Wetting the bed, nipple warts and a typo

Personally I don't like eating dandelion leaves. To say that they are bitter is somewhat of an understatement. Yet since their mention more than a millennia ago in Arabic herbal texts they have been consumed for their medicinal qualities.

Make sure you leave some for the bugs

The leaves contain vitamins A, B, C and D, as well as lots of potassium. If you have cystitis and need to wee lots then take an infusion of the leaves. If you have osteoarthritis then take a regular decoction of the root, but if you take a tincture of the leaf and root together this will (apparently) aid in stimulation of bile flow and increase your likelihood of needing a number two.

The etymology of the word dandelion could well come from the French 'dent de lion', in reference to the lion's tooth shape of the leaves. However the modern day name for dandelion is 'pissenlit' or in English 'piss-a-bed', in reference to its diuretic qualities.

If you don't fancy digging up the roots or eating bitter leaves that cause you to wet the bed then fair enough, I won't try to convince you otherwise. I will however try to convince you to give the flowers a try, they have a unique, appealing fragrance. Many home-brew wine guides include recipes for dandelion wine but if you find any flowers still blooming at this time of year why not try making a sticky, floral syrup for pouring on strawberries and cream - dandelicious!

There are several dandelion lookalikes out there that you may have never even heard of such as Cat's-ear, Smooth Cat's-ear and Spotted Cat's ear, as well as various species of Hawk's-Beards, Hawkbit and the amusingly named Nipplewort. Don't worry though as none of these are poisonous, however if you're keen to get a positive dandelion ID (because let's face it, nobody wants to eat something called Nipplewort) look for these three key characteristics:
1) A rosette of leaves at the base of the plant;
2) A leafless, hollow and unbranched stem;
3) Lots of milky latex oozing from the broken stems.

Be quick though as if you wait much longer you have to wait until next spring before you find whole fields of flowers. In the meantime why not return to your childhood days and give nature a helping hand by kicking seed heads to smithereens and letting next year's crop float with the wind on a balmy days in June. It's equally as fun to use these fluffy-white seed clusters to practise your next tee-shot when out on the golf course.

Don't wait too long, otherwise they'll be gone until next Spring...

Hog on the hob with a knob...

...of butter!

A green-winged orchid in a meadow of buttercups

With all this summer weather who could blame me for lolloping around in a wild-flower meadow taking photos of green-winged orchids, meadow buttercups and looking for tasty treats when I strayed too far from the ice-cream van. Thankfully the list of wild ingredients in my neural recipe book is growing week by week and the latest addition is in abundance right now - Hogweed.

Common Hogweed - the one you CAN eat

Gardeners amongst you will probably be thinking 'hang on a minute, isn't that poisonous?' Fear not my foraging friends it is Giant Hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) to which we bestow this label of danger, plain old Hogweed (H. sphondylium) itself is delicious.

The young leaf shoots collected from a few different plants

The downward-pointing bristles on the
stems of this carrot family member

Giant Hogweed, as its Latin generic name suggests, can grow to truly epic proportions, often more than five metres tall. Look out for slightly pointier teeth on the leaves and purple/red spots on the hollow stem of the plant. It also produces a sap which contains psoralens, chemicals that change your skins sensitivity to light leaving you extremely vulnerable to the sun's UV radiation. People have experienced the effects of these nasty chemicals just by brushing past the leaves of the plant and have continued to be at the mercy of them for several years after initial exposure! If that wasn't scary enough type 'Giant Hogweed burns' in Google images... Oh, and these burns often don't appear for twenty four hours or so after contact, so just when you thought you were safe...

But if you're still keen on eating plain old Common Hogweed (also known as cow parsnip) then please take care. Common Hogweed seldom grows taller than two metres and has a green stem often with a dull red ridge running down the side rather than purple/red spots. However, these characteristics are not as helpful as one would hope because the best grub is picked from the young plants that are still less than one metre high.

Go for the young leaf shoots before the leaves have a chance to open fully. I like frying them up and making the unopened leaf go nice and crispy whilst the stem stays lovely and succulent like an asparagus spear.

Not only is Hogweed delicious but it is also known as the 'love plant', it contains chemicals that act as genital vasodilators! For centuries it has been used as a treatment for impotence, sterility and frigidty, just don't confuse it with Giant Hogweed.

Beware of dragons, death and puns

As a freelancer I often find myself without work. On such occasions I would normally relish the opportunity to get outside and go for a wonder, but when the April showers come in the guise of successive tempests the idea of a foray has limited appeal. However, last week I decided to don my 'waterproof' trousers and march to a new patch of my local foraging territory armed with all manner of collecting devices.

"Advance our standards, set upon our foes
Our ancient world of courage fair St. George
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons."
Richard III, act v, Sc.3.

As I stepped around a fairly large bog that obstructed my path I ducked under a low lying branch only to find a few familiar friends from autumns gone by - mushrooms! Saintly white in colour this fairy ring in spring could only be one thing - the St. George's mushroom. As I worked my way around the outside of the circle picking the best of the crop I felt the presence of a beast close by... Alas, not a mythical, fire-breathing dragon but instead a mighty roe deer buck who had paused for a few seconds before prancing off into the woodland.

Further down the path I discovered two more half-rings of St George's and in total I foraged over a kilo of protein-packed, free food leaving the vast majority of what was on offer. Or at least I hoped they were St George's, I had never actually found any before...

" Inspire us with your mushroomy
goodness to consume thee"
Andy Wakefield, blogspot 2012

On my return home I started my usual investigatory routine with the aid of four trustworthy books. White flesh, gills, stems and spores all hinted towards a positive ID, as did the strong smell of raw pastry. Although, being several months out of practise I decided to contact author of 'River Cottage Handbook No.1 Mushrooms' John Wright for reassurance. With his kind guidance and approval there was only one final way to found out if they were eaters or not... give a punnet of them to my boss to eat.

Following his survival I made a second crusade to recover yet more hidden relics and last night I made a creamy St. George's lasagna topped with oak smoked cheddar and homemade blushed tomatoes - legendary!

Long live rainy days in spring that yield saints I say, cry God for Harry!, England and St.George! Huzzah!

I'm a Rocket Man

My first wild rocket plant!

It's taken some patience and some optimistic leaf nibbling (not recommended!) but I've finally found my first batch of Perennial Wall Rocket. In the battle of 'Forager vs Weed' yours truly has prevailed victorious.

Nettles, sorrel and bittercress are brilliant in their own right but finding and eating truly wild rocket is incomparable. Supermarkets sell minuscule bags of the stuff for as much as a couple of quid, so as I bagged myself a bunch for free I justifiably felt pretty smug. The only price I had to pay were a few disapproving looks from passers by as I squatted on the pavement with an old carrier bag chewing weeds.

Diplotaxis tenuifolia grows to about half a metre above ground. Between May and September it produces hermaphrodite, yellow flowers typical of its compadres in the brassica family. The seeds then usually ripen between Jun and October. In most cases supermarket rocket is a completely different species (Eruca vesicaria sativa) but in my humble opinion D. tenuifolia is tastier as it has a stronger, nuttier flavour.

The beninning of the ultimate salad...

These little rascals could be added with other foraged spring leaves such as dandelion, sorrel, corn salad, hairy bittercress, sea beet and wild garlic. If you're cooking for your lady friend and want to really impress with your manly foraging skills, but also want to demonstrate your feminine caring side then use wild garlic flowers. The white petals will work beautifully as a poncey but edible garnish -just don't use too many otherwise your breath may well nullify your seductive preparation!

The sorrel of the story is...

For those of you who took inspiration from my previous two posts you'll know how foraging for edible greens can make you socially unwelcome as well as rather itchy. But if like me you've become addicted to scanning the floor for other delicious snacks then I have some good news, the 'warmer' weather is offering up yet more tasty morsels to the forager's table.



A common sorrel leaf



A good mate of mine has wood sorrel growing in his front garden and ever since I first identified the pretty little creeping green I've found it hard to resist eating more and more of his flowerbed. With heart shaped leaves and delicate little white flowers adorned with pink stripes, wood sorrel's pretty appearance hides it's sinister side. It contains a toxin named oxalic acid which charmingly goes about forming calcium oxalate in the kidneys of any unsuspecting forager. In plain English you'll get kidney stones!

However kidney stones may be the last of your worries, there are some far more serious side-effects from over indulging on wood sorrel. You'll be glad to learn that other, more familiar, foods such as spinach and rhubarb both contain oxalic acid too.

"So how much is too much?" I hear you ask, well as long as you don't consume the predicted median lethal dose of 375 mg/kg body weight (about 25 g of pure oxalic acid for a 65 kg person), then you should live to forage another day!


A little bundle of zingy zangy common sorrel leaves,
just don't get greedy and OD!



However it's the oxalic acid that produces the wonderful acid-lemon flavour of wood sorrel. The same taste can be discovered hiding in the leaves of common sorrel (pictured) growing amongst nettles on many field edges. I gathered a few young common sorrel leaves yesterday and made leek and sorrel fritters for breakfast this morning (a simple recipe from Dennis Cotter's 'Wild garlic, Gooseberries and Me' exciting cook book). If the sound of this scrumptious snack doesn't secrete saliva then try using shredded sorrel leaves to liven up a salad, or to give some zing to an omelet or, better still, to garnish a fish dish... if you wish!

Stingless Sunday

If there is one edible wild weed that anyone can identify it has to be the notorious stinger. But before you rush out to collect the fresh, iron-rich, leaves that March has to offer, follow my 'Careful Collection Criteria':

1. Go out now, don't wait for spring to be over and for the nettles to flower. Once this happens the plant begins to produce microscopic crystoliths in the leaves which if ingested can interfere with kidney function...

The author glamorously
picking too close to the path.

2. Unless you like the taste of dog crap, choose your foraging spot wisely. Stray a little from the path but be vigilant for treacherous ankle stingers, which brings me swiftly on to point 3...

3. Wear protection! Sandals and shorts would be a bit... rash... but forgetting a pair of suitable gloves would be shear madness. A bright yellow pair of marigolds is my favoured armour but I'm sure the pink variety would do the trick too.

4. Take a friend to help.

5. MY MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE - Subtly get your friend to pick the first leaves in order to test the worthiness of your gloves.

6. Double bag your bounty to avoid a sting in the back on the way home.

7. Thoroughly rinse your perilous prize. Especially if you're a vegetarian as there are often little bugs hiding away in amongst your collection.

8. Find a decent recipe such as nettle soup, nettle ravioli or nettle and wild garlic (see previous post) risotto and show off your culinary skills to those brave enough to sample both stinging nettles and your cooking.

Wild Weekend

Bleating lambs fill the fields, fresh leaves bring colour to the naked trees and daffodils appear just in time for St David's day - spring has arrived! Well it has in sun-soaked Bristol, I can't speak for those further north who were still being showered with snow in early March!

This season of change is welcomed for many different reasons. As the temperature warms we pay less on heating bills, we migrate outside into our local beer gardens and a brave few even bare their long-hidden legs during a flip-flop parade around the first bbq of the year. For me spring signals the end of a foraging fast which began in early November after my last bounty of wild mushrooms. It's finally time to feast on nature's bounty once again.

Over the next few months I plan to receive as many strange looks from urban Bristolians as possible as I spend my weekends collecting various different 'weeds' from across the city for my culinary pleasure. And last weekend was no exception as my girlfriend and I walked through a typically snooty Clifton crowd with a bag full of freshly picked, pungent wild garlic.

  

Stinking Jenny, gypsy's onions, ramsons, Allium ursinum, whatever you call it wild garlic is a beauty and one of my favourite wild foods. Some know it as bear's garlic as it was said that hungry European bears awakening from hibernation in the spring would stuff their chops full of this leafy green in order to regain their strength and to cleanse their metabolisms. I'm not sure how much strength it provides but when you find a carpet of the stuff on a woodland floor it certainly cleanses your nostrils.

It's not uncommon to find far more
than is possible to collect!



The leaves are mild enough to be eaten raw and like an excited 7 year-old at a pick-your-own strawberry farm I couldn't help but chow down on a few leaves right there and then. Not only does the plant taste great but it possesses anticeptic qualities and helps to lower blood-pressure and cholesterol. The plant contains antifungal juices as well as repellent properties which have been used to deter insects and moles.

Once home my horde was soon turned into a vat of pesto with the assistance of some freshly picked basil, a handful of pine nuts, a glug or six of olive oil and the added bonus of some year-old pecorino cheese I'd brought back from Rome a couple of weeks ago. Stirred into some fresh home-made spaghetti it made for a wonderfully tasty, healthy, cheap and aromatic meal. It seems those aforementioned repellent properties also worked very well on my girlfriend the following morning.

Next forage - stinging nettles!

The coolest bums in the world - Part 1

The vinegaroon is a true monster of the animal world. Also known as a 'whipscorpion' this arachnid owns a pair of formidable claws and a tough exoskeleton, but it's the beast's rear end which gains it its name.

The eight-legged marksman has a slender pistol-like whip attached to its rear end by (for want of a maturer description) a bulbous knob! This strange structure acts as a revolvable gun emplacement that shoots acetic acid (vinegar) at unsuspecting predators, typically hunting ants. The purpose of this vinegar dousing is not to make other creatures taste nice, but so that they think twice about eating the eight-legged marksman.

But one shot just isn't enough, so the vinegaroon unleashes a second, sick-smelling acid (caprylic) upon its attacker which helps the vinegar to stick and persist to its victim. Imagine a friend has eaten too many chips at the sea-side and proceeded to vomit all over you, you'd be pretty reluctant to go near that mate any time soon!

So if you're scared of spiders, stop being a wimp and beware the whip instead...

First Fungal Forage

My pockets were bulging. One penknife, two cheese sandwiches, three identification guide books and countless old sweet wrappers from a previous adventure which now served merely as tantalising, mouth-watering annoyances as they rustled against one another.

The resinous aroma of pine needles and damp rotting bark gently lingered in the forest like a fine mist that fair September morning along the Cornish banks of the River Tamar. Somewhere deep in this ancient woodland hid my edible prize, mushrooms!

I felt like the trees were watching me with bemusement as I left the path and meandered my way quietly over and around their ancient buttresses. The charming call of a perched yellow hammer faded as I strayed further into the abode of the beasts I desired. 

Earth balls -
best left to the maggots!

As a less than terrible golfer I was well accustomed to scouring the undergrowth for small, round, white lumps; thus it wasn’t long before I had my first fungal find of the day. Various species of earth ball littered the ground, they were most certainly ‘out of bounds’ as far as I was concerned.

There were plenty of mushrooms to choose from as the sound of the river lured me deeper into the forest. Some looked like they’d been individually burnt around their edge’s, another had spongy spikes hidden underneath. My favourites were those whose inner flesh, on exposure to the air, changed colour almost as fast as the leaves above me changed their shadows in the gentle breeze.

A purple one! My eyes bulged as I became magnetised to the injection of colour sprouting a few centimetres above the sodden leaf litter. “Don’t touch it!” my Mother had always cautiously advised. Most sensible people would do the same but the naughty schoolboy within me had other ideas. I was committed that day, I wanted to eat it.

Despite being a wild mushroom consumer virgin I had some experience when it came to mushroom identification. There was no doubt that this lilac specimen was the Amethyst Deceiver, an edible species. However, putting something purple with such an unpalatable name into one's gob for the first time is no easy feat. Against cautious logic and reason, curiosity waged its war; I opened my mouth and took a bite.

Three amethyst deceivers - lunch!

A beauty! Who dares wins? Perhaps, although my victory was guided by the published works of several fungal experts. Which in turn makes you wonder, how many curious but ignorant people have tried and tested tantalising toadstools only later to have their name associated with that unmistakable guidebook description 'Deadly Poisonous!'

Monkey business

Approximately 5% of vervet monkeys become binge drinkers when offered booze. They down as much alcohol as they can before they eventually fall asleep. In contrast only one out of every seven vervets decide to stay teetotal when offered a tipple or two.

As far as I'm concerned this is yet more valid scientific evidence to prove that we are related to monkeys!

Shear Suicide

An innocent enough looking puffin...

All of a sudden our vessel entered into ornithological air-space. Lancaster gannets hugged the waves whilst miniature messerschmitts and spitfires darted past one another in the guise of razorbills and guillemots. My destination was the mile long island of Skokholm off the south west tip of Pembrokeshire, Wales. My fellow zoologist Theo and I were keen to explore this SSSI, partake in some leisurely wildlife photography and depart, hopefully free of bird poo, five days later.

Home to puffins, peregrines and petrels, ravens, razorbills and wrens, shearwaters, shellduck and shags, gannets, guillemots and gulls it is clear that birds find Skokholm an attractive place to live. Yet despite being thought of as chiefly an avian island we soon discovered many of the other beasts that reside there.

Glistening sea gooseberries, formidable spider crabs and baby pollack navigated the kelp forest in the calm waters of the landing bay. Wearing nothing more than a pair of pink and brown, Hawaiian-style boardies I braced myself and leapt into this cold underwater jungle. Within minutes a curious, young, grey seal began circling beneath me. Through my misted goggles I could just about make out her ghostly, white blotched belly, however, just like females of my own species, she kept her distance from my strange, white, gangly physique.

Clearly a beast of a slow worm!

We found no less than twenty-six individual slow worms tangled up and basking under sheets of corrugated iron near to our camp and I nearly squashed the first recorded cinnabar moth of the year as it dozed in the sun on a clump of wind-swept sea campion. The island was teeming with life of all shapes and sizes.

However, over the course of our visit it felt as though the avian inhabitants of this rocky outcrop were becoming increasingly hostile towards our mammalian invasion. It was on our third day that the first of a trilogy of attacks began.

Perhaps it mistook that hair cut
for a tasty rabbit..?

A rather plump and angry sounding lesser black-backed gull took offence at Theo photographing some razorbills and instantly began mobbing his head. After several gull dive-bombs Theo finally surrendered his position to the enemy, the birds had drawn first blood (metaphorically of course).

The second attack came under the cover of darkness. I had ventured out of my room to answer a call of nature. As I stumbled around I could hear the eerie sound of thousands of Manx shearwaters returning from a day’s fishing over the Atlantic. I had just finished providing the nettles with their periodic dose of nitrates when a kamikaze shearwater flew silently but rapidly into the side of my head. The sensation was not indifferent to the combined shock and pain experienced when walking into a lamp post (trust me I’ve been that victim... twice). I held my, now throbbing, right ear and just about heard the shocked murmurings of an embarrassed Manxie as it crashed into the freshly hydrated nettles. It wasn't there the next morning so I can only hope it found its burrow before the gulls found it.

One sand-eel sticky (and stinky) bomb.

I was starting to recognise that this island truly does belong to the birds, yet on the final evening as I began to photograph the comical yet charismatic puffins at Crab Bay I neglected any threat. As the sun began to set they were still busy ferrying tiny fish back to their hungry chicks which lay hidden in the vast network of burrows beneath our feet. One after another they would flash over my head like miniature clowns being fired from a cannon but as I tried to capture a snapshot of the action I found myself victim to the final bout of bird bullying. Stuck to the inside of my lens hood was no less than a silvery, half-squashed sand eel. One of the ‘charming’ little auks had dropped a fish bomb on me. Alfred Hitchcock eat your heart out!

What did you do when you were in India?

Monsoon rains quickly turned MCBT into a
croc-infested swimming pool

I regularly get asked this question from friends infected with that itchy condition known as the travel bug. However my answer is perhaps not as familiar as they may expect. I did not eat fish curry in Goa, nor did I fight through cosmopolitan crowds in Mumbai or marvel at the Taj Mahal, instead I found myself living side by side with toothed predators at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT).

This reptile zoo is approximately 45km south of Chennai, just north of the coastal tourist destination of Mamallapuram. Set in a miniature oasis of indigenous forest the ‘centre for herpetology’ is home to a vast collection of crocodilians including India's three native species, the extremely rare gharial, the enormous saltwater crocodile and the mugger. It was with this final member of the trio whom I would become personally acquainted.

I had arrived in southern India in October and been welcomed by its sticky, pre-monsoon climate. Each evening both staff and volunteers at MCBT would cool off with a swim in the Bay of Bengal, often at exactly the same moment the thunderclouds above released their pent up energy with violent bolts of lightning. After dark the excitement continued. Venomous snakes lay camouflaged in the leaf litter, malarial mosquitoes tested my insect repellent and stinging centipedes found their way under my sweat-sodden pillow each and every night.

Yet it was after a typical morning breakfast of egg and rice that a new peril presented itself. The larger adolescent mugger crocodiles in ‘Pen 8’ needed to be translocated before they started to gnaw on their younger siblings. I couldn’t help thinking that if a crocodile can get ideas about chewing on another leathery scaled beast surely it wouldn't think twice about trying to nibble a nice soft-skinned snack from Surrey!

Carrying a mugger in muggy weather
is not a mugs game!

Lassoing hungry crocodiles on an artificial island surrounded by a crocodile-infested moat armed only with a long stick is an adrenaline rush to say the least. By lunchtime we had already delivered ten of the biggest animals to their new enclosure. However it was with the last capture that things almost went terribly wrong. 

We had roped, leapt upon and bound the powerful jaws of a two and a half metre long female before three of us heaved her up off the ground. In synchrony we began to cross the metre-wide moat when, just as I had one leg on either side of the murky water, our passenger began to thrash. I lost my balance and felt myself begin to fall backwards, croc too. In a split second decision I plunged my naked foot into the water in an attempt to prevent my whole body being at the mercy of any submerged mugger lurking below.

Thankfully my foot collided with concrete rather than croc and after a quick count no toes had been eaten, or should I say mugged...

The largest resident at MCBT, a saltwater crocodile named JAWS III

Choo Choo, trains that run on poo

Train spotting is now far from boring; especially if you happen to be on holiday in Africa. Take a couple of bottles of your favourite beverage along with your foldable-chair into the tropical grasslands or forests then sit back and wait for this most spectacular of trains to arrive. If it fails to arrive on time do not worry, your chances of seeing this well waxed, sturdy-bodied beast can be improved by placing a small piece of fruit on the ground in front of you.
 

This is a train that runs not on wood, coal or electricity, but on dead and rotting vegetable material; it goes by the name of the Mombassan train millipede (Epibolus pulcripes). Newly formed models are said to be coprophagus, meaning they feed on the faeces of their parents. Sounds like a load of crap? Well this diet is actually highly beneficial for the young as their food has already be broken down for them and it now contains important bacteria from their parent's gut to aid in their own digestion.

But if more than one of these diplopods turns up at once then count yourself lucky. They tend to live solitary lives, only congregating at large succulent pieces of fruit or veg to feed or to mate. With two pairs of legs on each segment and increasing numbers of segments following moulting of their cuticular exoskeleton (yes, they are 'anamorphic'), mating may sound like tricky business. The reality is quite wonderful - sensual, passionate sex with no strings attached for the male following his climax. He is free to spread his seed to all those kinky females desperate to be rhythmically tickled by his countless legs and to those romantics in need of a cheeky bit of intimate coiling.
 

For the worn out female, her burden has only just begun as she now has to carry and raise her young all alone. Laying hundreds of eggs into small depressions in the ground she may then guard them until they hatch, before feeding them with her poo. After a period of quick growth, the young reach sexual maturity between the age of three and six years and by the end of their life may have grown up to 30cm in length. 

Such big, cumbersome herbivores may seem highly vulnerable to predation, but the millipedes have a secret weapon. On the underside of their bodies they possess repugnatorial glands which secrete toxic chemicals, including cyanide derivatives, to deter any unfortunate fool who thought he/she was going to get an easy meal.

Throughout their life they play an important role in the ecosystem as recyclers of nutrients from detritus back into the soil for the trees to use once again. Thankfully they are not threatened at present, but if this and other mini-beast recyclers were to be lost then, well you guessed it, passenger waiting times at Waterloo would be the least of our concerns!