What the Hill Gives Up

Before You Forage

This book exists because The Sutler's Table keeps sending guests out into the hedge, the wood and the shoreline before supper, and a good meal is no excuse for a bad guess.

Wild garlic pulled an hour before it hits the pan tastes like nothing that's come off a shop shelf, and the same is true of nearly everything in this book. But the hedge doesn't label anything, and a few of the things growing right next to what you actually want will hurt you badly if you can't tell the difference. This isn't a book written to make you nervous about picking things. It's written so you don't have to be.

The One Rule

Only pick what you can identify with total certainty, using more than one feature. Every entry in this book gives you at least two ways to be sure, and wherever something has a dangerous look-alike, its photograph sits right next to the one you actually want. If you're still not certain once you've compared both, leave it standing. Nothing in the hedge is worth a hospital trip, and everything genuinely safe to pick will still be there tomorrow.

How to Use This Book

Each entry is laid out the same way: a photograph, where and when to find it, and what it actually looks, smells or feels like once you're standing in front of it. Chapter Five is different: it's a gallery of things on this ground worth avoiding whether or not you were ever looking for them. Learn those six and you've covered the real risk here.

Use this alongside The Sutler's Table where the two overlap; several entries here are ingredients in recipes over there.

Sutlers & Co.