.ABOUT FAT HEN:









.RESOURCES:








.INFORMATION:

THE FORAGER
Caroline Davey - forager and professional ecologist

I live in West Cornwall with my husband Frank, 4 year old daughter Ella, 1 year old son Jed, 5 year old Molly The Collie, and 2 year old Ninja Cat - not to mention the chickens and ducks who remain nameless.

We live in a collection of granite barns, which we have been slowly converting over the last 12 years, nestled in the farmland of Boscawen-noon Farm, 4 miles from Lands End. We aspire to organise our lives along permaculture principles, and we have a forest garden, a rainwater harvesting system for the garden, a composting toilet (as well as more conventional conveniences), and a reed bed system with a connecting pond for our wastewater. We have a well which we hope to pump our domestic water from in the future. We grow some of our own vegetables (with varying success) but dream to be more self sufficient. We incorporate wild food into the family's daily diet, devising new and appetising recipes, which are also suitable for the children (with a pretty good success rate!). We use seaweeds, wild herbs, salads, fruits, flowers and vegetables every week, which I collect on my foraging trips.

We have many plans to utilise sustainable technologies to heat our home and water, and agonise over the future plight of our ancient well-loved oil-fired Aga. We love our home, the Cornish countryside and family life.

My deep interest in the natural world began as a child in Africa, where I spent my formative years day dreaming about my future adult life as Joy Adamson in the film 'Born Free', raising lion cubs as my own children. I came to live permanently in the UK when I was thirteen and spent my school years in Somerset at boarding school. We were based by the sea in West Quantoxhead. At school, we spent a lot of our time outside in the school's parkland climbing trees and harvesting any seasonal treats we could find to supplement the watery gristle and onion dinners we were served up. Summer and Autumn were particularly exciting times when the blackberries came into season and the puffballs, sweet chestnuts and hazelnuts became ripe for the picking. We devoured all these small morsels with glee. In the holidays I spent many a day picking blackberries, hazelnuts and mushrooms with my mother in Somerset and Wales.

My favourite subject at school was biology, which I studied at 'O' and 'A' level, and went on to gain a BSc(hons) in Zoology from Liverpool University followed by a MSc. in Environmental Impact Assessment. I have been lucky enough to work in this field and have been a professional ecologist for the past 10 years. My passion for native plants has grown over these years.

In my work I have surveyed the native plants of Cornwall in all habitats and in all weathers, from the maritime grassland of the North Cornwall Coast, to the moorland of Bodmin Moor, to the heathland of The Lizard, to the ancient and twisted oak woodland of the Helford River, to the farmland of West Penwith. I have a good understanding of the landscape and the processes affecting the distribution of plant communities. It has been a fascinating journey of discovery to become skilled at identifying plants and knowing where and when to expect them to grow, to understand the kind of plants that grow together, and to finally utilise these plants as food and discover the ancient recipes written down in old cookbooks and herbals.

Many of our wild plants were at one time commonly used and were a significant component of peoples' diet, but through the loss of traditions and country customs, and the movement of people to cities, their uses became unfashionable and then the knowledge eroded. I am on a lifelong journey discovering the joys of eating wild plants and preparing them using ancient recipes whilst also applying contemporary techniques and utilising plants considered as invasive or garden escapes as well as our truly wild species.

I am also assessing the sustainability of harvesting wild plants at every stage of my journey. I follow a strict code of conduct for foraging, which can be seen here on the website. I will not continue to pick wild plants if I feel that the practice is unsustainable and will always be open to discuss this point or get involved in any research regarding this.

I am passionate about food and cooking. I thank my mother for passing down her skills as a traditional and fantastic family cook. Food to me is the very essence of life, and I get the most pleasure from eating and drinking well with friends - particularly from food that grows so vibrantly green, so obviously brimming with health and vitality, that grows so vigorously with no attention or care or tending, that grows so abundantly and that is also FREE and part of our ancestral and deep genetic heritage. My gardening skills leave considerable room for improvement, so it's a great relief that I no longer worry if the bindweed climbs the poles higher than the beans or if the courgettes have been slugged, because I can just go out and pick what grows so well in the wild and tastes so good, whilst having the amazing feeling of freedom and connection with the landscape. Being the first person on the beach in the morning and gathering the day's sea beet, laver seaweed and rock samphire fills me with a contentment so deep that life couldn't be any better.