foraging can also be amusing

i just had to share this little bit of amusing foraging inspiration from dark rye.

foraging at the historical market

at our favorite little museum in randbøldal last weekend, there was a historical market. sunday morning, one of the nature guides led a walk around the museum grounds, gathering various edible plants. the very best one was this - sweet cicely. the seeds have a lovely, gentle liquorice flavor. we used them in a pancake, that we made over the fire when the walk was over.

a bit brown, but delicious nonetheless.

another shot of the sweet cicely. tho' the plant itself looks a whole lot like cow parsley, it's easy to tell it by its strong liquorice scent. the seeds are larger on sweet cicely as well. it can be mixed up with hemlock (highly poisonous) in appearance, but the smell is unmistakeable. if it doesn't smell of anise, it's not sweet cicely.

we also found elderflower (more about that in the coming week, as it's a favorite and merits a post of its own) and lemony, sour wood sorrel.

there was even watercress on the museum grounds. crisp and delicious.

we also found a little patch of wild mint. more gently minty than the kind you can plant in your herb garden, but minty nonetheless. all of these herbs could be put into the pancakes. we liked the sweet cicely best.

they also had a big pot of natural dye going on - a good reminder of another use for foraged plants - they make very nice natural dyes. this batch had been dyed with nettles on saturday and they had added some two-year-old rhubarb stems to the pot on the second day. the wool had been mordanted with alun before being placed in the nettle dye pot.

we're definitely going to be looking for more opportunities to go on guided foraging walks!