 Bristly oxtongue tempura, cooked over open fire.
Bristly oxtongue is often treated as a weed. The spiny tongue-shaped leaves look and feel like sandpaper, but when young they are juicy and milky, with a soft bitter flavor. We aim to include wild ingredients like this on our team building and leadership development programmes. Ingredients for the tempura batter Flour Sparkling water Method Dip bristly oxtongue leaves into batter. Drop into hot vegetable oil. Fry til golden brown all over. with @michael.cutting.forager #campfirecooking #wildcooking #wildfoods #wildfoodlove #foraging #stanmerpark #brighton  Mike the forager shows the difference between greater plantain and ribwort plantain (plantago) - both are useful medicinal and edible wild plants. Tastes a bit shroomy. #rewildyourlife #natureisamazing #wildherbs In Spring, when you’re still shaking off winter and haven't quite fully moved on from the roast potatoes to salads, you need food, tonics, and remedies that support your body's kick start. It's no coincidence that Nature provides just the medicine you need, at just the right time, These 10 bitter wild plants are part of Spring's natural medicine chest that are just what your body needs to throw off winter's sluggishness: they're pungent, spicy, warming and cleansing to get your system going again, says herbalist Alice Bettany. So if your team are struggling with Spring coughs and colds, try some of these - they're easy to spot and prepare.  
Venue: Saddlescombe Farm, E. Sussex
Date: Sunday 5th February 2017 Time: 9.30am to 5.30pm Facilitator: Rebecca Card No of participants: 7 Hypothesis: When you create a ceremony with intention, something mysterious happens and the things that occur in the ceremony reflect what's happening on the inside, and are symbolic - call it synchronicity, the Wyrd, the Mystery - which is helpful, nourishing and gives rise to useful insight. Method: Set up an altar, sit around it in a circle. Everyone shares their personal story, authentic as you are able is helpful. Listen to each other, then go off for a solo walk in nature, choosing our own threshold. On returning, share story of what happened, reflections from the guide and other participants clarify and embed what happened.  I was sitting on Dartmoor last weekend, as part of a Medicine Walk, a solo walking ceremony that turns the land into a mirror for your inner world.
The weather on Dartmoor was gorgeous. The flowering gorse and gnarly hawthorn trees reminding me of the Downs, with similar stunning views across green fields towards the coast. I’ve got a bit hooked on Medicine Walks after being introduced to them by Rebecca Card, and then running them with her on the Downs around Devil’s Dyke. I have no idea how they work, but something unexpected, insightful and magical always seems to happen to me: from finding special trees and features in the landscape that resonate with themes in my life, to strange synchronicities that have made me laugh out loud. (Read more about Medicine Walks here. We’re doing another one in June if you fancy it.) It’d been a long journey to get to Dartmoor from Brighton. I’d used the car's satnav and when I arrived I didn’t really have a sense of where I was until I spotted navel wort - a wild edible plant that I discovered the last time I was in Devon. Navel wort grows in the walls of Devon’s lanes - it’s crunchy and refreshing, a bit like a cross between bean sprouts and cucumber… I ate some as I started walking and it instantly made me happy, and I felt more plugged in to where I was. Navel wort doesn’t grow in Sussex, but there are lots of other great edible wild plants that are greening the hedgerows and lanes of Sussex at the moment. If you’re interested in learning how to find them, we’re running Forage with your Senses with Mike Cutting in Stanmer Park on April 23rd. You’ll learn to identify hogweed, celandine, plantain, cleavers... and you’ll get to taste some of them around the fire afterwards too. Before then I’m also really looking forward to Befriending the Dark on Sat April 15th. It’s a guided night walk without torches over the South Downs, with Caroline Whiteman. I walked the route with Caroline a few months ago. It was enchanting. Away from the busyness of the world, and in the darkness, you really tune into the stillness of the night, the tastes and smells in the air, the touch of the ground under your feet, and feel of breeze the on your skin... I can’t wait. Maybe see you there. Nigel x |
Author & CuratorNigel Berman is the founder of School of the Wild. |
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