Magazine articles

(There aren't links to all of them yet - just the ones I've managed to get hold of.)
You may need http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/ or similar to read the pdf files.

All Country Kitchen articles courtesy of Country Kitchen magazine. Thank you Rachel.
All bushcraft articles courtesy of Bushcraft and Survival Skills
Magazine. Thank you Olivia.

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July/August, issue 34
Four Seaweedings and a Funeral
Seaweed straws
Green Sponge Finger tea
Oyster Thief
Furbellows
Raw haw jelly
Haw, crab apple and rowan jelly
Collecting great plantain seeds
Processing and cooking black bryony roots

NOTE: I omitted a crucial point in the green sponge finger tea. The seaweed should be pricked all over and soaked for several hours in 2-3 changes of fresh water before drying!

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May/June 2011, issue 33
Wild and Random
Making plant salts
Collecting and cooking sandhoppers
Elderflower bud pickle
Green walnut pickle
Common vetch peas
Green walnut liquere
Wild rose vodka

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March/April 2011, issue 32
The Irrepresible Dandelion
Dandelion and burdock beer
Pickled dandelion buds
Dandelion and orange curry
Dandelion tissane
Dandelion flower tempura
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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Jan/Feb 2011, issue 31
Working on Your Glutes
Rose hip pulp and seed bread
Conker bread
Sweet Chestnut bread
Arum bread
Seitan
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine
(Currently unavailable)

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Jan/Feb 2011, issue 30
Wild Literature: A review of wild food related books
Wild Food by Roger Phillips
Food for Free by Richard Mabey
Food from the Wild by Ian Burrows
Wild Food for Free by Jonathan Hilton
The Forager Handbook by Miles Irving
The Forager's Harvest by Samual Thayer
Nature's Harvest by Samual Thayer
Edible Wild Plants by John Kallas
Hedgerow by John Wright
Edible Seashore by John Wright
Wild Food by Ray Mears and Gordon Hillman
A Cook On The Wild Side by Hugh Fearnley-WhiTtingstall
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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November 2010, issue 29
IMPORTANT. READ THE FOLLOWING
BEFORE TRYING THESE RECIPES. CLICK HERE.

Cooking with Fly Agaric
Fly Agaric risotto
Tawny Grisette tempura
Blusher fagottinis
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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September 2010, issue 28
Late Summer, Early Autumn Salad
Perrenial wall rocket
Swinecress
Reflexed stonecrop
Sea purslane
Japanese rose hips
Marsh samphire
Purple-leaved hazel nuts
Duke of Argyle's tea plant
Beech nuts
Black nightshade
Ramsons bulbs
Crow garlic bulbs
Stag's horn sumac seed extract
Great plantain seeds
Hedge mustard seeds
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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July/August 2010, issue 27
Wild Summer Fruits
Darwin's Barberry
Stag's horn sumac
Mulberries
Japanese rose
Dog rose
Cherry plums
Dwarf cherries
Blackberries
Rowan berries
Elder berries
Red currants
Wild strawberries
Haw berries
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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June 2010, issue 26
The Art of Meristem Recognition
Dittander stems
Japanese Knotweed stems
Wild carrot stems
Alexanders stems
Cow parsley stems
Wild asparagus stems
Burdock stems
Hop top stems
Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine

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November 2010
Hottentot Figs
Hottentot Fig salad dressing (last article for Country Kitchen)

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October 2010
Himalayan Honeysuckle
Himalayan Honeysuckle berry fig-style rolls

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Sept 2010 (Unavailable)
Magic Mushrooms

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August 2010
Sun, sand and seaweed
Egg wrack seafood parcels
Chocolate seaweed nests
Seafood seaweed noodles
Jamaican Irish moss drink

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July 2010
Fruit for free! (wild cherries)
Hungarian wild sour cherry soup
Venison and pheasant marble terrine
100% wild cherry wine
Cherry chocolate mascarpone mousse

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June 2010
Seafood and eat it!
Goose Barnacles
Jellyfish
Sandhoppers
Squid eggs
Green walnut liqueur

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May 2010 (missing)
May time, playtime!
How to prepare local 'olives'
Leaf parcels and wraps (garlic mustard and lime leaves)
Wild dog rose petal conserve
Wild 'mangetout'
Tofu, avacardo and nettle smoothie

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April 2010
Cooking With Wild Plant Stems
Spear Thistle
Sea Aster
Burdock
Bristly ox-tongue
Hogweed
Sow Thistle
Alexanders
Fennel
Lady's Smock
Dittander
Sea Kale
Broad-leaved Dock
Japanese Knotweed
Wild Asparagus
Reedmace
Blackberry
Hop
Butcher's Broom coffee

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March 2010
Cooking With Nettles
Duchesse potatoes with nettles
Crispy fried nettle tops
Nettle souffle
Nettle and goat's cheese 'Kieves'
Nettle and St George's mushroom risotto
Chinese nettle dumplings
Nettle and goji leaf tea

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February 2010
Winter Salads (part 2) (missing)
Navelwort, hoary cress, sow thistle, sea aster, cow parsley, common mallow, English scurvey grass, reflexed stonecrop, adria bellflower, common dog-violet, pink sorrel, opposite-leaved golden saxifrage, charlock, ground-elder
Wild carrot and wood avens coffee

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January 2010
Winters Soups (part 2)
Spicy sea buckthorn and carrot soup
Burdock and parsnip soup
Sorrel and chickweed soup
Laver consomme
Field blewit and wild garlic soup
Reedmace and leek soup
Dandelion and burdock coffee

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December 09
Candying Wild Foods
Candied chestnuts, alexanders stems, green figs, sea holly roots, rosehips, green and red blackberries
Marrons glace
Wild food mince pies
Alexanders liqueur slush (in lieu of a better name)

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November 09
Dock, alexanders, nettle and hogweed savoury pancakes with wild mushrooms
Bullace plum, rosehip and wild apple upside down cakes
Stag's horn sumac tea

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October 09
Nut Foraging
Wild mushroom and soft walnut pate
Nut yoghurt
Acorn pastry
Irish style sweet chestnut coffee

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September 09
Smoking Wild Foods
Smoked trout, sea bass, bread, oysters, seaweed, marsh samphire, eggs, cheese, parasol mushrooms, chestnuts, wild garlic bulbs, chanterelle mushrooms

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August 09 (missing)
Cooking With Seaweeds
Deep-fried seaweed
Shallow-fried sea lettuce with burdock root
Sand-oven baked, laver-wrapped and fennel-dressed sea bass
Seaweed crisps
Wild cherry carragheen pannacotta
wild cherry gin

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July09
Making Leaf Curd
Wild garlic curd tagliatelli with St George's Mushrooms
Bilberry leaf kombucha tisane

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June 09
Pickling With Wild Foods
Pickled jelly ear fungus
pickled dandelion buds
pickled burdock root
pickled chanterelles
pickled fennel and reedmace hearts
pickled dittander stems

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May 09
Cooking with Japanese Knotweed
Japanese knotweed and dwarf quince crumble
Pot roast pheasant with knotweed, chestnuts and wild mushrooms
Nettle and yarrow beer
Knotweed and strawberry wine

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April 09
Collecting and using birch sap

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March 09 (missing)
Winter Salads (part 1)
Chickweed, Ox-eye Daisy, Common Daisy, Common Sorrel, Wood Sorrel, Sea Purslane, Alexanders, Hairy Bittercress, Dandelion, Gorse flowers, Winter-cress

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February 09
Winter Soups (part 1)
Spicy rosehip and beetroot soup
Creamy alexanders and celeriac soup
Cleavers soup
Seaweed soup
Wild mushroom soup

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January 09 (missing)
Sea Buckthorn
Sea buckyhorn meringue pie
Sea buckthorn cheesecake
sea buckthorn sorbet

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December 08 (missing)
Wild food Christmas gifts (part 2)
Rosehip syrup
Rosehip vodka
Rosehip liquor chocolates (the daft way)
Dried mushrooms

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November 08 (missing)
Wild food Christmas gifts (Part 1)
Hawthorn, crab apple and rowan jelly
Hawthorn and hazelnut squares
Walnut chockolates
Pickled wild garlic bulbs

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October 08 (missing)
Fungi fun for beginners
Cooking with Giant Puffball fungus

?..or, to be more inclusive, human beings cannot live by bread alone. True? Maybe. Certainly we need to be more inclusive in terms not only of gender or, of course, varied diet, but also in regard to our other needs for self expression ? through music, poetry and art, as well as with respect to a whole plethora of other social, psychological and, no doubt, spiritual needs. However, the question that really interests me concerns wild food. Susan Campbell, in her paper, The Hunting and Gathering of Wild Foods: What?s the point? An Historical Survey  - a paper delivered at Oxford and reprinted in Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2004: Wild Food, poses the dilemma quite succinctly when she states, ??.nor have I yet met anyone who could convince me that modern man could subsist on wild food alone, legally or illegally, the year round, in a northern climate.? The question and the challenge, then, stand: Can a person live by wild food alone? There is only one way to answer such a question and that is by actually attempting to do so. However, a further question presents itself: Why would anybody in his or her right mind wish to attempt such a thing?
      Having utilised wild foods in my diet for a considerable number of years, I know that the sheer variety and range of what is generally available is quite astonishing. Such a vast myriad of both familiar and more exotic flavours, textures, and unique nutritional dietary contributors means that, given sufficient availability, it would surely be theoretically possible to live on wild food alone. Well?? that remains to be proved by the possible sweat and tears of actual practice. Nevertheless, addressing the question, ?why?? , is at one and the same time to address those less tangible needs which, at the outset, it was admitted that without which we could not live. This is because eating wild food is not just about nutritional sustenance; it?s a lifestyle choice. That choice is in part a personal and practical answer to various disagreements I have with the world, the way it is, or rather, the way it is as an outcome of our interaction with it; the way it is, the way we are, but don?t have to be ? culturally, socially, economically and, of course, environmentally??????.

      I?ve been thinking for two weeks now about carrying out the practice: living from only wild food a whole month and have decided to begin on the 30th of June ? just a few days away now. I?m even going to subject myself to a battery of medical tests tomorrow morning. However, as the day itself approaches the likelihood of success seems to do the opposite, retreating instead into the far distance. In the first place, I am so ludicrously busy at the moment that I barely have time to think about cooking a meal, let alone producing one from wild food. In the second place, I thought that although it?s mainly leaves and seaweeds that are available now, this wouldn?t be a problem because, no doubt, I could always top up any nutritional deficit with a choice piece of roadkill; that was, until I had lunch with a friend ? the sparkling Aglaia, She claims to be able to sniff out meat eaters from across the room. Actually, her method is more visual. Apparently it?s the dull eyes - compared with the bright sparkling eyes of the vegetarian - that?s the tell tale give away sign. Is it the shadow of death that dulls the inner flame, a corrupting of the soul to its very core or merely the sluggish arterial flow of stupefying saturated fats that deadens the vital light? Who knows the answer to such an imponderable question? All I do know is that after a few months of poor health ? I fell in the woods carrying birch sap and really put my back out, what could be better than to start sparkling again? So, meat of any sort is completely off the menu ? for now.
     Of course, referring back to the quote from Susan Campbell, there is no doubt I can, as she says, ?subsist?. Yet subsistence carries the implications of just getting by, of the bare necessities, of surviving, being alive, but alive only to a paltry kind of mere existence. Perhaps for a month such an existence ? given no other commitments, could prove to be a liberating and nature-engaged escape from the day-to-day grind of work related toil. However, for me those commitments do exist (they?re not all toil fortunately). No, I want to live fully, to be nothing less than a whole man, to transcend the everyday, to feel the struggle of the impossible and know that it can be surpassed. A month of wild food will be hard. I will learn that I?m sure. However, to really rise to the challenge I must embrace the whole year and its generous seasons. Only then will I know if it is possible to live by wild food alone.

     The coming month will be a preliminary study for a wild food year ? beginning later this year. I will be writing a daily blog about how things are going over the coming month. If you are interested please return to this page which I will be updating every day.
     Now, time to go for an invigorating walk in the glorious lightening, thunder and rain??..