Passing on the old ways

Our lovely editor has asked me to put together something about 'passing on the old ways' for this edition and so I sat racking my brains for a good while wondering how to approach things. I mean, the simple act of harvesting food from the wild, be it blackberries or fungi, is in itself an ancient pastime and while we in Britain may have allowed our ancestral habits to slip a bit over the years, in Europe there is still a long and unbroken tradition for harvesting the bounty of nature. Witness the many old men and women across rural France who still go out into the countryside with their families to gather 'Herbes Sauvages' to make soups and spring tonics for example.

Anyway, as luck would have it, in Kent where I live there is one special spring tradition that could well do with reviving, and that is the harvesting and cooking of hop-tops. Not so very long ago (and certainly just within living memory as my grandmother would attest), our countryside would have been awash with itinerant workers of one kind or another seeking seasonal rural work. Hop-pickers, charcoal burners, farm labourers and bodgers would frequently move around picking up jobs here and there and often living frugally off the land while they did it. Hop-tops were a particular specialty of Kent, making use of the excess of spring shoots to be found in and around the hopfields, and very nice they can be too.

And here's where passing on the old ways all comes together because oddly enough over this past weekend of foraging I've also been learning the ancient craft of woodturning with a pole lathe, or 'bodging'. Bodgers worked and lived out in the woodlands producing turned parts for chairs from unseasoned greenwood, and what could be more appropriate than for me to produce a simple foraged dish cooked over a wood fire much as they might have done themselves 100 years ago. I'm going to make trout baked in paper with hop-tops and sea beet cooked in a campfire but obviously you could adapt the method to cook in your home oven.

Luckily for us, the first of my wild greens are very easily found at this time of year. Hop-tops often favour field margins and are easily spotted because the old 'bines' from this useful perennial can usually be seen still clinging to the hedges and gateposts. What you're looking for once you've found these are soft, new young shoots growing beneath them of around eight to ten inches long (imagine something that looks like a very thin asparagus tip). Unfortunately, they often lurk among young nettles too so if you dislike getting stung, remember to bring some gloves along to protect your hands and arms (and don't forget to harvest some young nettle tops as well if you want soup as starter for your meal - see recipe below). You will need to gather a good handful or two of hop-tops per person. Cut them slightly longer than you need and take care not to snap them as you put them into your basket.

Our second vegetable ingredient is also abundant on my location. Sea beet is, in my humble opinion, the far superior ancestor of our cultivated spinach and well worth making use of when you find it. It has a better texture and flavour plus even the largest of its fleshy leaves cook well and because of this it's the ideal thing to stuff and also wrap our trout. Look for it on field margins especially near the sea or estuaries, although it can be locally abundant inland and may crop up in odd and unexpected places so you could be surprised at where you find it! Once again, harvest a few generous handfuls for each person. You're also going to need one medium sized potato per person, a spring onion or two, some seasoning (freshly ground salt and pepper), a fresh lemon, some oil or butter and one trout per person. I won't ask how you acquire yours, but I suspect that our frugal itinerant workers may often have poached or possibly more honestly bartered for theirs. However, because I'm no great fisherwoman I 'foraged' mine from the local fishmongers!

Now, in my case while the chaps were setting up and running the pole lathes, I set to preparing the lunch parcels that would be placed into the embers of our wood fire (and its embers is what you need if you're going to try this method, not flame). Take a sheet of baking parchment large enough to comfortably wrap your fish and very lightly oil or butter it. Place a layer of large washed sea beet leaves in the centre and then lay your cleaned and gutted trout on top. Roughly shred a spring onion and a handful of the sea beet leaves and use these to stuff the body cavity. Season lightly and give a quick squeeze of lemon juice, then close up the body. Peel and thinly slice the potato and place the slices on the top of the fish. Trim your washed hop-tops and place a generous layer of them on top of the potato. Add a knob of butter and a little more seasoning, then place a final layer of sea beet over the whole fish. Wrap the baking parchment securely around the fish and then carefully double wrap the package in a layer of tinfoil. Make sure you seal this parcel well; you don't want the embers getting in or the juices getting out!

Place your parcels among the embers of the fire (rake the embers over the top as well if you can). The fish won't take more then ten to fifteen minutes to cook so while you wait, have a scout around for the ingredients for a wild weed salad to serve with it. Look for young hawthorn leaves, young and succulent beech or lime leaves, hairy bittercress (remember this one from last time?), sow thistle, tender young goosegrass tips, mallow, dandelion, chickweed, black mustard, cuckoo weed and any other spring edibles you can find (consult one of the many wild food books that are available to help you identify plants safely). By the time you've got and prepped all that you need, your fish should be cooked so remove it from the fire and carefully peel back the foil and paper coverings. If the fish is ready, your beet leaves should be limp and dark green and all the layers beneath soft and gently steamed in their own juices (yum!). Serve the wild weed salad alongside your trout and hop-tops, lightly seasoned with salt and pepper and drizzled with a squeeze of lemon. Now sit down by the fire and call your fellow bodgers to enjoy the feast.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, here's what I made on my pole lathe.

Happy foraging!

Russian nettle soup recipe

200g nettle tops
3 carrots
2 onions
a bunch of leeks
a bunch of sorrel
1.5 litres vegetable stock
3 hard-boiled eggs
sour cream
salt, black pepper
1 tbsp flour
butter

Fry chopped onions and carrots in butter. Coarsely chop the nettles and add them to the pan too. Lightly sautee them with an additional knob of butter for 10 minutes or so. Add the stock and bring the mix to a simmer, then cook for 10 to15 minutes.

In another pan, fry the flour in butter until slightly brown. Mix with a generous couple of spoonfuls of sour cream. Carefully stir the flour mix into the soup to thicken it.

Stir in the coarsely chopped sorrel, then add a sliced hard-boiled egg, a blob of fresh sour cream and some chopped dill or parsley to garnish.

photos (c) Carol Hunt 2009