We had just had a few last minute spaces come up on our Foraging and Preserving Weekend Course, at Gilestone Farm, Talybont-on-Usk. 5-6th September £160 all inclusive.
On our Autumn Foraging and Preserving Weekend Course you’ll learn to identify correctly and forage for a range of wild foods found in our native woodlands and hedgerows. We will focus on the range of berries and fruits plentiful at this time of year, and how to preserve these for a later date.
With our baskets full of our wild autumn harvest, we will return to basecamp. Here we will take you through a range of methods to preserve the wild fruits and berries. This will include making chutney, jelly making, making fruit butters, fruit leather making as well as making cordials and syrups.
The ancient art of preserving allows us to make use of fruits well after they would have gone rotten naturally. We look at a range of preserving options, adding vinegars or sugars, boiling and drying. These all disrupt the pathogens that would otherwise cause the fruit to rot. Jellies and butters both use heating and sugar to halt the pathogens progress. They are also strained which removes seeds and skins. This significantly reduces the processing time required before the cooking can take place, which is especially helpful with smaller wild varieties of fruit.
Throughout the weekend we will be cooking up our foraged delights as part of our group meals, alongside the preserving of the wild foods for a later date.
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