Forage of Discovery
Law whiz quit 9-to-5 to supply wi by grandad who lived off the land Ld produce to top chefs... inspired d after escaping Nazi death camp
HER eyes comb the undergrowth and her hands deftly pluck mouth-watering treasures from the dense vegetation.
Emerging triumphantly with a handful of tiny fresh wild garlic leaves, Alysia Vasey knows it’s a good day for business.
The plant will fetch around £15 per kilo when she sells it on to Michelin-starred kitchens in London, where it will be eaten by wealthy diners with expensive tastes.
On a typical day in English woodland she might find spicy scurvy grass flowers, larch pine cones, sweet woodruff, ramson buds, hazelnut shoots, wild gorse and giant puffball mushrooms.
Business is booming for Alysia’s firm – Yorkshire Foragers. But for her, foraging is about far more than making a living.
Alysia owes her success to her grandfather who passed down skills he discovered for a very different reason.
Prisoners
Dan Szperka, now 93, was 14 when war broke out in his native Poland in 1939.
When he and his brother were found helping prisoners they were rounded up but managed to escape. The pair lived off the land for eight months as they evaded Nazi soldiers hunting them.
For them, foraging wasn’t fun – it was a matter of life and death.
Alysia, 49, explains: “My grandfather was living in Posen in German-occupied Poland with his family.
“They worked on the railways, where he and his brother would see Nazi soldiers transporting prisoners to one of the first death camps.
“The two of them tried to help the prisoners by giving them water or causing delays on the line for them to escape.
“But when the Nazis found out they rounded up the railway workers – including my grandad, his brother and his father.
“Luckily, grandad and his brother escaped when a fight broke out. Sadly his father – my great-grandad – was captured.
“My grandad didn’t find out until 40 years later that he was shot dead in the camp. Grandad and my uncle took cover in nearby woods where they lived for eight months, foraging wild plants to stop them going hungry. Eventually they met up with a Polish army platoon and fought with them against the Germans.” After the war Dan moved to England where he worked in a carpet mill in Calderdale, Yorkshire. There he met local girl Winnie and the couple married in 1949. As his family grew, Dan made sure his children and grandchildren picked up the skills they owed their very existence to. “Growing up, foraging was just part of our life and we never saw it as anything else,” said Alysia. “My family told me about grandad’s background. It was incredible but I just saw it as part of our family history.” Dan and Winnie still live in the same house where they brought up their four children. They have six grandchildren – including Alysia – and three great-grandchildren.
Dan remains reluctant to talk about his wartime experience, so it was Alysia’s mum Barbara who passed down the story.
But it took years for Alysia to go back to her roots. At 19, she joined the Royal Navy where she worked as an aircraft engineer on helicopters for five years.
Then she studied law and politics and was a finalist in a national competition to find the Lawyer of the Future. But office life did not suit her. “I just felt like I didn’t fit into that world. I did some work in law firms throughout my degree but it just didn’t feel right.”
Next she became a destination researcher for P&O Cruises. She said with a laugh: “I was sent to Norway, which was great at
first, but they kept sending me back. Eventually I felt I knew everything there was to know about Norway and I couldn’t face that any more.”
It was only 12 years ago that she realised her childhood foraging was the key to her future. Alysia had met husband Chris, 55, and was keen to stay in Yorkshire. “I had this idea to train my chocolate labrador Freddie to be a truffle hound,” she said. “I went out and planted some rogue truffle trees but while doing that I spotted some giant puffball mushrooms. So I put the information on a mushroom spotters’ website. I was contacted by someone called Mushroom Martin who sold this sort of thing to top London restaurants. “He was so impressed by the stuff I could get my hands on. And I realised there was a market for it. I did some research and discovered there are about 100 edible and marketable things we could pick from the area around us.
“Although I had a foraging background from childhood, to do it professionally I needed a whole new level of knowledge, so I spent months reading through all the books I could find.”
Alysia, Chris and other family members work from March to December.
But they don’t take away everything they find. “I try to take about 10 per cent of what grows,” she said. It is important to ensure there’s always enough for me the next year.
“Foragers have been accused of ruining the environment in the past, but it’s about nurturing the environment.”Alysia explained: “I’m not the typical forager. I turn up wearing sequins and the chefs are often confused, but I love every day of it.” Last year the company began producing a sustainable gin made from the foraged herbs and botanicals they find in the Yorkshire countryside. It is named Defiance in honour of her grandad. Alysia added: “It feels like a really appropriate tribute to my granddad, after what he went through as a young man. “He’s very elderly and frail now but he and the rest of my family are proud that I’ve taken something that was such a big part of our childhoods and make a success out of it.”
I take 10 per cent of what grows so there’s enough for next year