The people who arrived to fuel the growth of settlements in the areas of Brockweir and Hewelsfield from around 1830 onwards would have been compelled to maximise the produce from the plots they, in most cases, ‘appropriated’ on the commons (known as ‘encroachment’) and from the natural environment around them. It was simply a matter of survival.
Those of us now inhabiting these old properties may grow fruit and veg, but safe in the knowledge that in case of emergency there is always a supermarket not far away.
By way of a novel idea for a meeting of the Parish Grasslands Project, it was decided to see what we could come up in the way of wild ‘eats’. One of the first things we had to confront was the vagaries of the weather, meaning that there was a dearth of fungi, a core item that perhaps most people would associate with food from the fields. Undaunted, the Food from our Fields meeting on Saturday 2nd October was able to produce four trestle tables laden with food and drinks made with what we had culled from field and hedgerow.
The meeting, chaired by Sarah Sawyer, opened by serving to the audience a ‘dose’ of rosehip syrup, the old-fashioned vitamin-C rich protection against childhood colds. The various items of produce were then introduced by those who had prepared the dishes. John Josephi’s account of trying to skin a squirrel with two pairs of pliers caused laughter. Nettle and mushroom soups featured along with game pate, rabbit and a dish a number of us were keen to sample for the first time – squirrel (a fairly chewy, gamey kind of flavour). Steve Orledge from St. Briavels made an offer we could not refuse, to bring a pheasant stew and some venison, which he sauteed freshly at the meeting. Among the vegetables, we were able at the last minute to source a platter of parasol mushrooms, together with wild green tartlets (made with nettle and ground elder), jellies of sloe and quince, and elderberry chutney. An interesting green salad combination included sorrel, clover, lamb’s lettuce and dandelion. Desserts ranged from yogurt with cherry plum, apple with blackberry and apple with elderberry cakes, along with baskets of nuts and fresh rosy red apples to finish.
On the drinks table we sampled (well, ‘sampled’ is perhaps an understatment!), the wines of parsnip, blackberry, tayberry and plum (generously provided by Arthur and Andi Cale), elderflower champagne and elderflower cordial.
Mike Topp gave a short resume of the Slow Food Movement, which started in Italy, and of which our local producer of meat, John Childs, is a select member and keen supporter. This echoed the point of our meeting, that there are alternatives to the chemically-treated, processed and packaged food we are swamped with today.
In these credit-crunch straightened times, the cheapest option is also the healthiest.