To mark Wild Foods Day on 28th October, Lisa Cutcliffe talks about the joy of foraging, seeking out wild foods, and rediscovering our ancestral diet.
With grocery bills rising, many people are likely to be interested in discovering the delicious food available for free in their local area. That’s what the ancient practice of foraging offers.
Lisa Cutcliffe describes herself as a foraging instructor and wild food specialist, but her journey began with an obsession that took years to satisfy: “I was at university and saw a cooking programme where they were finding porcini mushrooms in the UK and cooking with them,” she recalls. “My mind was blown because I thought they only grew on the continent. They’re so expensive here, I figured that’s why we import them, because they aren’t found here. But they grow all over the UK, if you know where to look!”
That moment sparked what would become a life-long passion: “I went on this big mission to find porcini for myself. It took five years to find my first one, because I had no one to help me, this was way before there was the huge range of books and digital resources we have today.”
During those early years, Lisa taught herself through books and exploration: “I know now I was looking in the wrong types of forest. While searching, I got completely obsessed with fungi because now I had the books and information. There’s so many when you’re actually looking.”
Lisa’s expertise naturally evolved beyond fungi: “Mushrooms are very unpredictable – they’re not out all the time. I started thinking, I’m on these mushroom walks not always finding anything for dinner, but I’m passing all these plants. I should revisit what I’m pulling out and weeding on the allotment and what my grandmother taught me in her garden.” This revelation opened new possibilities: “I realised I knew a lot of plants – I just didn’t know they were edible. So, then I got more food every time I went out.”
Living in Leeds meant making coastal trips to master seashore foraging: “I started seeing people at the coast getting razor clams and eating samphire and seaweed. I needed to do this.” These experiences made up what she calls her ‘tripod’ of knowledge. “Fungi, plants and trees, and the seashore – having those three areas means you can eat pretty well.”
Lisa’s most ambitious project was participating in the Wild Biome Project: “The idea was to see what would happen to a modern human if you ate only wild species.” The dietary restrictions yielded revelations about natural nutrition: “In this country, we don’t have a lot of wild carbohydrate. We don’t have yams or big starchy roots that you can get easily. We do have fruits, but only for a short period in late summer to early autumn. The rest of the time there isn’t a lot of carbohydrate around.”
Some surprising results came from the experiment: “One person was genetically diabetic, and their blood sugar monitor was off the chart every time they ate anything. That completely normalised within nine days on the wild diet – no diabetic symptoms at all because there weren’t sugars.”
The Wild Biome Project also revealed how seasonal availability once shaped human migration patterns: “We found we had to do what people historically did – move around through the year. In winter, you’d be in the woods for shelter. Spring came and you’d go to meadows for greens. Early summer, you’d move to the coast because plants die off inland when it gets too hot. Then back to hedgerows where fruit trees and nuts are, then back to woods for winter.”
Through her explorations, Lisa has discovered some unexpected flavours in British wild foods: “There are mushrooms that smell and taste like curry powder when you put them in things ground up – the curry milk cap. You can make a chocolate flavour from linden tree fruit. If you collect the little round fruits green, roast them, and grind them up, it’s not unlike cocoa powder with real chocolatey notes.”
While more people are discovering wild foods and foraging, Lisa emphasises the importance of proper education: “This is potentially life and death – it’s really serious. The most poisonous mushrooms and plants look really innocuous. They don’t flash bright colours saying, ‘I’m poisonous!’ Hemlock water dropwort looks like celery or parsley and smells like it too, but it’s really deadly.”
For Lisa, foraging is about more than just gathering food – it’s about reconnecting with natural cycles: “We’re so far from natural animal rhythms. We don’t rest with the seasons, don’t rest with the light being gone. We’re exhausted because we don’t stop.”
Lisa offers foraging courses throughout the year. Visit her website for upcoming dates and follow her Instagram for seasonal updates and wild food discoveries.
eduliswildfood.co.uk
On Instagram @eduliswildfood
