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Left: Chatting with visitors in the NHM Wildlife Garden. As part of the Natural History Museum's Nettle Weekend (part of the Be Nice to Nettles Week) Marcus joined other nettle experts for the event, and gave talks on the history of nettles as food in the Darwin Centre (the modern building in the background), while providing culinary ideas about nettles throughout the weekend for today's foodies.
Above: In the Attenborough Studio with plant folklore guru Roy Vickery for a two-handed talk on nettle folklore and food. Roy was the NHM's Curator of Flowering Plants for many years until he retired, and could be regarded as the UK's 'Mr Plant Folklore', having collected information about plant uses for decades. Among his written works is the authoritative Oxford Dictionary of Plant Lore [OUP]. |
 Above: With EDEN PROJECT Head Chef, Tony Henshaw; wild food quiches in hand. The Eden connection includes everything from wild food walks and talks to the general public, to delegate events, to generally pottering around and swapping notes and knowledge with EP's botanists and ethnobotanists... as well as working with the catering team to see what place wild / foraged foods might have in the EP menu. Right: Ben Bass, Head Chef at the Old Quay House Hotel in Fowey. With an inspirational culinary mind Ben is a keen enthusiast of wild food ingredients and Marcus works with Ben and the OQH from time to time. |
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 Wild Food School foraging courses featured on the BBC's flagship countryside programme 'Countryfile' when a film crew followed a group of would-be foragers on a guided walk along the banks of the magical River Fowey, and in 2006 WFS initially advised on the Cornwall shoot of C4's series 'The Wild Gourmets'. Marcus Harrison, who runs WFS courses, has led several foraging walks on behalf of Slow Food Cornwall and combined one with a live presentation at the 2006 Port Eliot LitFest with London Chef Skye Gyngell, and ran wild food walks in the 2007 event. Other broadcast spots include items on BBC Radio Cornwall (regularly), Gloucester, Solent, Kent, Hereford & Worcester, Westcountry TV and a front page slideshow feature on BBC News Online. The courses have featured in The Times [Body & Soul Section], Food South-West Magazine, and the local Western Morning News while Marcus has contributed regular articles about wild foods to Bushcraft & Survival Skills Magazine. |
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Also out and about Marcus has done guided wild food walks at the BCUK Moot at Merthyr Mawr in South Wales, at the Cornwall Rendevous, and for a number of years has run guided walks and Masterclasses at the Wilderness Gathering, the UK's main annual bushcraft and wilderness skills festival held in Wiltshire. At a couple of the BCUK Moots Marcus met up with one of the world's legendary survival skills trainers Mors Kochansky and during an impromptu foraging walk and chats managed to find time to swap some notes on differences between Mors' native Albertan edible wild greens and those of our own country.
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