About Me

Hello.

I'm a 22 year old graduate from the University of Exeter, currently living in Tunbridge Wells, England, and foraging as much as I can.

I became fascinated by wild food in autumn '11 when on an expertly guided mushroom foray around the grounds of Scotney Castle, Kent - it turns out I had been walking past delicious porcini mushrooms for years without realising their true identity.  Ever since, I have been avidly learning (still am!) what plants, berries, nuts, mushrooms, shellfish, seaweeds...you name it, can be eaten (and, perhaps more importantly, what can't) and, of course, how to turn them into something that will tease, tickle and transport my tastebuds to new places.


Picking Pignuts

Whilst at the University of Exeter, I co-founded a society called 'Food For Free' - a foraging society with a name pinched from Richard Mabey's acclaimed publication.  Along with my co-founder, I lead guided walks around the Exeter countryside, picking mushrooms and wild plants.  As well as scouring the surrounding woodland and fields, we also regularly headed down the Exe Estuary to collect mussels, clams, oysters and cockles - not your typical student food!




 Since graduating, I have joined the Hunter Gather Cook team as a freelance kitchen assistant and foraging instructor, doing weekend work whenever a helping hand is needed. HGC is based near Lewes in Sussex and runs seasonal food courses throughout the year as well as doing private functions and stag / hen parties. I tell you it's well worth a visit, so much fun is always had by all down there, including us lot.
 For 3 months in summer '14 I was lucky enough to fly over to Copenhagen and intern at Noma, needless to say the hours were long and it was pretty full on, but I learnt a huge amount and am now trying to translate that in to better ways of using wild food at home and being more creative in the kitchen - I'll share my successes, and maybe failures too, on here.


Follow me on Instagram for more regular wild food updates: www.instagram.com/goingwildforaging


I hope you enjoy reading the blog as much as I enjoy writing it.  If you have any feedback you'd like to share, then please don't hesitate - I would love to hear from you.

Elliot


Mushroom menagerie




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