Top 10 Winter Wild Food Finds
10. Lady's Smock
Lady's Smock, also called Cuckoo Flower, is a flowering plant native throughout most of Europe. The Latin specific name pratensis means "meadow", Which is where you're most likely to find this little gem of a herb. Lady's Smock has a wonderful flavour, being at first sweet, fruity and voilet-like, followed by a wasabi-like burning heat. The flowers, stalk and leaves are all edible and make a fantastic and pretty addition to any dish, used either as a garnish or herb.
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9. Gorse
Gorse always reminds me of happy spring weekends as a boy at my Nan and Grandad's caravan in Cumbria. Although they regularly flower throughout the year, these prickly bushes are at the fullest around about Easter time. Easy to spot and very abundant in hedgerows and field edges, the flowers of the Gorse bush are absolutely beautiful and smell delightful with their coconut aroma. They can be strewn over a salad as a garnish, but are mostly used to make a sweet, refreshing tea.
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8. Plantain
Common Plantain, also known as Broad Leafed or Greater Plantain, is a species of flowering plant in the plantain family. Considered a very common garden weed, it grows on lawns and fields, along roadsides, gardens, and in other areas that have been disturbed by humans. The whole plant is edible, with the young, tender leaves eaten raw, and the older, stringier, leaves boiled in stews, much like spinach. The young buds can also be cooked and eaten, tasting a little like asparagus.
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7. Chickweed
Chickweed is extremely common in gardens and is often considered a noxious weed that needs to be removed. On the contrary, chickweed is a fantastic edible, with a delightful apple-skin crunch that's perfect in a salad, soup, pesto or just served sauteed with butter. It can also be found all year round!
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6. Common Sorrel
Common Sorrel, also called narrow-leaved dock, is a very common herb found mostly in grassland habitats, but is also cultivated as a garden herb or salad vegetable. The shiny, green-to-reddish leaves of this plant may be puréed in soups and sauces or added to salads and pastries such as tarts. They have a flavour that is similar to sharp, sour apple skin, due to the prescence of oxalic acid. Common Sorrel is very hardy and can be found all year-round.
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5. Oyster Mushroom
Oyster Mushrooms are an easy to identify and sought-after edible mushroom that is part of a very large family of fungi that are widespread in the UK and Europe. They can be found on dead or dying wood all year round, and have a lovely taste and texture which works very well in East Asian dishes, soups, or mixed mushroom recipes.
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4. Scarlet/Ruby Elf Cups
Scarlet / Ruby Elfcups are one of the true winter mushrooms, spouting from dead or decaying wood between November and April. They are also extremely beautiful things, being a deep red circular cup that stands out from the forest floor making them very easy to spot. This is quite a tasty mushroom and can be added to a range of mushroom dishes.
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3. Winter Purslane
Winter Purslane, also known as miner's lettuce, Indian lettuce or spring beauty, is a tender, rosette-forming plant that grows to about 30 cm in height. It produces small, five-petalled pink or white flowers which appear from February to June and grow above a pair of leaves that are connected together around the stem so as to appear as a single circular leaf. The common name miner's lettuce refers to how the plant was used by miners during the California Gold Rush, who ate it to prevent scurvy. The whole plant is edible, with the exception of the roots, and is often added to salads or used as a pot-herb or spinach substitute.
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2. Hairy Bittercress
If you go out into your yard or garden, chances are that you find this plant in a pavement crack or in one of your plant pots. Hairy Bittercress is extremely common and is suprisingly tasty, having a slightly peppery, slightly bitter flavour. It's great as a cress substitute, so is wonderful in a soup or stew, or even on an egg mayo or roast beef sandwich!
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1. Winter Chanterelle
Found in both coniferous and deciduous woodlands between August and December, the Winter Chanterelle, or Yellowlegs Mushroom, is a smaller relative of the Golden Chanterelle, and as such, has a reputation for being an extremely tasty culinary mushroom. As one of it's common names suggests, the Winter Chanterelle has a great ability to withstand the cold, and can even survive the first frosts. This makes it a true winter mushroom that can be found thriving as late as November and even December.
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