SMALL STEPS

Blogging isn’t easy for me, so I’m trying a new approach – very quick posts.
Yesterday we went for a bike ride along the old East/West Berlin border. Really recommendable! The part we went to is between a river and an autobahn and it’s really green. There is quite a few people there, but it’s still kind of mystical. I’ve never been there before. We even went outside Berlin, crossing the border to Brandenburg, the next state. We saw horses, sheep, lots of birds and a crane.

On the way we’ve found some wild rocket. I have been finding it around Berlin quite a bit this year, never noticed it before or knew it grew wild. Just came across the smell one day and thought I’d try it. It tastes amazing! Quite peppery and so much better then from the store!

In one of the little towns outside the city we came across some bushes of different kinds of cherry plums next to the road. The bigger yellow kind, some red ones and some small unripe looking things, literally the size of cherries. I first was worried they’d be really sour. But they are delicious, bursting in your mouth, just a bit tangy, but also really sweet. So, we were grazing from these bushes for a while and then took some home too.

Another good thing about them, they are really easy to pick, coz not on a tree. If I get a garden I need to plant a couple of those. I didn’t like the yellow and red kind too much. Too floury, not so juicy and refreshing.

We also went into a garden colony, which was very neatly kept, around the corner from us. And people had put out baskets with apples and little pots with plants to take. Very sweet!

Yesterday was great! We’ve been having really great weather the last couple of days, actually the whole summer has been pretty good so far. I’m soaking in the last rays, getting worried autumn will be here soon.

Anyways, we had an awesome day out, it was really cool seeing a very different side of Berlin, at times I thought myself in another town and to get some foraging in.

Have a great week!!!

FLOWER PANCAKES

The other day I went to the forest with my friend to collect some more edible plants. Since I went on my first proper forage walk I’m really into it and very keen on learning more.

our bounty from the first walk

I picked some greens for a green smoothie and then my friend showed me some edible flowers. I knew you can eat elderberry flowers, but robinias were new to me. I know how the tree looks like and the smell is just delicious, but I didn’t know you can eat the flowers. I tried them and they are delicious. They taste flowery, sweet and buttery. And while you eat them you can ‘smell the flowers’, great right?! I also found them very filling, I think they’ve got lots of fats in them. I picked them at a sunny lakeside beach in Berlin, the whole area smelled fantastic!

Pretty and sweet smelling!

From Elisabeth, the lady who did the first forage walk with us, I learned you can make nettle pancakes. And I’ve heard of people making elderflower pancakes before. So I thought I’d try my own elderflower robinia pancakes.

robinia flowers and elderflowers

Pancakes I made are of curz vegan, I used,

1 part of rice milk
1 part of white flower
some baking powder
some crystal salt
and some oil

I made the mixture, heated up some oil in a frying pan, dunked the flowers in the mixture put them in the pan and put some more mixture on top of them so they look like pancakes. I didn’t read any instructions before, so I just improvised.

You can use as little or as much flowers as you want/got.

Pancakes!!

I liked them. I like trying something different. And the flowers add something fresh and sweet.

Pancakes make me really tired. No other food seems to make me SO tired! I assume it’s the gluten, not sure..

Also we saw a snake, in German it’s called ‘Blindschleiche’, in English ‘slow worm’? That’s what the dictionary said anyways. It’s like a silvery lizard without feet and it “walks” like one too. It’s completely harmless and I touched it!

Snakey!

Here is another picture of the bag I was carrying. Or I should say, ‘huffing’, on the way through the forest.

Sweet and yummy!

Have you tried a new food recently?!

EAT YOUR TREES

So I went on this ‘herb walk’/forage tour on Saturday and it was pretty awesome!! I loved it. The woman who was doing it, Elisabeth Westphal, did a really great job, she is really enthusiastic about nature, plants and the environment and you can really feel that.

The tour went for 3 hours and by the end I was pretty beat. It was  quite exhausting, how Elisabeth does it I don’t know, she’s full of energy, I think it’s coz she eats wild herbs every day. Must be good for you!

Anyways, it was really interesting to find out and learn new things. For example, we started the tour with edible leaves of trees. I didn’t know you could eat the young leaves and flowers of linden trees for example. And there are different kinds of linden trees. We tried the summer and the winter variety. The young leaves of the summer variety are really soft. And they get really slimey when you eat them. That’s supposed to be good for you.

winter linden tree

Also you can eat most pine trees. I knew that, but I didn’t quite believe it. Most of them taste disgusting. You only eat the young shoots and you can make tea from them. They taste really strong. By the way, is any tree that has needles called a pine tree in English and what are foliage trees called?

Some pine tree, I think it’s a larch.

Also, what I didn’t know is, you can eat, I think all, fruit tree leaves. Pretty cool. I tried some apple leaves and they have a really interesting, particular taste. Like a flowery, apple taste.

soft, furry apple leaves

This is a really popular plant in Germany, Bärlauch, which means ramson or wild garlic.

one of my favourite finds, I wanna make some pesto with it

Riding my bike through the forest, I found the smell rather offensive in the past, coz it’s really strong. You can buy this shit in pesto at the organic shop. Of curz I had to try it and it tastes quite nice. The store-bought pesto smells and tastes really grassy, but then developes a very piquant flavour. Almost spicy, nutty.

I liked the fresh flower, fruit thing better then the freshly picked leaves. They are really fresh and juicy and the little balls pop in your mouth. The flavour is very leeky, garlicy.

You can also eat a lot of flowers and use them as edible decoration, like for example, forget me nots.

Pretty!

But don’t eat the buttercups, they are poisenous!

Pretty beech tree. Edible too, in parts.

Yeah, so the forage tour was really successful and I could write lots more, but maybe another time. Elisabeth did a really great job and I’m looking forward to the next tour of hers. Hope you learned something and Happy Foraging!