Foraging

When I wrote a few weeks ago that summer is hardly making itself apparent, I was of course talking nonsense. Even on the grey days, August is everywhere. It is there in the first mulberries off the tree at the back of campus. It’s there in the elderberries and rosehips growing dark purple and bright red on the riverside path to the university (where I even ran into a young red fox the other day). It is there in the sloes on the hedgerows along the estuary, in the insatiable mosquitoes, in the fields full of sunflowers on the hill overlooking the water.

It is so satisfying to pick a perfectly sweet plum from a tree lining the train tracks, or to spot some early blackberries, even stopping for a second on a long run to eat two or three. However overcast the sky might be, that’s unmistakably gloriously summer. Around here the banks of the estuary must have plenty to offer as well. In fact, it’s a very popular pastime amongst the local youth go crabbing – baiting lines and small mesh bags with bacon or chicken and excitedly declaring any specimen over a few centimetres “ginormous”. But there surely are plenty of wild edible greens around too – nettles of course, and tender leaves and flowers, but also samphire and sorrel, sea aster, borage and wild garlic, and probably dozens more that I would walk right by. (And fungi, obviously, lots of them, but I wouldn’t trust myself with those.) I’ve never really gone much beyond the fruit, but some day, I’d love to be learn enough to go out on a beautiful summer evening walk and pick my dinner while I’m at it. For the rest of the summer, though, it’s probably going to be mostly berries. I’ll have to find some time this weekend to go pick a punnet. Blackberry crumble, anyone?

Last week’s box: baby leaf spinach, broccoli, bunched carrots, kohlrabi, plum tomatoes, Portobello mushrooms, red oak leaf lettuce, courgettes, new potatoes.

This week’s box: Cambridgeshire short cucumber, beetroot bunch, carrots, celery, cos lettuce, runner beans, tomatoes, courgettes.

- Naomi