Caffeine free coffee made from roasted dandelion root actually tastes quite good, reminds you a bit of the old taste of chicory.

We are trying it out in a car park in Bollington Cheshire, under a hastily put together awning, the early morning rain just starting to clear, while playing a game of drawing a picture of a plant or leaf or flower blind, basing it on the description of our chosen partner.

This is foraging, the art of collecting and utilising the bounty of natural resources for food provision, a exercise prevalent up to the Second World War but which has, with 24 hours shopping and ingredients from around the world available at the mere touch of a button, fallen into disrepute, but now enjoying a resurgence as we start to think of food miles and locality. 

 The exercise is intended to educate on the intricate differences of plants, important when what we are about to pick is going to be served up for lunch.

This, as you ask is part of the young Masterchef programme bring run by the Podium Restaurant at the Hilton Manchester Deansgate who have launched a chef-mentoring scheme that aims to develop young emerging talent in the kitchen.

In charge of our group, James Wood of Totally Wild, Wild Food experimentalist who has been running these courses for five years now, wandering the lanes of Cheshire and soon we are, after some dos and dont’s on our way.

Within a couple of minutes, our first lesson, the humble Mugwart, run it in your hands and it smells of sage, it is claimed to have psychedelic properties , James’s tells us he friend claimed he dreamt of unicorns after drinking it as tea


Then the Silver Birch tree, in early March extract sap, five litres overnight if you leave it to drain and it doesn’t harm the tree, boil away 90% to get the syrup. We all try some and it and tastes  like maple syrup

In many of the bushes grows Japanese Rose, one of two rose varieties that grow wild, the flowers make a good syrup and its taster reminds one of Turkish delight.

There is plenty more, Sweet Sicily , a plant looking fairly similar to cow parsley, but from our earlier exercise we can tell the subtle difference, the root can be substituted in any recipe for fennel 

Then the humble dandelion, everywhere thus time of year, the earlier in the year the better, some restaurants, James tells, grow them forced as in rhubarb, for salads, the sap is being experimented on at the moment as an alternative to rubber in tyres while to investigate making tyres, the flowers can be made into a syrup, it has a honey flavour, while the flower buds can be cold pickled and taste, I can agree, remarkably like a caper.
There is plenty more, too much to write about but some other highlights, Vetch ( you might know it as sticky weed that you would stick to the back of your friends at school, has the taste of young pea shoots, the tips make a great salad, the greater plantain, the leaves not really good for salads but the early flower head is currently being marketed as an alternative to raw mushroom.
Maybe one of the commonest, elderflower, we collect them in our baskets and would latermake lemonade, four heads per litre for lemonade, or if you are more adventurous, one head per litre for wine, later the berries will make a great wine, says James, being full of tannins.

Fireweed, snap the tops off, and works as a substitute for asparagus, and Hogweed, the giant variety hasn’t had the best of press but the common variety’s new shoots have a crunchy taste not unlike celery, later as it goes into seed, it makes a great seasoning to make a celery salt and Ground elder, which  serves the same purpose, sometimes a little too fibrous but boiled makes a superb alternative for a salad.

Nettles everywhere, the early season leaves are a substitute for spinach, later when it goes to seed, James makes a seed nettle soup, and a nettle leaf latte using the powdered down leaf.
Brambles and blackberries are probably the most foraged plant, but have you tried the new green shoots? James has found a great new way of using them, sliced as fine as possible then pickled.

We return to base camp and the the young chefs are put to work, peeling, washing, slicing to create a lovely salad with our newly found ingredients, all served up with some wonderful bacon.

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