FREE for all
There’s nothing more satisfying than creating something delicious from the opulent, rich and free ‘supermarket’ that is our country, writes Nadia Lim.
It never ceases to amaze me how much free food there is around if you seek it out with an opportunistic eye. This week, I collected a heap of watercress and elderflowers, and entire valleys in Central Otago are carpeted in the lilac flowers of wild thyme right now. It’s perfect for picking to dry and store.
Mushrooms are also popping up all over the farm. Field mushrooms grow in the paddocks and birch boletes can be found under and around birch trees.
I haven’t explored other mushrooms much yet because I am still cautious in case there is a chance I get it wrong.
But how convenient that the boom of wild thyme and mushrooms coincides with a boom in rabbits. They combine so well in a mushroom and thyme rabbit casserole.
The watercress went into a soup with kūmara and onions, and a dollop of creme fraiche.
There are more elder trees than you can count on the farm and surrounding area. They are considered a weed to many, but once you make and try elderflower syrup, you won’t view them that way.
Around Christmas, the flowers drop and you are left with elderberries, which continue ripening throughout summer.
By late summer/early autumn, the berries are a dark, deep maroon-purple. We will pick as many as we can, and boil them with honey and thyme to make a switcher or tonic to ward off colds throughout winter.
What I am really looking forward to though, are the wild berries. Gooseberries, which thrive in the colder climate, will arrive first. I love heading out with a basket to fill to the brim, though I always come away with battle scars.
The redcurrants will also be about soon, just in time for a Christmas pavlova.
The really exciting time for free food shopping is autumn, when we will pick more wild apples, chestnuts, walnuts, and blackberries than we know what to do with. And there will be plenty of wild venison on the menu, too.
In truth, I do not get time to go foraging, collecting and hunting, as much as I would like.
Instinctively, I know wild food must have beneficial properties, and there is great satisfaction in creating something nourishing and delicious from something that would have not been used otherwise.
I find it curious that, on the whole, we do not place much value on these wild food sources. Is that because they are free? Maybe it is the lack of knowledge around what is available, or the lack of time to collect it, and it is easier to shop at a supermarket.
It’s probably also our taste buds, which have become less accustomed to stronger tasting wild foods.
These food sources are inherently renewable and sustainable, returning every year without lifting a finger.
We have, in fact, been toying with the idea of establishing pockets of perennial food forests on our farm. I imagine once it gets going, wild asparagus, fennel and berry bushes would take off and we could harvest annually.
More generally, it would be wonderful to see more free food around for all to harvest and appreciate, such as fruit trees at every school, at parks, and on berms in cities. Berry bushes as hedgerows on farms, pockets of wild greens, and more of an appreciation for wild meat that I have written about in the past.
Keep an eye out for elderflowers in bloom, and stop and take a few minutes to cut off some big bunches and make this elderflower syrup.