I've been reading a lot of articles lately (and most recently in the current Stylist magazine) about eating local, eating in season, and also about foraging for food. When we went skiing over new year, the friends we went with brought a few delicious bottles of sloe gin and plum vodka with them, and I was really impressed to find out that they had gathered all of the sloes and plums from Battersea Common and the surrounding area. They both, by the way, did a fabulous job of warming us up and giving me a little Dutch courage on the slopes and
I've always dreamed of having a vegetable patch in the garden, and just being able to go out and rummage around for something to add to your dinner, however my parents have a very big slug problem in their garden, and so everything I tried to grow growing up got severely munched, even before it was 5cm tall! Very disheartening!
Just over a month ago, a group of us went to stay in a friends gorgeous beach house in Wrabness (Essex). It was right on the beach, with only solar panels for lights at night, and water if we filled the tank up, it was peaceful and so relaxing. On our walk along the beach on the Saturday morning, the friend mentioned that there was a shipwreck which at low tide was completely exposed,and covered in mussels!! So we decided to go for a forage!
When we got there, we were a bit late and so the tide was more like knee deep and on its was in, but we had a lot of fun rummaging around and got a fantastic number of mussels to cook for dinner, along with a few whelks and one lonely oyster.
It was fantastic, adding in some cream, garlic and onions, we made a very professional looking dinner, and there was no way we could have had it any fresher.
There's something about eating food outside that makes it taste better, barbecues, camping, all food tastes better when you're outdoors, but when it's only been a few hours from sea to plate, it is unbeatable.
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