So, we all know (or should know) that every part of the Yew tree is highly toxic to humans. When I say highly toxic, what I mean is that a very small amount can kill you. All parts contain taxin, a complex of alkaloids which are rapidly absorbed.
If you are poisoned by it, sometimes there are no symptoms, followed by death within a few hours. Where there are symptoms, they include trembling, staggering, coldness, weak pulse and collapse.
Now that I’ve scared the living daylights out of you, there is one part that is not toxic. See those pretty little red berries, the red flesh is not toxic, and is also quite nice and sweet tasting; However, the hard, dark-coloured seeds inside, have probably the highest concentration of toxins of the whole tree. It is said that if unbroken, the seeds will pass through you without being digested and without causing harm.
I’m not sure it’s worth the risk, personally. However, I have been known to pick a few and spit the seeds out. The flesh is really quite nice (although I have heard some people compare the texture to snot – but I couldn’t possibly comment).
I’m assuming that it’s for for safety’s sake that there are no recipes for yew berry flesh, or even many instructions to tell you the safe way of eating them. After all, I could easily imagine someone seeing other people eating them and assuming that they’re completely safe, followed shortly afterwards by a trip to the hospital, or the morgue!
That said, I decided that I would have a play with the flavours and some spirits to see if anything gave good results. Maybe some kind of yew liqueur?
The first step is to separate the flesh from the poisonous seeds. I tried to freeze them first to make it easier, but they didn’t freeze very well, so it was a quite disgusting manual job. The squeezed flesh went quite sticky.
So finally, I split the berry flesh into three portions and put them into some clean, sterilized Kilner-type jars. Over each, I then poured filtered white rum, filtered gin, and filtered vodka. Then I left them to sit and infuse (hopefully), giving them a helpful little shake each time I passed by.
So, after infusing for 2 weeks now, so it was time for a little try. At this point, the spirits had started to sweeten slightly, but not much change to colour or flavour.
After 4 weeks, things had moved on somewhat, so I strained and bottled the infusions.
Now you can see that not only have they taken on slightly different colours across the different spirits, but also I’ve ended up with slightly different amounts of end product, despite the fact that they started with the same volume of berries and spirits.
First of all, they are all quite nice. The berries have imparted a slight sweetness, some of their stickiness has come through and made the spirits thicker and smoother, and there’s a very subtle citrus berry flavour.
However, one stands out above the rest. The Gin infusion seems to have worked very well. It’s nice to drink on its own, and if we hadn’t drunk it all it would probably go quite well in a cocktail. Maybe I’ll make it again this year, but try to save some for cocktail experiments, or make some more!
I was out for a wander in deepest Essex recently and I came across a patch of land where Wild Carrots (Daucus carota) seem to thrive. You can barely take a few steps without tripping over some.
Anyway, I wasn’t entirely prepared, but I did a quick video on my phone so I could show them…
I ended up gathering quite a few, along with some hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta). The bittercress tastes exactly the same as cress that you might buy from a supermarket (although all the sweeter for being free!).
What to do with these diminutive, white carrots?
Firstly, the smaller, younger ones can be eaten raw (and I did), and they make a really nice, sweet snack.
Next, I quickly boiled a couple of the larger, tougher ones. Unsurprisingly, they tasted just like supermarket carrots, but somehow better.
Then I chopped a few of the roots and some of the leaves into a salad, which was served with a spaghetti Bolognese (which also had a few wild carrots in it).
Finally, I now have a handful of roots macerating in Vodka. I’m hoping that the sweet carrot smell and taste are going to come through.
One for the future, some kind of foraged carrot-cake?
I was out for a walk around the Lee Valley last night, particularly looking out for Elderberries and Yarrow for some home-brewing projects I have planned. I found what I needed, but I could help also noticing the huge amounts of pink flowering Himalayan Balsam along the river’s edge just about everywhere.
Whilst it looks very pretty, it’s a controversial plant as it’s the invasive immigrant, Himalayan Balsam (Impatiens glandulifera). It is highly invasive, and tends to choke up rivers quite quickly.*
It does this with an amazing seed spreading system, which involves the seed heads ‘exploding’ and flinging the seeds up to seven feet away.
However, there is a positive aspect to this plant. Most of it is edible, and being in such abundance and widely hated, there is no reason not to collect some (carefully) and cook it up!
I’ve been asked by the Non-native Species Inspectorate, quite rightly, to point out that the transportation of seeds or whole plants of Himalayan Balsam is an offence under the Invasive Alien Species (Enforcement and Permitting) Order 2019 in England and Wales and Section 14AA of the Wildlife and Countryside Act in Scotland. This means that no seeds or plants should be removed from the site where they currently grow, and sowing seeds or planting elsewhere either deliberately or accidentally would be a particularly serious offence.
So in other words, pick it and eat it/use it where it grows, and don’t take it somewhere else!
A quick internet search for “Himalayan Balsam Recipes” will turn up plenty of results for you. I won’t copy them here (unless it’s to review them after I’ve given it a try), but some of the things I’ve seen include:
I wanted to post something along the lines of a definition of foraging and what it means to me, but I am in no way an absolute authority, hence it’s more of a discussion point rather than a hard and fast definition. This is what it means to me, but I’d love to hear from readers about their opinions.
The incident that spurred this, was a night in with my wife, watching an old favourite film on the TV – Crocodile Dundee. Early on in the film, Sue is in the bush with Mick Dundee and he’s prepared a spread of “bush tucker” for her to eat. This spread included fire-roasted goanna, yams, witchety-grubs, fire ants. etc.
Sue says to Mick “What about you. Aren’t you having any?”
Mick replies “Me?” and gets a tin out of his bag.
“Well, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit.”
That had me thinking that there’s actually two types of food foraging:
Where foraging for survival is all about calorie intake regardless of flavour/texture/palatability; and foraging for consumption is about finding wild food which is pleasant on it’s own, or which adds to the palatability of everyday meals/snacks.
Foraging for survival might include such things as cat-tails rhizomes and silverweed roots for carbs/calories, ground elder, nettles, etc for teas and their nutrients.
Foraging for everyday might include things such as blackberries, raspberries, red-currants, hazelnuts, wild garlic and so on for their flavours.
You could possibly include a third option of “Foraging for the study of Ethnobotany” to the foraging definition, where Ethnobotany is the study of the human usage of plants. However, I would class this is something that sits alongside the other two options.
And this article doesn’t even go into foraging for medicinal wild plants (which I am also doing).
Which category an item fits into, can be entirely down to who is doing the eating. For example, you may find the suggestion of eating woodlice completely distasteful and categorise them as survival food; on the other hand, you may enjoy their shellfish-like taste as part of a rice, potato, or bread-based dish, in which case they fit into the other category.
Whilst it’s not really possible to look at one category without the other in this foraging definition, my main area of focus is foraging for everyday consumption. So, along the way I’m also discovering survival foods, and understanding certain aspects of Ethnobotany.
As something I’ve been aware of for some time, and looking out for Linden tree (Lime) flowers in the local area; I was pleased to find a big, old Linden tree not far from where I live. And it was positively overloaded with flowers.
Just for clarification, with these trees the name “Lime tree” and “Linden tree” are interchangeable. They are not the tree which bears the lime fruit. Also, I’ve titled this Tilia x europia (common Lime) because that’s the tree I found. It’s equally applicable to Tilia platyphyllos (Large-leaved Lime) and Tilia cordata (Small-leaved, Lime).
The flowers are usually within reaching distance anyway (unless the lower branches have been trimmed), but as an added bonus, this tree was on a slope too, so a lot of branches were at waist height, for easy picking.
So why am I going on about these Linden tree flowers? Well, in the past, Linden Flowers have been used as a herbal remedy for all kinds of ailments, including high blood pressure, migraine, headaches, digestive complaints, colds, flu, insomnia, liver and gallbladder disease, itchy skin, joint pains and anxiety.
Apparently, during the war, Linden was used to make a soothing, relaxing tea. You can imagine why people might have wanted it then!
Personally, I have been known to suffer from mild anxiety, insomnia (of a kind) and joint pains, so I’ll be giving it a try (after doing my own research).
As I understand it, it also makes a nice drink, and as an occasional thing isn’t likely to do any harm
As always, you absolutely must do your own research before diving into believing the first thing you read online, and also check with your doctor too. Apparently some people have reported allergies to Linden, but apart from that Linden tea is pretty harmless stuff.
Make sure that you pick the pale green bract that comes with the flowers – you’ll need it all. Also, pick responsibly. Whilst it’s unlikely that you could over-harvest a tree, if you need a lot, make sure you take small amounts from several trees.
Next step – either dry it for future use (in the sun on a sheet, in your oven, or in your electric dehydrator), or make a tea from it immediately.
Put a few handfuls of flowers in a pan with one to two litres of water.
Bring to the boil, cover and remove from the heat, and leave it overnight.
Strain out the blossoms and keep the infusion in the fridge for up to three days. You can drink it cold, or reheat it. You can freeze the tea to keep it for longer, or make it into an elixir (thanks to the ladies at www.handmadeapothecary.co.uk for the idea) by adding 50% spiced rum to use as a cold remedy (take 50mls in hot water and go to bed to sweat it out).
Next steps
Coming soon – I plan to make my linden tree flower tea on video…
No seriously! It’s more complex than you might imagine, and having a common language really helps when talking about the parts of a leaf.
For the avoidance of doubt, leaf refers to both the flat type that you imagine, and the needles and scales found on some evergreens. This is not a complete reference, just the parts that I find most useful.
You’d better get comfortable, this is a long post…
This is a simplified, generalisation. There are, of course, exceptions and variations. The leaf Blade, attaches to the stem of the plant with it’s Petiole. Quite often you will find a Stipule at the base of the petiole, which is like a miniature leaf arrangement. Within the leaf, there will be at least one strengthening midrib, and veins running from it. The leaf receives water and returns sugars through these.
When it comes to identifying plants by their leaves, there are a number of areas to consider:
The arrangement of the leaves on the stem can provide vital clues to the identification of a plant. Indeed, for some plants, it’s even in the name. For example, Opposite-leaved, Golden Saxifrage.
These are the main arrangements you may encounter:
As a stem grows, leaves tend to grow in the optimum position for collecting light. This can result in leaves forming a helical pattern around the stem.
So, a leaf is a leaf, right? Well, not exactly. There are simple leaves, and leaves which are made up of leaflets. In deciduous trees, for example, the part which detaches itself from the tree in Autumn (Fall) is a leaf. So in Oak trees, that’s a simple Oak leaf, whereas in Ash trees, it’s a compound leaf with multiple leaflets (see images# below).
A simple leaf may be deeply lobed, but as long as gaps do not reach the midrib, it is still a simple leaf. Each leaflet of a compound leaf may have it’s own Petiolule (equivalent of a Petiole) and Stipule (Stipel).
Leaves with a stalk (petiole) are said to be petiolate. Those without a stalk, which join straight to the branch are said to be sessile.
Where the blade of a leaf partially surrounds the stem, it is said to be clasping or decurrent. Where the blade completely surrounds the stem they are called perfoliate.
The stipule, where present, is a leaf-like appendage on each side at the base of the petiole. Stipules may remain (such as on roses) or be shed as the leaf expands, leaving scars; Known as stipulations.
Veins, occasionally referred to as nerves, extend into the leaf via the petiole and transport nutrients and water between the leaf and the stem. They also play a mechanical role in supporting the leaf structure. Branching from the main vein are secondary veins, and there can be many more branchings, sometimes leading to a net-like structure.
Source: Wikipedia
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