Food for free
I have been doing this for years, mainly for ingredients for wine and flavouring vodka. Whilst scrumping I have never met a single other person doing anything similar. I conclude the whole food for free movement is a bourgeois fantasy. Having said that it leaves the field ( accidental pun ) open for anyone who wants to actually do it.
The food for free almanac is similar to the wine maker’s almanac with the addition of field mushrooms, chestnuts, horse radish and wild garlic ( AKA ramsons) .
Field mushrooms can be eaten or preserved. I have tried mushroom ketchup recipes and they have all been vile. Try other recipes or dry them.
Wild chestnuts: Can be roasted or dried. You cannot just leave them because they look fine on the outside but go mouldy inside. Once roasted or dried, store them in an air tight container or bottle them in alcohol syrup. A 200 gram jar of dried chestnuts costs £2.99 at the supermarket. There are lots of recipes online especially if you can read Portuguese.
Horseradish looks like dock leaves but the spine is more erect. Run your fingernail up the spine and then give it a sniff. Dig it up and grate the tuber put it in a jar with white wine vinegar. Serve it as it is or mix with cream or salad cream.
Wild garlic: A lot of plants look like wild garlic. Rustle a few leaves between your fingers and make sure it smells like garlic. The roots are the size of spring onions. Don’t expect much more in size after April / May. The leaves can make salads more interesting. The roots can be pulled up too. I’m not sure if this damages the crops for subsequent years.
www.uktv.co.uk/food/ingredient/aid/585886
Elderberries deserve a special mention here. Wines, chutney and jam. Don’t listen to anybody who says prick the berries off with a fork. Take a brewing bucket to the shrub, snatch a head off and beat it on the inside of the bucket until they are almost gone. Three or four whacks should do it. Then throw the flower head away. This may seem wasteful but who else is harvesting those elderberries? I have harvested 10lb in two hours once I have got motoring. When you have enough for your recipe take the bucket home and pour in enough water for you to be able to churn them with your hand. Keep churning and picking out stalks. Leave for a while and the creepy crawlies will come to the surface. Get them out and continue with the recipe.
Road kill
When I was a young racing cyclist I was always bringing home road kill (not many trophies though). Way before it was made popular by buggerlugs off the telly. It’s not for the feint hearted and is actually illegal if you are the person that ran the animal over. When you find an animal give it a kick to turn it over. If there are marks of predators like rats, foxes or crows, kick it into a hedge and leave it there. Similarly if loads of woodlice and other creepy crawlies have made their home under it. Don’t worry if it has rigor mortis or if it is bleeding from somewhere or other, that should be OK. Flies lay their eggs on fresh meat. These look like tiny grains of rice. You can wash these off if you have the stomach for it.
I have picked up two separate muntjac deer. One came back to life in my boot and started kicking the stuffing out of the boot trim. I drove back to where I picked it up and let it go. The other one was actually really dead. She had a dead foetus in her! As I said "not for the feint hearted".
Some animals need to be hung. This means that their flesh is too tuff and has to be allowed to break down a bit to be edible and achieve their full flavour. Hanging should be performed in a cool place with no flies. Small animals should be hung for a few days. Larger animals like small deer maybe for ten days. Larger animals should also be gutted first.
The definition of "game" is that it needs to be hung. A hare is game a rabbit is not.