Is foraging for food viable in France?
Wild food can be found in abundance throughout France's countryside, but identifying it is less simple
Mushrooms are notoriously difficult to identify
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One of the more embarrassing things to happen to my wife and I on our foraging walks is to cross paths with an ancient local dangling a white plastic bucket full of big mushrooms, with a big smile as he knows where to find them, and we obviously don’t.
We did collect a bagful later last year, and my poor wife cooked up a treat but took ill straight away. I was lucky, or insensible, so got away with it.
In truth, we are pretty hopeless at foraging.
We recently signed up for a €20 walk in Parc des Buttes-Chaumont in Paris that promised to remedy that by pointing out lots of forageable wild plants en route.
One cool bloke seemed to know what’s what, and a young woman made copious notes and remembered everything our lanky guide muttered, but again we fell short.
We both found interesting-looking weeds, but our expert ignored even our prettiest offerings, and those he was enthusiastic about tasted of nothing, very little, or mildly objectionable. We reckon urban pollution queered the pitch, but our excuse felt feeble.
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Problems with identification
Our main get-out was that taste is paramount to us, and the rest of the crew seemed a bit too earnest and nowhere near as debauched in that regard.
The golden rule of foraging is to wash your finds thoroughly before eating, and to double-check you have correctly identified them. Therein, however, lies the problem.
I downloaded a mushroom app with excellent photos, but the horribly poisonous and the fairly tasty looked the same. AI, where are you when you’re needed?
That said, we have found tiny wild strawberries, but eat them immediately as they are too small to take home in one piece.
Our big secret is the wild garlic woods that spread down to the river (I’m forbidden to even say which one), and two weeks ago we picked a couple of kilos.
The cook made me stop as she’s not keen on completely filling the freezer, and even the toughest plastic bags can’t prevent the garlicky odours.
Her top skill is picking blackberries, twice as fast as I can, which seems unfair when I’m really trying.
Watercress hunts were unsuccessful
Our new thing is watercress, growing next to disused lavoirs. Again, my enthusiasm gets curbed but the big inside pockets of my lightweight Japanese gilet can manage a fair bunch either side.
Last time her bunch was dry and mine was sopping as it was growing under water, and I got told off for pulling up the roots, which is unavoidable under water. And I did push some back in an environmentally friendly sort of way.
Once home, she discovered all those sources are poisoned with something dreadful, I can’t remember what, but free watercress seems to be off the list, and I can’t persuade her on nettle soup.
