Embracing Autumn in the Brecks
Our quick guide for enjoying autumn to the fullest in the Norfolk and Suffolk Brecks. More
On one of the last hot sunny days of the year, we set out with expert forager, Jon Tyler, to gather ourselves a wild lunch. Sunshine isn’t a crucial ingredient in the mix, but it certainly helps. Here is the rest of the recipe we followed:
Appetiser: Blackberry and Cinnamon Shrub
Though blackberry season is winding down, the berries can still be found, dark and juicy, on whorls of thorny stems. A shrub creates a long-term preservation and an old way to avoid the expense of sugar. A fruity zing to start the meal.
Main: Socca Flatbread with Wild Marjoram. Mushrooms with Wild Garlic and Foraged Greens.
There are many edible greens to forage: fragrant herbs, leggy Fat Hen, delicate Chickweed, young Nettle tops and pleated rounds of Mallow. Each can sit beside the mushrooms: tall parasols, soft yellow chicken-of-the-woods, the striking amethyst deceivers contrasting beautifully, and all set off by the deep pungency of garlic.
Dessert: Cherry Plum and Poppy Seed Dropscones
Reaching into the branches of a riverside cherry plum tree, laden with fruit: yellow-fleshed and pink and green skinned, sweet and tart all at once.
Tea: Pine Needle, Water Mint and Thistle Flower
A fistful each of resinous pine needles, a scattering of honey-scented thistle flowers and a slippery clamber down the riverbank to gather the leaves of the water mint.
Cook over a birchwood fire and sit and chat in the lingering woodsmoke as you enjoy the spoils of your walk.
This event was run by Jon Tyler as part of the Brecks Outdoor Festival. Made possible with funding by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
