Foraging in the country

As you well know I love to take walks up in the hills above Florence and it is also the place where Shelly and I foraged for wild asparagus a few weeks ago. After our asparagus foraging Shelly and I wondered if there was anyone we knew who would be able to take us on an expedition in the Tuscan hills.

Alessandro digging up wild carrot root

Alessandro was our man. His beautiful wife is another fellow up at I Tatti with our husbands and so we thought seeing as he was Italian and a man of the land we could pick his brain a little on what he knew about foraging. As it turns out Alessandro knows a lot about everything and anything in the great outdoors of Italy and he was more than happy to take us on a field trip.

After we dropped his lovely wife at work for the day, the three of us and Alessandro’s adorable 9-month old baby drove out behind Fiesole to a rundown monastery he knew of. It took us about 25 minutes from Fiesole in the car and when we arrived the views were breathtaking.

My dream working space

I find it really hard to believe that such a beautiful building could be left to slowly decompose with the sands of time. I couldn’t help but look at the monastery and think it would make a magical B&B or a fantastic cooking school retreat where guests could come and learn the secrets of Tuscan cooking while taking in the breathtaking views sweeping off to the right. Yes, I could see myself running a very nice business here indeed!

View from the field to the right of monastery

The field before us looked like many we have walked past on a regular basis, however, it wasn’t until Alessandro started talking about the different tracks, flowers, bushes, birds and plants that the field came alive and the day started to get interesting. Here are just a few of the things I learnt on this day…

This was a hedgehog hole where it would be furrowing for food, Alessandro knew this because of the size of the burrow (very small and narrow, very easy to step in and twist your ankle).

Did you know orchids grow wild in the Tuscan countryside? I did not and what was most strange was the fact that there was one in this field in early April. They are usually seen anywhere from September on. Isn’t it beautiful?

Wild orchid

We tasted wild rose hip that was very sweet, tangy and full of white seeds. It almost tasted of those fruit straps that you can buy for kids snacks, but with more flavour. Apparently they make a jam with the berries but after eating one I though it would be a lot of work for little reward so I stuck with picking them off the tree and eating them a-la-natural.

Wild rose hip berries

One of the most interesting facts we learnt was one regarding these golfball size, brown almost tumbleweed like balls.

Vespa womb

The story goes something like this…When a local wasp (vespa) is laying its larva, it drills a tiny hole into the stem of a tree and inserts its larva before flying off. The tree then protects itself by growing and covering the said tiny hole with small twig like branches that form into a ball around the larva deposit. This then provides a place for the larva to grow and feed from the tree. When the larva hatches, the vespa flies out of its coocoon and eventually the twig ball gets blown off by the wind. Isn’t mother nature just the most amazing, magical power there is? The tree’s protection enables these wasps to grow.

Way too many vespa pods on the ground for my liking!

The only freaky thing about knowing this, is how many little tumbleweed balls you then see. There are thousands of these pods lying on the ground all over Tuscany!

A wild carrot plant…yes it’s the black speck in the middle of the picture!

My final tip/tale I have for you is about wild carrots. I have seen these wiry, dried looking sticks in the field near our house and never gave them a second thought. However, Alessandro told us that when the new shoots start to grow and the top starts growing little white flowers the wild carrots are ready to be eaten. Hares, boars and deer love them and when they are in season the root of this plant looks and smells like carrots.

Dried up wild carrot root

The one Alessandro pulled up for us to take a look at was old and dead, however, you couldn’t help but notice the shape of the root. I am now waiting with bated breath for the new season’s wild carrots to appear. I know humans don’t eat them but I just want to see the root.

There is something wonderful about looking out the window into the surrounding fields and actually knowing there is a whole ecosystem out there buzzing about. Now that I have just a small insight into the local land it gives me even greater pleasure to walk around trying to spot the things pointed out to me on this wonderful day up in the hills with Alessandro and Shelly. Maybe now I’d have a better chance of survival if I ever got lost on a hike.

What do you know about the natural surrounds where you live?

 

Asparagus foraging

Wild asparagus

I’m back! Our plane got in yesterday from New York and I am still on a high from the trip; however, a couple of days before we left for our US adventure Shelly and I went wild asparagus foraging. It was so much fun, so I want to tell you about it before I get carried away with NY.

Has anyone else foraged for wild asparagus? The season isn’t very long and you know when it has started because a lot of the older folk start walking up into the hills, carrying plastic bags and walking around the fields with their hands behind their backs, bending over inspecting the ground. Shelly and I weren’t exactly sure what we were looking for, or where to find it, however, the day before we went forging my landlady pointed out that we had two wild asparagus growing in our garden: perfect!

I didn’t know where to find it, however, Shelly had asked an elderly Italian guy what to look for when foraging asparagus and he pointed out a spiky bush and mumbled something about ‘look out for this stuff,’ and then hurried back into the fields (I think the locals would rather we didn’t know about it…makes sense really).

With the minimal information gathered (but  plastic bags forgotten), we set out on a beautiful Thursday morning walk with the sun beating down on our bodies and hope in our hearts. We were wandering around one of our old haunts talking about what we should be looking for, when all of a sudden we stopped, scanned the nearest area and, lo and behold, I spotted one lone asparagus! I’m not going to lie, we were excited. Shelly couldn’t yet see them, however, when I spotted another and another she soon caught on and we were off with our hands behind our backs and our eyes glued to the ground.

wild asparagus foraging

At first we just grabbed all that we could see not really looking at quality. It wasn’t until we came across a few brown-red ones with a very crisp ‘snap’ that we decided some of the ones we were picking might be a little old and gone to seed. However, that didn’t stop us from looting more from a farmers field! As you can see in the photo above they are very easy to miss and shoot up on their own around the small prickly green bush that Shelly is holding back.

A big batch under an olive tree

We were wandering around in this field for about an hour happily picking away when we heard a dog barking. Our first thought was to ignore it, that was until the barking came closer and closer. For a few minutes Shelly and I thought it might of been the farmer coming to shoo us off the property, fortunately, it was just an elderly gentleman walking his dog up our road.

He knew right away what we were doing and complimented us on our forage. We had a small chat with him and then he started breaking into words Shelly and I didn’t recognise, we had a feeling he was giving us a recipe for the asparagus but that was for the ‘too hard basket’, so we gently said goodbye and took our stash further up the hill.

Of course we were buzzing with excitement and dying to try the wild asparagus, so I offered to cook it for lunch. After finishing our walk in the hills I popped a pot of water on for some poached eggs. Once the asparagus was washed and trimmed I simply melted butter on a low heat, added sliced garlic, asparagus, salt and pepper and gently sauteed until cooked.

Sauteing wild asparagus with butter and garlic

The smells were fantastic and the asparagus darkened to a very deep green as the stalks became tender. Once they were cooked, I poached a couple of eggs, added a generous sprinkling of truffle salt and finished it with slices of pecorino cheese. The end result was fantastic!

Poached eggs with wild asparagus

The truffle hit your nose as soon as you sat down and cutting into the egg letting the yolk run through the asparagus was pure heaven. Not much talking was done while we still had food on our plates. The flavours all infused beautifully and enhanced the asparagus. To say we loved it would be an understatement. No wonder the Italians didn’t want us knowing the secret places to forage, it really is a wonderful spring treat if your lucky enough to lay your hands on some.

Finished with slices of pecorino cheese