic Shrimp who not only forages but makes videos about creating meals on very tight budgets too (he also tested the plant identification apps). 

Start small. 

Set yourself targets - such as being able to identify every species of tree in your local park or woodland. It's a good exercise as it teaches you to look for identifying features such as leaf shape, flower form, bark patterns or stem structure (hollow? round? hairy?) etc. 

Meanwhile, the rules of foraging are pretty simple.

• Only pick what you need. Leave the rest for animals (and other foragers).
• Only collect from plentiful populations - minimise damage.
• Don't dig up wild plants unless you have specific permission (and, even then, some are protected species).
• Avoid plants growing beside roads or the margins of farm fields as they may have picked up pollutants and/or toxins. Similarly, avoid plants in 'the dog pee zone'.
• And, most importantly, unless you are absolutely 100% sure of your identification, DON'T EAT IT. 

It's just not worth the risk.