Food from the Wild

Seeds

Ash Fraxinus excelsior
The familiar 'keys', which contain the seeds of the tree, can be made into a pickle. Evelyn recommends this as 'having the virtue of capers' and the frequency with which recipes for pickled ash keys appear in old cookery books testifies to their common use at table. They should be picked young, before August, after which they become too tough.

Caraway Carum carvi
Though not particularly common, the caraway plant will grow anywhere. It looks like cow parsley and the lacy flowers bloom in June and July. Once the fruits are fully developed, they should be collected, and threshed to separate the seeds. These should then be dried in the sun or a warm place, and shaken or turned over occasionally. They can be used to flavour cakes, bread, cheese, soups and cabbage. The basic taste of the liqueur kummel is oil of caraway, pressed from the seeds and 'a pippin and a dish of caraways' was eaten as a condiment by Falstaff in Henry V, at Trinity College Cambridge and at city livery dinners too

Mustard Brassica nigra; Sinapsis alba
The'seede of Mustard pounded with vinegar is an excellent sauce, good to be eaten with any grosse meates, either fish or flesh, because it doe help the digestion, warmeth the stomache and provoketh appetite' said Gerard. Until about 1720 when Mrs Clements of Durham invented what we now know as powdered mustard, the seeds were more often used whole as a pickling spice, or pounded and made up into balls with honey or vinegar and other spices. Gerard recommended that you steep a mixture of mustard seed overnight in vinegar, pound it in the morning with more vinegar and add spices, wine or honey to taste. For all mustards both black and white seeds are used with a higher proportion of black. Black mustard is indigenous to cliffs in the south-west of England and is found by streams and waste places elsewhere. White mustard is a naturalised weed of arable land, but both will commonly be found as escapees from cultivation-the white from where it is grown in Cambridgeshire and Essex, and the black from Lincolnshire and Yorkshire.

Coriander Coriandrum sativum
Once ripe, the smell that makes people compare the fruits of coriander to bed-bugs disappears and is replaced by the sweet, orangy odour and soft spicy taste that makes Len Deighton, among others, advise you to 'hurl crushed coriander seeds into every open pot you see.' However, coriander is best employed in cooking stews, pork, sausages, chutheys or pickles. The seeds may also be covered with sugar for a once-popular sweet, coriander comfits.

Oat Avena fatua
Oat, 'a grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people'; a remark made by Dr Johnson, who never had a high opinion of the Scots, but which was, up to a certain time, true. Until the introduction of the potato, oats were the staple diet of the Scots. Whisky, bread and porridge were all made from oats.

Filleted herrings were dipped in oatmeal before being fried in bacon fat. It was used to thicken soups and oatmeal water was taken to the hayfield to refresh the workers. It was made by putting a handful of oatmeal in a jug, filling the jug up with water and giving it a good stir. Then the grounds were allowed to settle, leaving a liquid more thirst quenching than pure water.

Although the wild oat is naturalised and is a pest on arable land, its seed is small in comparison with its cultivated relation. For cooking purposes, permission from a farmer to glean any field he has stripped of its crop will be the most profitable way of obtaining sufficient oats. After threshing, the usual way of preparing the oats was to dry them on the hearth in front of the fire before crushing and bruising them with a pestle and mortar.