Wild food foraging courses - As featured in the Guardian

I am doing something different this year with my wild food foraging courses. Those of you who are on my mailing list know that in August 2009, Frank Cook my plant mentor, died from a tropical parasite infection.

Frank was an inspiration to thousands of people around the world. A plant visionary who traveled the planet teaching people from all walks of life the wonder and beauty that plants bestow upon us… if we have the “eyes to see and the heart to hear”.

Frank had an unusual business model, in that he taught via donations. He had a saying “Take what you need, give what you can” and it was this attitude of abundance that allowed him to constantly travel sharing his passion for plants with whoever was prepared to listen.

So in keeping his memory and life-work alive I am running bi-weekly wild edible plant walks around Sidmouth and Otterton in East Devon on this same donation basis.

From my experience, people often find it uncomfortable to give a donation because they don’t know how much to give. So a suggested donation of £10 per person for a two-hour walk is offered as a guideline. More is always welcome, but I leave the decision up to you.

Some of the dates listed do have fixed prices. On these occasions it is because I am teaching with other people, or an event has been organised by another person or organisation.

You need to know that I forage and eat wild edible plants everyday (with the very odd exception), and I have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours researching the traditional uses of wild edible plants throughout Europe.

I am constantly experimenting with new plants for their suitability as food, and over the past two years have uncovered nearly 100 new species that are not mentioned in any of the wild food books in print.

I originally started this ‘living experiment’ purely for my own pleasure and never ever considered teaching. Frank Cook changed all that by encouraging me to start sharing what I know, and so I now offer this knowledge to the greater community. Young and old alike.

What is important to me, and what Frank also taught, is people need to re-learn foraging, healing and celebrating with wild plants. These humble, undomesticated, feral beings. Domestication leads to docility, to a slow death of our senses and a loss of connection to our soul.

I believe individuals need to start learning ‘skills for self reliance’. We live in challenging times with global warming, peak oil, food security and sustainability being the new buzz-words.

Re-discovering the lost art of foraging is a joyous and pleasurable way to reconnect our fragmented souls back with Nature, back to the ancient roots of this land, and ultimately back to our true kinship with each other.

The coming years on an individual and collective level will be challenging, it is up to us to face those changes directly, to re-empower ourselves and support each other. And the humble plant kingdom has a lot to teach us all.

I look forward to greeting and meeting you on one of my wild food foraging courses… until then.

Happy foraging…

Robin Harford