The Urban Foraging Revolution
Illustration ©Lizzie Harper
It doesn’t take years of training to start your wild food adventure. Architect Marianna Janowicz explains the basics of urban foraging, a fun, frugal and inventive way to explore familiar neighbourhoods.
Contrary to popular belief, searching for wild foods does not require heaps of specialist knowledge - and the empowering, elemental sense of self-sufficiency is priceless. Foraging is for everyone - in the Nordic and Baltic regions it is a popular form of leisure, with families and groups of friends taking to the woods together to search for edible plants and fungi. In some parts of the world, foraging is a legitimate income source for many people and a vital part of the food supply chain. For amateur hunter-gatherers, searching for wild grown delights in the city is a frugal lifestyle choice that contributes to reducing food waste.
In Britain, picking edible plants may be a bit of a forgotten art but what better time to rediscover it than during the lockdown? When walking routes in the neighbourhood become too familiar, foraging can help reveal secrets that are hiding in plain sight.
Going foraging is the ultimate, free, non-consumerist, old fashioned, fun outdoor activity for all ages. Even in London, there is a multitude of opportunities to tap into the urban harvest, as long as you do some research and observe a handful of basic rules:
1. Read up
There is plenty to find online from amateur foragers eager to share their knowledge. Do your research before you set off. It is good to know what you are looking for, so check what is in season right now in your area and save some images. If in doubt, ask - the online foraging communities and groups are sources of expertise unknown to Google.
Woodland Trust’s guide is a good place to start identifying edible species in the UK by season. Falling Fruit, a project that celebrates ‘the overlooked culinary bounty of our city streets’ maps foraging spots around the globe through a user-edited platform.
2. Start small
You don’t need to know everything to get going. Foraging requires tacit knowledge, many repetitions and trials, not a specialist degree. Identify one plant that you are likely to find nearby and go looking for it. If you encounter other interesting specimens on your journey, take pictures and notes and try to identify them when you get home. The humble dandelion is at the top of every beginner forager’s list, with its flowers, leaves and roots all suitable for consumption - you can find out more about it here and here.
3. Look around, rather than ahead
Foraging teaches us that there is still plenty to be found in the regenerative ecosystems if we slow down and look. Searching will transform the pace and focus of the walk - enjoy this activity for the different beast it is. Wild growing food is not a supermarket so there is a chance you come back with nothing - but the worst that can happen is that you’ve taken a walk. Channeling the inner hunter-gatherer can bring about an appreciation for chance and idleness in the productivity obsessed age.
4. Stay alert
It might be the Government’s new lockdown tagline but staying alert is very useful in many other situations life throws at you. In this particular instance, stay alert to whose land you are on. In London, it is illegal to pick your own food in royal parks. If you want to forage on private land, you ought to seek permission from the owner first. But many regular parks, roadside trees and random hedges are all yours. What a way to discover the abundant, shared resources you had no idea about!
5. If in doubt, leave it be
For the health and safety section of this guide: ‘never pick or eat anything that you cannot identify with confidence.’ This piece of sage advice from The Ramblers is the number one rule for every forager and always worth repeating.
6. Save some for the bees
Respect the nature’s bounty by picking only as much as you need and taking care not to deplete the source completely. Our fellow animals such as bees depend on flowers to pollinate and other species that we may not be aware of are also a part of the ecosystems we tap into. Exercise good judgement and care not only in quantities but also in minimising damage - make sure you leave the spot as you found it and avoid trampling down or uprooting the plants.
Interested in more radical ideas about reducing food waste? Gleaning and skipping are other practical ways for citizens to care for the Earth’s limited resources. The following works explore those and other food supply system issues in more depth:
Agnes Varda’s movie ‘The Gleaners and I’ offers a tender look at communities operating at the margins of wasteful production systems
For a broad and enlightening view on how food shapes our cities check out Carolyn Steel’s TED talk
John Rensten, a seasoned London forager and wild food enthusiast has set up the Forage London blog which now boasts a number of expert contributors. In this short movie John walks his local park whilst explaining the ins and outs of urban foraging
Header illustration ©Lizzie Harper