vegetables
hogweed
rock samphire
marsh samphire
fat hen (orache)
pennywort
sea beet-wild spinach
wintercress
seas purslane
wild cabbage
watercress
nettle
flowers
rose
primrose
violets
gorse
mustard
elder
alexanders
herbs-spices
wall pepper
fennel
horseradish
mallow
tansy
wild garlic
sorrel
chickweed
fruit
blackberries
meddlers
quince
crab apples
nuts
walnuts
beech
acorn
cob-hazel
pig
seaweeds
oarweed
sea grass - gutweed - entomorphia
laver
kelp
dulse
carregan
sea lettuce
bladder wrack
mushrooms- far too many to mention!
honey fungus
parasol
bollette (ceps)
rustlers
blewitts
jews ear
hen of the woods
chicken of the woods
beef steak
Call 0798 8796743 for all current supply information
Wild food in Cornwall
In simple terms, wild food is not a gimmick, it is ancient yet common knowledge that has been largely lost since the Second World War when mass production of food became the norm. Uniformity of product, constant supply, cheap prices. These were driving forces behind
Wild food is the ability to use locally grown & sourced produce that has not had to be farmed but that occurs naturally and in abundance along our shores, moors, pastures and lanes.
Perhaps a new term other than “wild food” would suit the present day market place, yet to our grandparents and their forebears’s wild food was simply a necessary seasonal additive to their diet. More commonly known as foraging, wild food made up a portion of their diet along with food sourced from farms locally, garden vegetables and herbs.
Wild food has low food miles so comes with an incredibly low carbon footprint. Not to mention that as a naturally occurring abundant product, properly sourced and recorded there are no environmental farm costs involved either.
Encycloepedic knowledge coupled with an exploring nature has led us to foraged foods that lay open a rediscovered vista of ultra fresh, seasonally abundant produce that lies akin to discovering the cuisine of a whole new country.
Miles Lavers is leading the way in Wild food supply & usage, his business supplies some of the best chefs in Cornwall’s most innovative and exiting restaurants. As Cornwall’s only respected wild food purveyor he has vast knowledge on seasonal information, wild food growth patterns, locations on where to find wild food growing as well as picking, storage and preserving know-how.
For food lovers, environmentalists, lovers of the Cornish countryside and coastline, Miles Lavers has provided great insight and benefit.
This site details a passion. That passion is for food and the environment in equal measure. There is no better study than Miles Lavers for the purpose of understanding wild food in
A food experimenter for many years he was naturally lead to foraging locally for food stuffs to compliment and add to a vast repertoire of edible knowledge.
All of England provides a wild larder for those willing to learn, look and seek out wild food. Cornwall however provides that blend of land and coast mixed with a vibrant restaurant and hotel trade that allowed for Miles Lavers to turn his wild food purveying into a viable environmentally sustainable business. This is important as all small steps taken to lower food production impact on the environment are of great benefit all round.
The following could be a story of how one badgers untimely death at the hands of mans intrusion into its landscape became the catalyst for an entire business supplying Cornish wild foods.
Badger ham and squirrel sausages
"Those squirrell sausages went down well... what a way to eke out such tender game. What's next "
……….Dawn was near yet the night was still black. He was driving along a soft top tunnel of old stone and earth that unwound down the valley. The headlights helped the illusion as they focused only upon the single width road and seemed not to reach above the ancient buttressed sides of hidden rolling fields. Occasional patches of moss and grass were parted in the light making a one lane central reservation along the Cornish thoroughfare. Slanted gates set back over rutted moonscapes of earth blurred by at the entrances to fields. The car made its way down from the Helston road, cross country on to a Helford tributary just shy of the Lizard. Mist grew as the river and valley floor approached, wooded and sheltered. Tops of trees became bisected by fuzzy greyness and the lanes had ceilings which reflected back car headlamps. He was on his way to a fecund patch of sea spinach that lay a good twenty minute walk along the river shore. That spot virtually free of all signs of human habitation. Fresh crunch and tang of iron was imagined, swarming from the sea green leaf. A travesty of usage as it’s rightful place at our tables is usurped by imported bland spinaches costing the earth in production & delivery. This nights foraging however was altered by circumstance in the form of the reflected light of another car about a quarter of a mile away. The car was evidently oncoming even though its trapped headlights veered this way and that as it negotiated the meandering lane. He pulled in to a field entrance, careful not to bog the offside wheels and waited for the car to pass. Around the next bend the other car also stopped as if taking advantage of a widened lane where both cars could pass. This was strange as it would have been obvious to the other car that he had already stopped to allow it to pass. Something was amiss. Off went the headlights and engine. Step out of the car and into the black wilderness. A blackboard above, wiped wet and pitted. Soft sponge clods underneath. From across the field the other cars’ door slammed shut and it accelerated away.
As he stood there in the dark with his cloudy breath for company, he felt a heightened sense of his surroundings. Awaiting the other car to pass it came to him that he was about to find wild meat. Roadkill.
An animal injured or killed by someone accidentally, left to die and rot. This is common.
Waste not want not. He knew that if the other car had hit something and quickly fled the scene then the car would not stop by him. It would speed away as if distance would cleanse the thought of accidental killing or maiming. He was right.
The car passed, without apparently even looking his way. A blackness descended totally, he jumped back in and drove round the corner ready to illuminate what he found.
It was an adult badger, that much was immediately apparent. No other cars could be seen and the night was a tent around the scene. He left the car in the middle of the road and went for a look. The poor creature was alive yet severely wounded. A quick assessment showed blood loss and a broken back. Without hesitation he dispatched the badger with a blue handled fish filleting knife, semi drained the shaggy carcass in the hedgerow and then hefted it onto his shoulder and into the boot of his car. This badger was not going to die in vain and would not rot in a hedgerow after an untimely unplanned death. He had always wanted to try badger…..