| Think outside – No box required By Jacky Pearce I have a great recipe for slug, but if you’re feeling a little less adventurous, I can teach you about all kinds of other wild foods! I grew up in a small village and loved being so in touch with the natural world. Being outdoors in nature restores my soul and I’d like to share some of that world with you.
Like many people, I started foraging as a small child by the simple act of blackberry picking, although more ended up in my mouth than in the bowl! I was lucky to grow up in a village but I do recall being told the hawthorn berries on the hedges lining our garden were poisonous when they are far from it. Once I started learning about foraging I suggested eating the autumnal giant puffballs that would appear in our garden to be told, in no uncertain terms, that I could but my parents wouldn’t! My real foraging adventures started when I was around 30 years old. I started doing volunteer conservation work in Hampshire and worked closely with the Rangers, in time helping to run events as well as co-leading conservation work parties. I bought a bridge camera and took photos of every single wild flower I couldn’t name, every butterfly that would stay still long enough for me to stalk it and every other single natural item I found. While spending hours deleting the rubbish and blurred macro shots of tiny flowers to keep only the best, I taught myself to identify them all. As part of this, some books taught me about folklore, some about the medicinal uses of plants and more about their edibility or, just as importantly, how poisonous they are. There are a few great books out there for foragers and I’d recommend anything written by Roger Phillips. His fungi book is the absolute bible on fungi and I can recommend no better. I’d also thoroughly recommend the Pocket Nature books as they’re great back jeans pocket books for when you’re out foraging. I’ve been writing a book on foraging for many years; it is now a coffee table volume and I’m convinced I’ll never finish it to my satisfaction so I’ll never end up having it published! However, the research for the book, as well as photographing everything in sight, taught me so much about the wild foods around us. I believe we shouldn’t lose our history, so along with some medicinal uses, I also teach the folklore of the plants I eat. I am also a member of the Association of Foragers, for which you apply, must be a currently practising professional forager, then have to be both proposed and seconded by existing members with the whole membership being able to vet your application. This ensures the members have the knowledge they claim, as many wild foods are deadly poisonous. | 
