A few weeks ago I went to the West Norwood Slow Festival and a what a fab day it was. There were some great stalls selling a variety of artisan produce; iberico ham from Brindisa, chorizos, cakes, cheeses and lots more. You’d be hard pushed not find something you like. As well as the food stalls there were food related talks and demos in the ‘Chef Demo Tent’ and ‘Talks Tent’.
It was at the ‘Chef Demo Tent’ that I saw Jayne Totty, who is a Nutritional Therapist and chef, do a demo on ‘Pasta in the Raw’. She gave a talk about using ‘raw’ foods in your diet as they have more nutritional benefit than when cooked. She created a very healthy looking meal made using a fancy gadget that chopped courgettes into pasta looking strands, adding a vegan pesto and broad beans. I had a taste of the dish once finished – it looked great, but felt it was lacking in seasoning. Doubt I’ll be converting to this way of cooking anytime soon, but it was an interesting demo.
What stood out for me most on the day was the ‘Invisible Food Foraging Tour’ with urban food forager Ceri Buck. The tour was in West Norwood Cemetery.
Ceri explained that cemetery’s are good to forage in because dogs aren’t allowed in and so unable to foul the place and also once inside you are generally a good distance away from the main roads – resulting in less pollution.
Out of respect Ceri doesn’t take anything on or closely around the tombstones. When she does find a suitable spot she advises to take a third of the plant and stresses that the plants are quite resilient, but unless you pick from your own garden it is illegal to take the whole plant.
We found many types of edible plants that day: dandelion, nettles, thistle, clover, mustard plants, mallow and more. I had a nibble on quite a few of them (some pics here). My favourite find though was Common Mallow in the above picture. It had a strong garlicky taste and was much closer to a herb – I really liked it. So picked a bunch. I asked Ceri how she prepares the plants and she said that it was usually infusions or salads.
We finished at the tent where the main festival was to a steaming hot cup of nettle infused water, it was the kind of drink that you knew would ‘do you good’, but was not my cup of tea taste wise.
It was a very informative tour and inspiring to find out that there are so many edible plants that you’d usually just walk past – and free too! So inspired was I, that I made a Mallow omelette.
The festival took place on Lancaster Avenue outside St Lukes Church and outside Beamish&McGlue at 461 Norwood Road. Twitter: @WNSlowfoodfest
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Thanks! The fact that the main ingredient was free made it taste all the better too.
I liked the way the omellete was made
I love the look of your omlette (not sure if I spelled that right hahahaha) I wish mine came out like that I am worse than those tossers (er sorry chefs) on Saturday Kitchen mine is always undercooked oh well I must come with you to the next Norwood festi sounds like it was a lot of fun xoxo.
Oi! Saturday Kitchen is great (I’m watching it now it fact), but then again I love pretty much all cooking programmes 🙂
Cheers Paul,
Wow, that does sounds great! You guys found an amazing crop of stuff.
Great blog Tash and the omelet looks great. Foraging is a much more inspiring journey of shopping making the cooking all the more rewarding.
Did I tell you about the foraging I did in Finland where we got chanterelle mushrooms, blueberries and cloudberries and all sorts. The food (cooked by our Finnish hosts) was awesome.
I brought a load of mushrooms back and had chanterelle and tarragon omeletes for days….loved it…and all for free (bar the eggs) x