Wild Food and Foraging

My son Zeki is well versed in living off the land and is more knowledgeable about plants and trees and their ancestral, medicinal and culinary uses than anyone I know.

It is easy to forget that Zeki is severely dyslexic and struggled at school, but it was through his passion for plants and the nature he saw all around him as he was growing up that he taught himself to read. He would look up the names of plants which are, of course, all listed in Latin – and unlike English, Latin is a phonetic language so he found he could sound out most of the letters and produce an actual word. It was a breakthrough in his quest for flora and fauna knowledge and he opened my eyes to the wonders of our natural larder. Together, we forage and create our own tongue-in-cheek herbes d’ecosse, which we change according to our mood and the season. Zeki’s knowledge and passion aren’t restricted to foraging: as a Wilderness Survival Instructor he teaches the skills of our ancestors and how they can help us to understand and appreciate our natural environment so that we can live in harmony with it. He has a practical use for every bone and sinew of a dead animal and he will tan the skin to make strong, soft leather, which he sews into practical bags and pieces of clothing, just like our ancestors did. He does the same with salmon skins, which he tans with bark and then wraps around hip flasks for a nip of whisky in the fresh air.