Selfsufficientish.com

Farming today this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/


"If you're worried about sky-rocketing food prices, genetically modified crops and intensive agriculture, then Farming Today has a simple solution. Fergus Drennan is a dedicated forager - whether it's dock seeds or road kill-badger, if it’s wild and free Fergus can turn it into a tempting banquet. But dabbling's not enough for Fergus. He’s about to start a year of living on absolutely nothing but wild food. He tells all to Mark Holdstock, including revealing one of the unsavoury ingredients in his homemade biscuits."

ina wrote:Farming today this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/


"If you're worried about sky-rocketing food prices, genetically modified crops and intensive agriculture, then Farming Today has a simple solution. Fergus Drennan is a dedicated forager - whether it's dock seeds or road kill-badger, if it’s wild and free Fergus can turn it into a tempting banquet. But dabbling's not enough for Fergus. He’s about to start a year of living on absolutely nothing but wild food. He tells all to Mark Holdstock, including revealing one of the unsavoury ingredients in his homemade biscuits."

If I tried that around here I'd be subsisting on grass, gum leaves and dog crap

Nev

Grass?? What's that stuff then? We ain't got none o' that here in the Waikato!

Wombat wrote: If I tried that around here I'd be subsisting on grass, gum leaves and dog crap

Yuk!

No, it's a bit better here. He has already done it once for a shorter period of time, and he's made some kind of flour from roots, and gets fat (lard, in effect) from badgers...

ina wrote:

Wombat wrote: If I tried that around here I'd be subsisting on grass, gum leaves and dog crap

Yuk!

No, it's a bit better here. He has already done it once for a shorter period of time, and he's made some kind of flour from roots, and gets fat (lard, in effect) from badgers...

aaah! Animals of course! I could always extract the fat from our neighbours chihuahua! But I don't think that either of us would enjoy that much

Nev

C'mon Nev - be adventurous. What about fillet of Red-bellied Black sauteed in saltwater crocodile lard? Wallaby burger (pre-minced if what I saw of Oz roads is right) with a piquant Funnelweb sauce? Crunchy Platypus spur with Carpet Snake fritters?

Might not taste great, but you'd certainly keep fit just by staying alive.

MKG wrote:C'mon Nev - be adventurous. What about fillet of Red-bellied Black sauteed in saltwater crocodile lard? Wallaby burger (pre-minced if what I saw of Oz roads is right) with a piquant Funnelweb sauce? Crunchy Platypus spur with Carpet Snake fritters?

Might not taste great, but you'd certainly keep fit just by staying alive.

Ummm, MKG

I live in Sydney! So you can scratch just about everything but the funnelwebs, and the afforementioned grass, gum leaves, dog crap and chihuahua

Nev

You lot are so cynical!!!! I was reading about him in The Ecologist and this month he can choose from:

birch and lime sap; winter cress; chickweed; hairy bittercress (hairy??); scurvy grass; sea puslane, japanese knotweed; wild garlic; alexanders; charlock; honesty; reed mace; nettles; cleavers; wood sorrel, dandelion, common mallow, hedge mustard; jelly-ear fungus....

That last one sounds particularly delicious washed down with a nice mug of birch and lime sap.

You're not going to get very full eating that lot! Bleugh!

apparently jelly ear fungus is delicious but it looks awful. think i would have to eat it blindfolded.

Millymollymandy wrote:You're not going to get very full eating that lot! Bleugh!

Don't forget - there's loads of roadkill, too. The pheasants around here are looking quite well fed; all those bird tables...

eccentric_emma wrote:apparently jelly ear fungus is delicious but it looks awful. think i would have to eat it blindfolded.

I read that you can cut into slivers and add it to stews ... you would not notice it then ...

Hi Ina,

Do you know where the original article or link is please?

Joking aside (thanks for the entertainment guys), sorry to be boring, but I'd really love to read/hear more about this.

Heartfelt thanks
Trinity

It was on radio 4, farming today. As it's more than a week ago, I suppose you won't be able to listen to it again... But I think he's been in the news in several places, so might be in a newspaper somewhere or other? I think he's in the Ecologist, too - but again, not everything in there can be accessed online....

Thanks Ina

Upon further looking Fergus has a website...

http://www.wildmanwildfood.com/

I don't listen to the radio or have a t.v. so I am often missing out on these little things.