Foraging Fortnight!

By Hannah McLaren -

Seaweed Foraging with Jayson Byles of East Neuk Seaweed. pic credit: Gerardo Jaconelli

From woodland walks and fresh food feasts to wellness workshops and foraged cocktails, the first ever Foraging Fortnight is set to be a wild one…

This brand new festival brings together over a hundred events across five diverse regions of Scotland: from the rolling hills of Lanarkshire, the golden beaches of Fife and the mountains of Moray, to the woodlands and lochs of the Forth Valley and Loch Lomond and the diverse islands of Orkney.

The LEADER funded project will take place from 31^st August – 15^th September, allowing people to explore Scotland’s natural places and increase their knowledge of wild food and medicinal plants.

We had a taste of some of the festival’s events:

: Birken Tree – Birch water tasting and talk through

: Birken Tree stall

: Freshly foraged pizza… well pizza toppings

: Wendy Barrie – cookery show and tell using wild food

: Delicious homemade jam from foraged berries and fresh butter

: Jayson of East Neuk Seaweed walks group down to the beach for a quick seaweed forage

: Lindores Abbey Distillery – Aqua Vitae tincture cocktail making and tasting

: Making cocktails from natural ingredients

: Forest bathing session with Jennie Martin

: In touch with nature

The festival programme has been designed to encourage people of all ages to participate safely and responsibly in different foraging activities, encourage adherence to Scotland’s Outdoor Access Code while discovering some of the most breath-taking parts of Scotland.

Offering a range of free and paid-for tickets, each region has tailored the two-week festival to showcase its surroundings and unique local flora.

Participants will be able to forage for medicinal plants, learn how to cook with wild ingredients or attend one of the many feasts of foraged food.

Events include:

The Scottish Wild Food Festival: taking place on 14^th September on Cardross Estate in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. This brand-new event will include a series of hands-on foraging, mindful workshops, folklore walks throughout the estate and the chance to try freshly prepared food and drink made of wild ingredients. The event will also include spectacular one-table feasts from Buck & Birch’s Rupert Waites and Marysia Paszkowska of Monachyle Mhor.

Living Off the Land: Eva Gunnare.

Living Off the Land: Eva Gunnare, a food and culture connoisseur from Swedish Lapland will be running a series of events across all five regions sharing her insights into foraging in the Arctic Circle, blending traditional recipes with modern creations.

Forage to Make Hedgerow Jelly: A free event at Fife’s Cambo Estate showing participants how to forage for ingredients to make your own hedgerow jelly.

Clyde Valley Apple Walk: an exploration of Clyde Valley’s heritage apple trees with a historical walk through Kirkfieldbank Community Orchard where the past is brought to and nature, conservation and food production go hand in hand.

Explore the Edible Seashore: Duncan from Slate Islands Seaweed.

Explore the Edible Seashore: the opportunity to explore marine life and discover the edible seaweeds that grow locally in Moray along with a demonstration to show how coastal ingredients can be cooked.

Old Ways and New Journeys: this Orkney event contains fascinating insights from instructor Zeki Basan, who grew up in a remote part of the Cairngorms. A glacier guide in Iceland and a wilderness instructor in Scotland, he describes the skills of survival used in the past in Scotland and by indigenous people today.

“This is the first time an event like this has taken place in Scotland and I’m delighted by the strength, diversity and ambition of the programme. From mindful workshops and wild food feasts to talks from internationally renowned wilderness experts, Foraging Fortnight truly celebrates Scotland’s rural areas and shows the wealth of opportunities for everyone to get involved in foraging.” – Catharine Idle, Programme Coordinator for LEADER in Fife.

For the full programme visit www.foragingfortnight.co.uk

Foraging Fortnight is part of Scottish Food & Drink Fortnight, which runs from 31^st August to 15^th September. The festival will be repeated in May 2020 in four of the regions and in September 2020 in Orkney.