Name: Spring Forest & Hedgerow Foraging Walk, Glasgow
Availability: InStock

Description

A guided foray exploring the delicious, healthy and surprising array of edible plants and fungi available in Spring, with a wild cook-in of our finds in the woods afterwards.

April is a thrilling time for foragers, with the sap rising in trees and springs shoots at their vibrant best. Highlights of the day will include birch tapping (though there is no guarantee that the sap will be at full flow on the day!), spring fungi, early shoots & blossoms, an introduction to fermenting wild greens, how to build a wild cocktail cabinet, and a cook-in in the woods. This is a great time of year to tune in to wild food resources for the year ahead. Both novices and experienced foragers looking to increase their repertoire will enjoy this event.

Family friendly – 1.5 miles easy walking for all ages. As with all Galloway Wild Foods events, this walk is guided by Mark Williams who has been teaching about foraging for over 25 years.

Read, listen, watch more about foraging with Mark

Time/Date: Saturday, 30h March 2019, 1pm – 6.00pm

Meeting Place: Mugdock Country Park Visitor Centre, G62 8EL. Meet at the benches on the car park side of the visitor centre. Mugdock Park is large and has several car parks – our meeting point is on the NW of the park where the main visitor centre and garden centre are located. I strongly recommend you look at the map in the attached tab, and plan your route in advance.

Expect: Gentle walking on well made paths over 3 hours followed by and informal al-fresco cook-in of our finds. There will be wild treats and tasters to enjoy throughout.

Learn: Early Spring hedgerow plants and fungi (usually at least 30 species) and how to tap a birch tree. Finding, identification, poisonous lookalikes, mindful harvesting, expert tips, folklore/traditional uses, modern gourmet/medicinal uses, nutrition, processing, recipes, cooking tips. Inevitably, the wider politics around foraging and food will come up too. When time and weather allow, we lay out and label our finds to serve as a souvenir and aide-memoire of the afternoon’s discoveries.

Eat/drink: I think it is important to bring the wild foods we encounter to life by not just talking about them, but by eating and drinking them. To this end, in addition to the cook-in at the end, I carry a very hefty bagful of lovingly prepared treats, tasters and tipples to share during the walk. These are both delicious and educational, and the walk is more like guided grazing, a gentle imbibing of the landscape, than a route march! Often we will make a cocktail of the plants we encounter and drink it in a beautiful spot. The cook-in afterwards serves as both an al-fresco cookery demonstration and a social time to eat together and digest the afternoon’s discoveries with new friends. While I don’t bill this as a full meal, we usually share several dishes and most people leave well filled. All dietary requirements can be catered for, provided you let me know when you book.

Bring: Stout footwear, waterproofs, water. Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing camera, notebook, field guide (plants), small basket/cloth bag. If you make any foraged delights you wish to share with the group, please bring them along!

Places are limited and events usually sell out fast – booking is essential.

Gift vouchers are available here

If you already have a gift voucher it can be used to pay for this event (in whole or in part) at the checkout.

Please read the following information before booking a Galloway Wild Foods event.

This information applies only to events booked on this website. When booking events involving GWF anywhere other than on this website, the terms and conditions of the vendor apply, which may be different from the following.

Galloway Wild Foods is under no obligation to refund or rebook for no-shows or cancellations within 2 weeks of the event.

In the unlikely event that an event is cancelled by GWF you will receive full refund, exchange or voucher.

The only weather that causes events to be cancelled is dangerous wind. In these instances you will be notified as early as possible.

Please provide the following information for all members of your party in the “Additional Information” box on the payment page :

Medical conditions
Mobility issues
Eating restrictions – differentiating between preferences (e.g. vegetarian), intolerances (e.g. gluten intolerance) and serious allergies (e.g. peanut allergy). All requirements can usually be catered for, but these differentiations are required for risk assessments.

Please ensure that all members of your party come suitably dressed for the weather, season and event.

On all walks, for your comfort and safety, walking boots/wellies, waterproofs and spare clothes are necessary. I always recommend wellies for coastal foraging events – you are likely to get wet feet if you don’t have them!

Please bring your own drinking water.

Your learning and enjoyment may also benefit from bringing a camera, notebook, field guide, small basket/cloth bag. Feel free to bring along any of your own wild food preparations to share and talk about.

My very friendly, calm dog often accompanies me on guided walks. He is not a distraction, and often adds to the entertainment as he tends to like to copy my foraging antics! If you have a specific aversion to dogs, please check with me before booking. The one thing that makes him more of a handful is other dogs (he will constantly want to play with them), so I generally can’t allow other dogs as it can become a distraction.

Please contact mark on mark@gallowaywildfoods.com or 07900 692 478 if you have specific questions that are not answered here, or if you are running late on the day.