A Tale of My Nettle Rash and Pickled Walnuts

Hot-foot on the heels of yesterday (and my copy of the 'Food for Free' book by Richard Mabee), Shona and Malcolm decided that they wanted to do a bit of wild food gathering for themselves today. It is something we have often done together in September over the last few years.

Only problem today, was that the weather had returned to it's default reset mode of cold, rain and wind. Still, our thick heads and my Full English breakfast made us all want to burn some calories and get some fresh air.

We headed up to a forgotten old orchard and derelict walled garden by the side of Penmon Priory. The religeous site dates from the 6th century with associations to St Seiriol, and from the 13th century architecture developed by an Augustinian order of monks. It still has an amazing well and a large stone dovecote where the monks raised and fattened doves for eating. I guess they must have also grown their own food, though not sure if this now wild orchard is connected to the old priory historically or if this is perhaps a more modern addition.

Previous years the four of us have gone 'scrumping' here for apples, damsons, plums, blackberry's and sloes - and come home with a boot-full to make crumble, pies, puddings and flavoured spirits.

Sadly, not as successful today as then. Not sure if that was because we were too late in the season and had been beaten to it, or because of the lousy rainy summer. We suspected the latter, because there was no windfallen fruit on the ground at all. We moved on and started exploring further down the lanes.

Afterwards, and with a nice cuppa, here on our kitchen table are the net results of that quick two hour forage (we stopped when we finally became totally soaked and the nettle-stings on my bare legs got too much to bear).

Despite the low yield, new produce this year included some Rosehips (syrup); Elderberry (gin); and some green Walnuts (pickled).

Postscript: In researching the Augustine order out of curiosity (another positive bi-product of blip I find), I cam across this recipe for celebrating the Feast of Saint Augustine called Chiles En Nogada (Stuffed Peppers in Walnut Sauce). Sadly, the feast day is 28th August, but will remember that next year.