HUNTER-GATHERING: wild & fresh food

Squirrel & Hedgehog Pasties.

This time of year is easy pickings if you are a squirrel eater, the springy little buggers are bouncing across woodlands across the country desperately trying to stock up on us much fruit and nut before winter really kicks in, so what better time to lock and load the old 12 bore and go in search of supper?

Squirrel eating, despite having bad press to begin with from early thriftonomists, has become rather trendy in the last year, I was a bit surprised to hear from a friend that a supermarket had begun selling squirrel (I don’t tend to read newspapers or watch TV for fear of depression or anxiety!), so I had a look online expecting it was some sort of stunt by Waitrose only to see that Budgen’s had pipped them to the post (now that really was a surprise).

Tree Houses this Sunday at Parham House Foraging Day: come see me!

This weekend I will be signing books and doing treehouse workshops at Parham House Autumn and foraging day: I was there last year and it was a super day out packed with all sorts of country shenanigans, I might even show you how to make my potent Nettle brew...

"Nick Weston, Hunter, Gatherer and Cook will be on hand to relate his experiences of living for a year in a tree-house in a Sussex woodland. If you fancy having a go and building one yourself, he will be holding a tree house workshop aimed at teaching children (and even adults) the mechanics by building a mini replica of his own tree house! He will also be promoting and signing copies of his book, The Tree House Diaries, as well as doing a home brew demonstration of nettle beer."

Come along!

Mushroom ID 101: Video- How to find Hedgehogs and Cauliflowers.

                

Wow, what a mushroom season! As I have been spending plenty of time grubbing about the woods in search of something tasty for tea, I though I would take the vid cam out and try and capture some of my amateur tips for the amateur mushroom hunter. Now, I will make it clear, I am certainly no Mycologist, but I have managed to feed myself fairly well over the years, but then wheres the fun in being an expert anyway? There's nothing new to learn! 

My approach has always been to start with the fungi that can't be confused with anything that will dissolve your internal organs...like what almost happened to Mr.Horse whisperer a few years back. If you arn't certain of what the mushroom is, then don't put it anywhere near your lips! Simple as that. 

I hope that this little vid will help with finding 2 of my favourite 3...the other being ceps. The hedgehog has always been a favourite as it was the first foraged mushroom, gastronomically speaking, that I managed to find. Still trying to find my feet as a cameraman, but if nothing else this should be an entertaining jaunt through the Sussex undergrowth!

 

Untitled from Nick Weston on Vimeo.

 

Any Good? I do hope you enjoyed it! 

Moving to France: A year in Providence…

“Appelle moi! C’est pour vous!”

The shout above the crash of the surf combined with the water gradually draining out of my ears could have meant one of two things: either he said ‘pour’ or ‘pas’, to be frank, I had absolutely no fucking idea what he had said anyway, my grasp of the native tongue has progressed little since my GCSE’s. All I could do was nod my head and say ‘Pardon’ in my best accent and hope that I had not angered a local lad while I memorized the sentence to enter into Google translate later, the wonders of modern technology...

Thankfully my knowledge of the rules of etiquette when out surfing in the line-up are a little better than my linguistics, I had been pretty confident it was my wave, I was clearly closest to the peak and, as it turned out, whilst at the mercy of the internet later, I had been right: the Frenchman was merely saying “Call me, It was yours…”

I knew it, perhaps these Frenchies aren’t all that complicated after all?