Foraging for Wild food

I have a soft spot for foraging as it reminds me, as I'm sure it does many other people, of childhood trips to hedgerows laden with berries and abandoned orchards creaking with the weight of apples, pears and plums. As a child I spent many a day up a tree dropping the best apples to the less agile of the scrumping party below. These days it's me catching the fruit as common sense has, unfortunately, set in and has me firmly rooted to the ground.

Since coming to Ireland, and with the exception of a one off trip to Howth for mushroom collecting with the Slow Food society (highly recommended), I've cautiously stuck to picking wild blackberries and strawberries. This year though I've branched out (excuse the pun) to elder flower, elder berry, plums and this weekend, weather permitting, I'm off to the wicklow hills with The Irish Raw Living Food Meetup Group led by Geraldine Rothwell - a naturopath and nutritionist. I found this trip on a great site called Meetup.com and would encourage everyone to come along.

Elder flower cordial - full recipe

Pick the whitest, freshest looking flowers you can find and don't forget to leave a good few on each plant otherwise you'll have no berries later in the year.

When picking try to avoid those at dog height and pick as little greenery as possible.

Zest of 4 lemons etc

2lbs sugar and 3 pints of boiling water into something large enough to safely hold that amount of hot syrup.

Stir and leave until cool.

Grate and slice 4 lemons.

Pick the big bits of stalk off the flowers and give the flower heads a rinse in cold water.

Add the zest and slices plus 50g of citric acid (which you can buy in any good chemist) stir and then add the elderflower heads.

Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to brew for 48 hours.

Then strain through a muslin cloth into a clean bowl.

Pour into sterilised bottles and enjoy.