Every forager loves to postulate and hypothesise on relationship between weather, climate and what’s on the menu. Early springs, Indian summers, climate chaos…what’s going on?

Making flour from reedmace rhizomes and other roots and tubers is an activity that has being going on for millenia. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers would have used similar processes to those still used by aborigines today. The process is one of capturing and preserving starch in a digestible form. Have a go and get back to your roots!

The season for winter chanterelles and pheasants overlap and they compliment one another very well. Here is a hearty slow-braised stew that is perfect for late autumn and winter evenings…

Even if it wasn’t edible sea kale would still be my favourite plant. Its alien-looking purple shoots, sculpturesque leaves and clouds of nodding flowers are works of high art to intoxicate the senses and marvel the mind. As luck would have it, it also happens to be absolutely delicious, providing some sort of food for most of the year.

Reedmace is a foragers dream as it is one of the few wild plants that provide food all year long and is easily identified by its distinctive chocolate-brown cigar shaped seed heads. They grow in shallow loch sides and slow flowing water.