John Whitney eats his way through the Somerset lanes
We join renowned foraging expert David Hamilton for a gently meandering ride in North Somerset
For this magazine, Cheddar Gorge is a gift. As one of the best and most scenic climbs in the country, we’ve had countless photoshoots there, ride-outs with colleagues and friends and watched the Tour of Britain peloton float up it. Today would be a first, however. I’d be meeting David Hamilton there, a foremost foraging expert, for a ride in which we’d pick and eat our way along the lanes of North Somerset. Not quite gorge on them, but certainly nibble about the edges.
Dave’s latest book, Where the Wild Things Grow: A Forager’ s Guide to the Landscape, had just been published. The book, his sixth, is a guide that brings together over 25 years of knowledge of finding, picking, preparing and eating wild food. It’s broken down into four separate sections – man-made, rural, woodland and water – the distinct landscapes from where the abundance of wild food can be found. The idea behind today was to ride, carrying only the basics for a lunch and to forage the rest along the way. With bikepacking and multiday adventures a big facet of our riding in 2021, foraging, and the knowledge of what you can eat and just as importantly, what you can’t, is crucial for us as cyclists. Our meeting point would be Cheddar Gorge, but then we’d jump in our cars to our starting point on the Strawberry Line in Sandford, which would take us to coastal Clevedon, and back again.
Magnum opus
Foraging was relatively new to me. I’ve picked wild garlic and fruits, but always prepared them at home, so chowing down on plants on a roadside or pavement took a bit of a mental leap, especially in times like these where hygiene has never been more emphasised. With Dave’s promised meal in Clevedon, it’d have been bad form to arrive with jersey pockets over-stuffed with food, but I was also hesitant to rely on the unknown of what we picked for sustenance. So Dave’s opening words when we met in Cheddar were reassuring. “We’re heading to a nice park south of Clevedon. I know a van that’ll sell us a Magnum. I forage but I’m also not averse to an ice-cream.”
Dave really just wanted to show us one thing on Cheddar Gorge – salad leaf burnet – which grows on the grassy banks of the gorge. It has grown on the chalk-rich land of southern England for as long as people have been there
“I know a van that’ll sell us a Magnum. I forage but I’m also not averse to an ice-cream”