Prepare yourself, gentle reader, for this tale contains mild mushroom peril. More of which later.

Here at the Suburban Bee Company, pushing to the back of a heavily iced freezer and emerging triumphant with an unidentifiable food container would demand treatment reserved for the heroes of ancient Greece. But the times, in the words of the nobel laureate for literature, they are a-changing.

Supermarket convenience removes a link to the way our forebears managed the menu and has slowly eroded our skills in finding nature’s free lunch. It is true there are fewer wild spaces than once available to us but even died-in-the-wool suburbanites will find plenty to browse in parks and along footpaths if only we know where to look.

This is, of course, a brief discourse on the wonders of the wild, and not so wild, foods that can be found growing only a short stroll from the out-of-town retail park. The things out there don’t have the homogenised and untarnished appeal of the produce aisle and there is certainly more cleaning and processing than could be described as convenient. Nonetheless, there is a sense of primordial reward to be had when serving up foraged foods that you absolutely do not get by popping a can of baked beans in your trolley.

Now, hunter gatherer expertise is not something that we are born with. It does not, please excuse the pun, grow on trees. Recapturing this fast vanishing knowledge requires us to go out there and find what is good to eat.

Foraging can start with some very recognisable and easy to collect foods. Late summer and Autumn provides an excellent opportunity to wander the edges of our larger parks and along hedgerows adjacent to many footpaths and wasteland. It’s pretty easy to find feral apple trees, various nuts like the cobb or sweet chestnut and our absolute foraged fruit favourite, blackberries.

Wild blackberries tend to be a little smaller than the varieties found commercially but if you pick them direct from the bramble when they are at their ripest, they will certainly be more delicious. The sweetest berries grow in direct sunlight. It’s recommended to avoid anything growing below Great Dane height and for obvious reasons you may want to rinse the berries in cold water before consuming. Remember that brambles can be prickly, so take care when collecting.

Blackberries are at their peak in August and September and we’re very lucky to have lots of brambles in the hedges bordering our bee yard. This provides lots of opportunity for easy foraging for us and even the company whippet, Fiscal Commitment has become an expert in delicately collecting one or two of the lower hanging fruits. Our other great foragers, the bees, appear to be huge fans of the blackberry flowers that appear in June and July. As a result, the honey we produce here is a clear liquid gold, with a smooth and extra sweet floral flavour.

Once the foraging bug bites, it must surely be only a matter of time before that greatest of delicacies, the wild mushroom, becomes the next great target. And so it’s time for a warning. Only ever eat something you’ve gathered if you are absolutely sure what it is. In the case of mushrooms, that can literally mean the difference between life and death.

We recently attended a day’s foraging hosted by Forest Foragers and met up with Peter Sibley, an ecologist with considerable experience in preparing and cooking wild foods and Clifford Davy, a mycologist with 25 years of experience,  a fellow of the Linnean Society and someone who loves to eat wild mushrooms. A one day course of this kind is a really fantastic way to safely enter the world of mushroom foraging.

We start with morning identification sessions. Peter covers edible plants and Clifford talks us through some of the common mushrooms we may encounter. Both sessions feature identification of the edible and the deadly. Over a delicious lunch, cooked by Peter and featuring wild foraged foods, we talk about our chances for success in the afternoon. Although we’re definitely in the season, the weather hasn’t been kind, with little rain over the previous week. With trepidation, we ready ourselves for the foraging trip.

We were not blindfolded for the journey, but since foragers find their best haunts with hard earned experience it doesn’t seem right to hand over someone’s secrets so the exact location will remain a mystery.  We did, however, arrive on the edge of public woodland with a big green trug in one hand and mushroom knife in the other. A mushroom knife by the way has a handy brush built in to one end to help in removing soil and grit.

After several hours, and buoyed by Clifford’s enthusiasm and skill, we had gathered a very respectable haul of wild mushrooms with an array of exotic names; bay boletes, charcoal burners, deceivers, amethyst deceivers (a fantastical purple mushroom that keeps its colour when cooked), parasols, tawny grisettes, common yellow russula. There was even one example of that king of the wild mushrooms, the cep (or penny bun or porcini).

Back again at base, and topped up with coffee, we arranged our mushrooms for a final examination by Clifford before we were allowed to pack them away for cooking at home. Look away now, nervous reader. Even under supervision we had managed to collect two small, undistinguished looking mushrooms that would quite possibly have killed us. Certainly at that moment the warning to eat only those things that you can absolutely identify became very meaningful.

Danger passed, we finished the session with pointers from Peter on the cleaning,  preparing and cooking of the mushrooms. Wild things, it seems, attract wild things. Some of the mushrooms gathered will inevitably have become homes for creepy crawlies.

Once back in our own home after a fine day of foraging, our wild mushrooms, sautéed in butter were served on sourdough toast with a little chopped parsley and a big glass of wine.

And you know what? They were simply, utterly delicious.