Hello from Torbay.

[Paul_C]

Hi, im oddly enough, paul.

i live in torquay and i have been interested in wild foods for years but only recently have i realy been going to get it. as a logical continuation of 2 of my main hobbies, Cooking and scuba diving.

Diving lends itself well to foraging for food and its a poor day when i dont manage to catch something for tea so below the waves and even on them im pretty well sorted espeicaly food wise and i have hunted for game in the past and hope to restart again in the future for small game.

my normal foragings under the seas nets me Edible crab (a 4.2lb one is cooking as i type), lobsters, Spider crabs, Flatfish, King and Queen Scallops, crayfish if the people i dive with let me keep it, gurnard and the occasional oyster. plus the usual array of fish caught on a line.


but its the other aspect of wild foods which i am looking for some guidance, help and generaly slapped into shape about. namly wild berrys, nuts, fruits, roots and other vegy type stuff.

i have been collecting what i can ID as safe to eat but my IDing SUCKS even with a book to help me. so if anyone is around in the are who doesnt mind taking me under thier wing and helping me would be nice ta.

with my cooking i like to make as much as i can from scratch to avoid the evil palaces of conism or is that consumerisme that is the supermarket. prefering instead to go to a proper butcher, grocers etc. initialy from a quality and price perspective then simply because i found it much nicer.

[Milims]

Hi there and welcome

[Lentil]

Hi Paul!
I am a newby too.Your fishing sounds awsome!
I too have some trouble with plants ID; I frighten my friends to death when I pick mushrooms & shaggy ink caps are fine (also nice raw): Field mushrooms are easy when you know to only pick if the gills are brown.
I would like to be bettter on salad leaves: I pick hawthorn shoots in the early spring though. :)

[MuddyWitch]

Welcome to ISH

I think you may have opened up a whole new aspect to foraging!

MW

[spider8]

Hello Paul

[Paul_C]

yes but the rule is all red lobsters are yours, the blue ones are all mine. deal?

[spider8]

Aren't the blue ones lovely........I know, going off topic ........a friend of ours has a lobster hatchery and he showed me a lovely blue lobby but they all go red in the end!

[Paul_C]

yes unless they happen to be berried. which i find most annoying after getting them out of the holes they live in.

i have had 2 this year wich wernt, the other 30 have been preggers.

[crowsashes]

nice to see youve signed up :) folk here are lovely and will help you with the stuff i havent the foggiest about !