Foraging for slow moments
The popularity of foraging comes and goes, but for Helen Lehndorf and Liv Sisson it is part of their lives. The two authors speak to Rebecca Fox... Manawatu writer Helen Lehndorf and Christchurch writer Liv Sisson have discussed the recent popularity of foraging, with Leighton Leiford and Sisson discussing their personal experiences. Lehendorf believes that foragers are always learning and expanding their knowledge of plants and the natural world. She recommends starting out with the common practice, starting out from digging up and examining dandelions, finding something easy to find and easy to examine as they do so. Lehindorf's favourite plant plant is dandelion, along with the northern hemisphere's native nettle, and she recommends learning about plants like a new friend or starting a deep relationship in your backyard.
Opublikowany : 2 lata temu za pomocą w Lifestyle
From making your daily walk a bit more interesting, to creating a dye for textiles or seeking out a unique ingredient for a gourmet dinner — the reasons for foraging are many and varied.
For Manawatu writer Helen Lehndorf, it is the medicinal nature of herbs and plants that fascinates her, while for Christchurch writer Liv Sisson, it is fungi and lichen that are her passion.
Lehndorf, author of A Forager’s Life, laughs when the recent popularity of foraging is mentioned.
"I’m not often a person that hits a trend, so that’s been delightful and funny.
"If something is going to be trendy, I’m really glad it’s that."
There are many subgroups within foraging who have different interests such as picking excess fruit around the neighbourhood, weaving, seeking out plants for Maori plant medicine, mushroom-hunters like Sisson and people passionate about seaweed.
"Everyone finds their own way in and some just want to make their daily walk a little more interesting or become a little more plant literate."
Whatever the entry point into foraging, Lehndorf and Sisson say foragers are always learning and expanding their knowledge of plants and the natural world.
Even now, decades after she began foraging, Lehndorf, who describes herself as an amateur herbalist, still makes discoveries as her plant literacy increases through research.
"All the time I’m finding things that maybe I’ve been buying to drink as a herbal tea or something.
"I’ve thought I had to buy it, then one day I find it out foraging," she says.
"A plant you have been blind to before is suddenly available because of that increased awareness."
She had that experience with Shepherd’s Purse, a plant that is good for women’s menstrual health.
"I had always been buying it from the health shop as I had no idea we could find it locally.
"One day I was down at the Manawatu River and was absolutely astonished to find it.
"It is a place I forage a lot and had never seen it before and there it was."
The question Lehndorf gets asked the most is if she has poisoned herself or made herself ill from something she has foraged.
"Touch wood" she never has.
"I see the high level of anxiety around it. It is testament to how disconnected we are from our food sources that people have such anxiety about poisoning themselves."
It is a genuine concern, but she says the golden rule of foraging is to "never, ever" eat anything you cannot 100% positively identify.
"We have some excellent books from New Zealand writers written for here so they are all excellent sources.
"I would say take a foraging book for a walk and really study those photographs."
Taking a person with more plant literacy on your walks is another way to learn.
"Don’t try to learn everything in one walk, as you’ll just get overwhelmed and confused."
People used to the pace of everyday life can struggle with foraging, as it is not a fast-paced activity where a person can learn everything in one walk or one foraging class, even though it can be fun, joyous and exciting to do.
"It’s a very slow practice. That is its beauty. For the beginning forager I’d say learn one plant a month and go deep with that one plant. Just 12 a year."
If people want to get serious about foraging, Lehndorf advises them to think of plants like a new friend.
"If making a new friend, you don’t meet them once and go ‘you’re a firm friend’, you spend time with them and get to know them. And start with something in your backyard so you can form a deep relationship."
She recommends starting out with the common dandelion, as they are very easy to find and easy to dig up and examine from tip of root to the flower.
"Dandelions are medicinal powerhouses and full of beautiful mythology and folklore, art and culture and medicine.
"I’ve been going a bit deeper with dandelion these past few years and there’s so much to learn.
"Try to eat different bits of it, try to make different things with it and then when you feel like you have a bit of a handle on it try something else."
It is one of Lehndorf’s favourite plants, along with the northern hemisphere nettle (not the New Zealand native nettle).
"I drink a strong infusion of nettle everyday. It is a strong tonic plant to drink. It’s good for teeth, your hair, your skin, your vitality and wellbeing, your circulation.
"It doesn’t taste especially good, it tastes like you’ve made a strong tonic out of grass clippings, but I have got used to the flavour and if I miss a day I start to crave it."
Another favourite is the elder tree, which is very easy to forage in the Manawatu along the river and railway lines.
"If you have a Northern European-Pakehā genealogy, then it is a sacred tree in our folklore traditions.
"It is another plant full of folklore, history and it’s a very beautiful, special plant."
While it does get categorised as a weed in some places due to its vigorous spreading, it can be harvested twice a year.
In spring the elderflower can be picked, while in the autumn its berries can be picked.
"I love that the elder berry can be picked in autumn when it’s such an amazing cold and flu medicine.
"It appears just before we need it. You harvest in autumn and make various potions for when struggling with immunity and cold and flu season."
She infuses honey with the berries and also makes oxymels, a mix of honey and vinegar which she adds the berries to.
Another concern people have about foraging is the sprays applied by councils and landowners to prevent weeds growing.
"What I have observed in my wanderings around park lands and edges, is usually city councils are limited in budget and time and usually their brief is to make access ways weed-free, so that usually means about 12m either side. If walking somewhere frequently, you can see when the council has been," Lehndorf says."Again, its that slowing down and observing your local environment. Generally I advise wanderings off the path a bit, foraging is about wandering off the main paths, looking around corners and behind things.
"Get out of those spray zones and dog spray zones. Trust your instincts somewhat and your powers of observation. "
Having councils take a different approach to planting fruit trees in reserves is a positive move that she welcomes.
"There used to be some old-fashioned ideas about fruit trees on public spaces making a mess, or one person would strip the tree, that people don’t know how to share or look after something for all of us and I see that changing and I’m really heartened by that."
She is not concerned about the increased interest from people.
It is the second "blip" of interest in foraging she has noticed over the years.
"Because it is such a slow relational pastime, you have to be committed to go very far and not many people are."
Richard Mabey, British author of Food is Free calls foraging inconvenience food, which is "hilarious", Lehndorf says.
"He’s bang on. You don’t do it ’cause you can get loads of stuff in 10 minutes. It’s about so many more things than accessing food.
"Nature is generous — there is plenty there for all of us and people are pretty good at sharing in the whole."
Sisson, who grew up in Virginia, United States, agrees.
"Lots of people think its a money-saver, but I haven’t found that it is. It’s a lovely hobby, but not something that has saved me any money."
She became interested in fungi and lichen when studying geology in the US, especially what she discovered on field trips in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
"Rocks are changing on a very long timescale, so from day to day there is little change, so I began to notice all the cool intricacies in nature around them.
When she moved to New Zealand, she was captured by the beauty of the country’s native bush and the "cool" fungi.
She first discovered her interest while living in Dunedin when she moved here to study.
"I lived on Leith St North in a student flat and spent a lot of time wandering around the Botans [Dunedin Botanic Garden] looking at lichens, moss and fungi. That’s when I really started researching and getting very curious."
While she headed back to the US for a while, she returned to New Zealand, settling in Christchurch and picking up her foraging hobby again.
"I have been foraging fungi and plants for a while in Christchurch, it’s been something I’m enjoying and have been doing for a long time.
One of her favourites is the werewere-kokako, which features on the cover of her book Fungi of Aotearoa, although it is not edible.
"It’s absolutely stunning. The first time I saw it I couldn’t believe it was that blue. That was pretty cool."
She was surprised to see one of her favourite eating mushrooms, porcini, growing in Hagley Park, as it is an introduced fungi.
"It’s definitely the darling of the edible fungi world as it is so delicious."
Lichens are also a passion, as there are so many interesting ones growing in New Zealand.
Lichens are a fungi and algae living together in symbiosis.
"The colours, textures, shapes and sizes, there are no bounds.
"I love researching parasitic fungi but I haven’t seen too many of those in the wild myself."
The edible fungi Sisson does find she likes to dehydrate and preserve for later use, especially in the winter to beef up soups and stocks, and for her favourite porcini pasta.
"I slice them thin and pop on a tray in the sun so they get a bit of air movement and they dry nicely."
People often ask her where to find particular types of mushrooms.
"I’m happy to tell someone where to look, but if you do that they don’t actually get the joy of looking for something and they don’t develop the language of being able to read the land and understand where to look.
"That kind of learning can be really exciting and fun. If I told them, they’d miss out on that.
"It’s kind of foragers code not to do that."
She hopes people’s interest in foraging and wild-food sources translates into a greater passion for protecting those sources.
"Looking after our wild-food sources is important for food resiliency. It makes a lot of sense coming off the back of Covid, when people had more time to connect with nature."
The cost of living crisis has also amplified people’s interest in the food system, which can only be a good thing if it gets people talking about the issues, she says.
As a result of her interest in foraging, the work she did for the book, the food writing she does and her involvement in Eat New Zealand, Sisson has become more aware of the issues with the country’s food system.
"I’m really interested in that topic."
Wild Sustenance: Fungi and Food Foraging, Dunedin Public Art Gallery auditorium, October 15, 11.30am; Nourishing Minds: Exploring the link between food and mental health, Te Whare o Rukutia, October 14, 3.30pm, Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival.
Elderberry syrup can help with recovery from colds and flu.
It contains high levels of vitamin C and antioxidants, plus it tastes very good.
Adults should take 1 tablespoon each day that a cold persists, children 1 teaspoon.
This recipe will make enough for a small bottle of syrup; hopefully that should be enough to get you through a winter, but if you have a large family or household you might want to make more.
It will last about three months in the fridge.
As elderberries are an autumn harvest, this means the syrup will last through the winter, when it’s most needed. Ripe elderberries are very small and delicate, making them hard to handle. When very ripe they disintegrate at the smallest pressure.
A good trick is to lightly rinse them, allow them to dry and then freeze them before processing.
Once frozen, the berries will easily come off the umbels if you comb them with a fork above a wide bowl.
Put all the ingredients except the honey into a small saucepan. Bring to the boil and then turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Take off the heat.
With a potato masher, mash the berries to extract as much juice as possible.
Strain the liquid into a heatproof jug using a fine sieve or piece of muslin. Compost the berries and spices. Allow the liquid to cool down from boiling. While it is still slightly warm, stir in the honey. If a lot of the liquid has evaporated, add enough boiled water to fill your bottle.
Once the honey has dissolved, bottle the syrup, label and refrigerate.