Today's walk

Fifteen of us walked out from the Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre today for one of my four hour foraging workshops, bracing winter's cold ground joy.

Foraging workshop. Photo: Dave Cauldwell

We came across about thirty to forty autonomous foods including mallow (Malva) and wild radish (Raphanus raphanistrum).

Mallow (left), wild radish (right). Photo: Dave Cauldwell.

The young leaves of acanthus (Acantha) can be eaten. The flowers and fruits (cheeses) can be cooked as a vegetable.

Acanthus. Photo: Dave Cauldwell.

Buckshorn plantain (Plantago coronopus) can be eaten raw in salads or cooked.

Buckshorn plantain. Photo: Dave Cauldwell.

Spear thistle root (Cirsium vulgare) is my favourite vegetable at the moment. Washing the clay from one in Lake Daylesford made a perfect end to the walk.

Washing spear thistle root in Lake Daylesford. Photo: Dave Cauldwell.

Especially after chopping up the root, giving it a splash with local (Captain's Creek) red wine vinegar and serving it out to the lovely crew who came on the walk today.

Patrick Jones' foraging workshop, Lake Daylesford. Photo: Dave Cauldwell.

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Rooted

Appropriate technology is an ideological movement that encompasses technological choice and application that is 'small-scale, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally controlled'. I'm not so sure about the desirability of labour intensity in this otherwise sensible list, that's why I forage, you harvest food that you haven't sown. My new root tool that I bought from a foraging, hunting, gardening, cooking shop in nearby Trentham, will enable us to more easily forage for autonomous root vegetables and therefore for non-monetised complex starches.

Tonight I cooked this little spear thistle root with dandelion roots in animal fat and salt. We'll be eating more of these delicious roots (related to artichokes), abundant in winter, now we have a hand tool that we can easily carry around with us. 

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