Wild meals

[Seaweed]

I have decided we need to forage more for our food. So plan A is to have at least 1 meal a week of completely wild sourced or home grown food. I went past the watercress stream today so we are having cockles, maori potatoes & steamed watercress. I will probably throw in some carrots or add some salad from the garden. Maybe we will have stewed apples & blackberries for pudding if I get a chance to pick some.

Any other good ideas for foraged meals. Giant puffball season soon as well :)

[Paper Cut]

Any other good ideas for foraged meals.

Got a gun? or access to a man with one? some truly lovely wild meat up in those hills (most hills in NZ)

ok... enlighten me.. what are giant puff balls? (other than the nick name of one of my cats)

[Seaweed]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvatia_gigantea

No gun but it is something I dither about getting onto. My main issue is I am told that if you have a gun you basically wave your right to them needing a search warrant to get in. I do still need to verify this information but I kinda dislike anything in principle that gives the establishment an opportunity to erode any of our rights. I do know people who go pig hunting with dogs & knives but I am not game enuf. Me & the cats with my kitchen knife is probably nowhere near as effective. My next mission will be spear fishing & I am considering working out how to cook possums. We are in a TB free area & I raise them on my backyard so I may as well!

[Paper Cut]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvatia_gigantea

No gun but it is something I dither about getting onto. My main issue is I am told that if you have a gun you basically wave your right to them needing a search warrant to get in. I do still need to verify this information but I kinda dislike anything in principle that gives the establishment an opportunity to erode any of our rights. I do know people who go pig hunting with dogs & knives but I am not game enuf. Me & the cats with my kitchen knife is probably nowhere near as effective. My next mission will be spear fishing & I am considering working out how to cook possums. We are in a TB free area & I raise them on my backyard so I may as well!

I am pretty certain that having a license does not mean the cops are now beyond the law... my hubby has a arms license and a dealers license.. the police still have to follow procedure.. but I can follow that up and ask further if you like (have a family full of lawyers and a cop BIL but would rather not speak to the BIL haha)

Spear fishing is awesome... My hubby is also a free diver/spear fisher, thou he doesn't get out there nearly as much as he would like (which is fine by me as I freak out when hes under the water shh)

Check out some American websites on cooking possum.. heaps of ideas from over there.. I am not sure if their possums are the same as ours but the fundamentals are probably the same.

Thanks for the link on the puff balls - as I thought - never seen them before.

[Seaweed]

By spear fishing I mean floundering. I am nowhere near patient enuf to sit by anywhere waiting for fish to bite. So getting out there & wading around is far more fun. Especially in the middle of the night. Last time I went fishing with a rod, I very almost got to the stage I was gonna dive in & look for fish it was so boring.

I don't think the american possums are the same as ours but I will check it out. I guess it would be a case of checking out the flavour & texture & taking it from there.

Seaweeds are also good tucker. You can do a whole stack with them & they are very nutritious.

The puffballs are incredibly yummy. Unfortunately my kids don't like them which is a real pain. Their dad is very anti mushroom so that is probably why. & btw watercress if you cook it like spinach tastes very similar. Still slightly peppery but the kids were well into it with grated cheese. We have NZ spinach around here too which is always slightly salty as it is by the sea. Puha obviously & some feral potatoes. Plus random apple & plum trees that have sprouted in strange places.

[Sarah]

Am always worried about picking mushrooms, have visions of spending a day locked in some kind of hallucinogenic world! We have a rather damp paddock, and there is often a lot of mushrooms growing. Would like to know how you go about learning to differentiate between good and bad mushrooms (in NZ) any good sites/books to read that anyone knows of? Also when diagnosed with Candida Albicans many years ago, and being wheat and lactose intolerant I was told by my a Naturopath to stay away from mushrooms and any fungus. Was never sure why and love mushroom, anyone else heard of this?

[Paper Cut]

By spear fishing I mean floundering. I am nowhere near patient enuf to sit by anywhere waiting for fish to bite. So getting out there & wading around is far more fun. Especially in the middle of the night. Last time I went fishing with a rod, I very almost got to the stage I was gonna dive in & look for fish it was so boring.

You'd probably enjoy the spear fishing my hubby does then (with a rail gun) your under the water stalking the fish just looking for the right one to shoot - I have to entertain my self on shore with my foldable rod and my vegie gum fake fish baits lol



The puffballs are incredibly yummy. Unfortunately my kids don't like them which is a real pain. Their dad is very anti mushroom so that is probably why. & btw watercress if you cook it like spinach tastes very similar. Still slightly peppery but the kids were well into it with grated cheese. We have NZ spinach around here too which is always slightly salty as it is by the sea. Puha obviously & some feral potatoes. Plus random apple & plum trees that have sprouted in strange places.

We lived on a kiwifruit orchard for about 5 years when I was a kid (yum chemicals :crazy:) and the only things I remember us calling 'puff balls' were literally these big puffy fungus things that we would hit with a stick and dust (spores) would fly EVERYWHERE in a huge cloud (they were not solid inside like the ones you have shown) Come to think of it there was a lot of scary looking fungus growing on that orchard (magic mushrooms included) ... so seeing that link u posted was interesting... they do look yum, the solid stalk is my fav part of any mushroom, and the puff balls look like one big 'stalk' :)

[Seaweed]

Am always worried about picking mushrooms, have visions of spending a day locked in some kind of hallucinogenic world! lol! The beauty of giant puffballs is there is nothing else they can be. I would guess you could start looking at mushroom books in your library. Talk to old farmers as they all eat field mushrooms too. I have read about mushrooms & candida but I dunno. They are just a fungus but I don't think they proliferate in the gut or feed the yeasts which we have? Sugar, grapes, grains, starch etc would be far more harmful IMO. Experiment maybe & try some organic store mushrooms & see how they effect you?


You'd probably enjoy the spear fishing my hubby does then (with a rail gun) your under the water stalking the fish just looking for the right one to shoot yum moki!!! I am getting hungry already.

There are several puffball species around I think. You can probably find them if you google. They could be called earth balls as well? The smaller ones I have memories of them looking like they are smoking with the spores puffing out every now & then. You can kick them & they look like they smoke everywhere. THey are solid in their earlier phases & I think are edible as well.