The Weardale Forager
By Dr P Wilmer
Hi there!
My friends call me The Weardale Forager because I like to cook with ingredients found and grown in
Weardale. I’ve been following in Richard Mabey’s Food-For-Free footsteps since 1999. The first thing
his book taught me to forage for was sweet chestnuts! I was living in London at the time and every
autumn the ground was covered in fresh, shiny and plump chestnuts, but nobody was collecting
them because they were buying from the shops. This behaviour piqued my interest and I embarked
on the foraging journey in earnest.
I have a vivid memory of my grandmother in a field picking weeds to make a delicious cake when I
was about five years old. I’ve never forgotten Thomas Hardy’s descriptions of the abundant
hedgerows in The Mayor of Casterbridge and how they provided shelter for nature and the destitute
protagonist before he became the mayor. In Britain, many people foraged during the war years and
children picked wild rosehips by the tonnes to aid the nation’s vitamin intake. But then it became
unfashionable, and positively embarrassing, to go hunting for food when supermarkets could
conveniently wash, pack and even cook your dinner!
What is foraging? Essentially it’s finding and collecting food that’s available naturally. It’s what our
hunter-gatherer ancestors did and what many people still do today. The Greeks call their wild greens
“horta”, the Japanese call them “sansai” which means mountain vegetables and the Chinese call
them “yecai” which is wild vegetables. Research has shown that foraging, like growing-your-own, can
benefit us physically, mentally and emotionally. Not only does it encourage us to be active, it
challenges us with new knowledge and, most of all, it allows us to forge a loving bond with our living
land.
I love learning about the plants around us, how they are useful and what other creatures depend on
them for their survival. Plants have provided me with sustenance; they have taught me to respect
life and appreciate the seasons. Every day they take me on a beautiful journey and I would love to
share it with you all.
