 Wild Food School foraging courses featured on the BBC's flagship countryside programme 'BBC Countryfile' in 2005 when a film crew followed a group of would-be foragers on a guided walk along the banks of the magical River Fowey. WFS initially advised on the Cornwall shoot of the Channel 4 series 'The Wild Gourmets', has featured on 'Simon Rimmer's Dinners' (Good Food Channel), and recently (Spring, 2012) the BBC Great British Menu and CBeebies. 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 Port Eliot LitFest with London Chef Skye Gyngell. Other broadcast spots include regular items on BBC Radio Cornwall, 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], Independent on Sunday, Food South-West Magazine, the local Western Morning News and all sorts of other publications, while Marcus contributed regular articles about wild foods to a couple of bushcraft and survival magazines. |
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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]. Check out his Plantlore website too. |
 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, former 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 has worked with Ben and the OQH from time to time. |
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Left: With Dave Saunders one of Eden Project's Pollinators whose touch of magic inspires and enlightens visitors of all ages about the delights of the botanical world and sustainability at the Eden Project. I briefly saw Dave and another pollinator giving a public demonstration on apple pressing for making cider and it was as good as any comedy show that you'd pay for - and yet their performance slickly entwined botany and plants with humour. |
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Also out and about Marcus has done guided wild food walks at the Moot at Merthyr Mawr in South Wales, at the Cornwall RV, 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 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.
Below: Out on location for Forces SERE training.
... and a few more souvenir shots..
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