Families forage free food
Gathering wild food is child’s play for these families, who have taken the time to learn how, writes Thomas Heaton.
Nine-year-old Lewis Brown is an enthusiastic forager, always on the look out for an edible plant.
Lewis’ parents, Jacob Brown and Sarah Bullock, serve wildforaged foods in their Wellington restaurant The Larder, so keeping an eye out for what’s seasonal and growing wild has been instilled in their children.
Lewis is the youngest of three boys, and they all gather food from around their Miramar home and local beaches.
‘‘It kind of happens organically. We’ll go for a walk or for a run and then all of a sudden we’ll notice things around and we’ll start picking,’’ Brown says.
Bullock says it’s a good way to entice them to go for family walks, to pick peppery wild radish, tender nasturtium leaves, tangy oxalis or various mushrooms. Often it’s something Brown spotted while on one of his regular runs.
Brown says Lewis is ‘‘always on the case looking for things’’, even introducing friends to edible weeds around his school.
‘‘It’s funny because sometimes we’ll have their friends over for play dates, and they go home with stories for their parents about what they have tried,’’ Bullock says.
Their family forages inevitably turn into a competition to see who can pick or find the most edible ingredients.
The beach and sea are also ideal places to find things, where the family frequently goes over the holiday period, with trips to local beaches for sea lettuce and succulents around the fringes of the water and on the rocks.
Brown says the foraged succulents, which are often intense in flavour, are great to accompany dishes like steamed fish in salads.There’s also plenty of kina, pa¯ ua and mussels they can dive for.
The three boys will try anything their parents give them, Bullock says.
‘‘Then they make decisions whether they like it or not. That’s kind of what they’ve been born into really.’’
Partly that is about instilling a respect for their environment, Bullock says.
‘‘The things that are the freshest and tastiest, and best, are free and they are local.’’
Angela Clifford and Nick Gill’s children are being raised as hunter-foragers.
The family’s organic Waipara farm, aptly named The Food Farm, plays host to wild porcini and field mushrooms, which are gathered in autumn with much excitement. When they were younger the children could barely contain themselves as they squealed with excitement when fungi-hunting.
‘‘When they were little I reverted to telling them that the mushrooms would get scared and pop their heads under the ground,’’ Clifford laughs.
‘‘There are different things that we collect, depending on the season. Anything from elderflower in spring to seaweed in summer.’’