Back in August last year, I found myself crouching by a beach hut on the Whitstable shingle, riffling through a scrubby bush with an intensity that soon drew the stares of passers by. It was all Miles Irving’s fault – a foraging maestro who was showing me how to identify sea beet, dittander, sea purslane, buckthorn berries and other treasures of the hedgerows and shore you’d normally squash under your sandal. He also cooked me a gorgeous lunch of all sorts of things I could barely identify, many of which may well have been destined for one of the swish London eateries his company supplies.
I wrote about it in The Sunday Telegraph here
Anyway, Miles’s book The Forager Handbook – A Guide to the Edible Plants of Britain is being published next week. It’s a beautiful hardback bible of all things foragey, and a nice mix of the anecdotal and the informative with black and white photographs of every plant he covers. In short, the definitive guide to enjoying the fruits of the forest without landing yourself in casualty.
I’m going to the launch party next week and am already feeling slightly wary of the canapes…