Photo by Nick Weston

The first year of HGC school has been great fun and a I feel I have learnt almost as much as all those who have attended the courses (I think the best tip I received was from one Alan Paterson who told me to use washing powder to soak and clean burnt eggy pans- works a treat)! I cannot thank those who attended enough for making our first year a great success.

Throughout the Spring, Summer and Autumn I was consistently pleased to see that I had really found the perfect place for the school, the flora & fauna of the surrounding landscape not only provided rabbits, squirrels, pigeon, fallow deer and carp for the HQ kitchen’s meat store (even allowing a few attendees to dispatch them on the day), but the plants and fungi were just as forthcoming: Giant puffballs, bay boletus, parasols and chicken of the woods all put in a timely, yet surprising appearance.

2011 saw HGC doing privately booked bespoke courses as opposed to days you ‘book on to’, this will still be the case for 2012- But fear not! In 2012 we are organising a series of group days, which you CAN book onto. These will have a predetermined structure and a bit cheaper than the private days.

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Ice cream isn’t really something I have in my freezer, but that’s because its so chock full of various parts of fish, fur and feather there simply isn’t the room. It just so happened that I had a craving for it during the summer we had a month ago. I decided to google how it was made after having a chat to a friend of mine about hand cranked Ice cream machines and the possibility of involving them down at HGC headquarters.

Photo: Nick Weston

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One thing that is always overlooked and is perhaps the most frequently used ingredient of all time is salt. Without seasoning food would be dull. Too much is bad, not enough is disastrous. But how many people have actually made it themselves? It is so ludicrously simple to make: collect a jug of seawater, boil it and reduce it down till you are left with a white residue= salt. Done. I could end the post there…that is all there is to it. But to really sell it to you and hopefully urge you to give it a go yourself, I shall continue.

Salt is something that has been used for 1000’s of years, Sodium chloride has been found as far back as the Neolithic around 6000BC, mainly used in the context of preserving, but no doubt our ancestors found it had the ability to heighten the flavour of whatever they were eating. Along with fire, salt was probably man’s second greatest discovery.

Mastering the basics is a must for anyone who cooks: whipping up a béchamel, making mayonnaise, pastry, ragu, stock, bread, the list goes on…

One thing that is always overlooked and is perhaps the most frequently used ingredient of all time is salt. Without seasoning food would be dull. Too much is bad, not enough is disastrous. But how many people have actually made it themselves? It is so ludicrously simple to make: collect a jug of seawater, boil it and reduce it down till you are left with a white residue= salt. Done. I could end the post there…that is all there is to it. But to really sell it to you and hopefully urge you to give it a go yourself, I shall continue.

Salt is something that has been used for 1000’s of years, Sodium chloride has been found as far back as the Neolithic around 6000BC, mainly used in the context of preserving, but no doubt our ancestors found it had the ability to heighten the flavour of whatever they were eating. Along with fire, salt was probably man’s second greatest discovery.

The basics are important, as any bushcraft nerd (ahem) will tell you, making fire by friction is about as fundamental as crafting bush can get…I would say that the kitchen equivalent of creating fire from a few sticks is equal to tasting your first flake of homemade salt. These two ‘fundamental skills’ actually came together on a regular basis during my time in the Cook Islands. Three months with no matches and no seasoning meant fire saws from bamboo at dawn and boiling gin-clear south pacific seawater was a daily occurrence. Salt intake was crucial for helping our bodies regulate water content in the searing heat just as much as bringing our meager rations to life on the palate.

I was allowed to take a luxury item to the islands with me, my first thought was spices…actually at first I thought salt would be most useful, until I realized I would be surrounded by it and settled on garlic powder and hot curry powder. After a bit of research I found out that the salt content of seawater is roughly 3.5%, hence every litre of seawater contains 35g of dissolved salts. And so it was every day or so someone on our island would be in charge of making salt, which ranged in colour from pure white to dusty grey depending who was making it, quite often it was grey on the days the girls made it as they were a little more preoccupied with the application of make-up or topping up their tan rather than making sure the salt didn’t burn…

It must be said that making salt from seawater can be touch and go, I’m not sure how pleasant a raw material murky brown English channel water would be to work with, I think the further west the better for clarity and piece of mind, lets just say I wouldn’t collect it off Brighton beach!  Out here in Hossegor the Atlantic is a pleasant shade of green and blue, but I have heard rumours of bad pollution- trust the French to dump all their shit in the sea and cover everything else in pee (what is it with their penchant for public urination?!!).

With this in mind, I felt a healthy 20 minutes of fierce boiling would at least kill any bacteria, but first I had to collect my said raw material. Below is a short video of how to make salt, collection of seawater not recommended the day after a big storm: see for yourself!

Making Salt from Nick Weston on Vimeo.

Continue reading how to make salt from sea water on Nick Weston’s blog, HUNTER:GATHER:COOK -Adventures in Wild Food.

My approach has always been to start with the fungi that can’t be confused with anything that will dissolve your internal organs…like what almost happened to Mr.Horse whisperer a few years back. If you arn’t certain of what the mushroom is, then don’t put it anywhere near your lips! Simple as that.

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Nick Weston & the Hungry Cyclist / Photo by Nick Weston

In a country where the termites of the foodie class wax lyrical about farmers markets, food miles and local produce, I can’t help but ask myself what will be the next obsession? The answer is simple: I’m putting my money on Honesty boxes. Though I might sound derogatory about some of the above they are all well and good, Britain is a nation gradually returning to how things used to be and how things most certainly should be. Supermarkets are now the bad guys and there are many that will go out of their way to support local producers rather than give their cash to the man. But these are thing we should be doing anyway, the demise of the village grocer, baker and butcher that took place over the 80’s and 90’s are no more…the people want them now more than ever.

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The cow barn / Photo by Nick Weston

There are few things more exciting than building a place of your own: being able to shape it yourself and have everything the way you want it in terms of aesthetics and functionality are just two of the reasons why it is worth doing. If money is no object it can be even better (I barely have any!), so you have to see what other avenues are open for exploration to provide you with a home you can be proud of…back to begging, borrowing and recycling we go! I have got around to adding video to the blog – so I will post the ongoing build and lifestyle elements as we go – apologies for the amateur quality… early days! It begins with an epic session of clearing and learning to use a strimmer.

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The publishers, Anova, have done an amazing job of bringing the book to life (a format like Adrian Mole in the woods, without the geeky teenage angst!). I have always thought that, although descriptiveness is a wonderful thing, a picture paints a thousand words and I have insisted that this whole escapade is heavily plastered with day-to-day images of life in the woods. Why not give it a try?

If any of you are in London on Tuesday the 25th May (this tuesday coming), do please pop into the Prince Albert Pub in Battersea (upstairs)  from 6.30pm onwards (just by Prince Albert Bridge) have a shot or two of my nettle beer and pick up a signed copy of the book from me, myself and I. Apologies for the shameless plugging, but I have since learn’t that as an author…it IS part of the job description!

Hope to see you there!

1760: Old. George III hits the throne / Photo by Nick Weston

I suppose I was just interested in the finds: the Indiana Jones school of archaeology. Now that is a course they should run up at the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne…the “Wham, Bam, thank you Mam” archaeological approach was certainly for me, I didn’t want to mince about, I wanted to discover things and have the experience of taking something out of the ground that hadn’t been touched by human hands for thousands of years. Problem was that rarely happened and if it did, it involved digging first…you do the mathematics.

1839: Quite old. The year Cezanne was born and Darwin married his cousin / Photo by Nick Weston

So what is this post about?  Last week, whilst on a local jaunt to find another weird place to sleep (see pill boxing), I had heard rumors in the local pub, that infinite source of local wisdom, of caves nearby and one of the largest outcrops of sandstone in the country…on my doorstep? Really? So I had to check it out to see if the country pub banter was truth or, as with most rustic drinking holes, exaggerated myth.

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Throwing out hand lines for jack with local cook and barman / Photo by Nick Weston

I suppose the trip all came down to fishing, a sport few consider to be enjoyable, but that all depends on how you do it. I have expressed my disdain in the past for the pointless bastards that sit atop boxes and throw ridiculous amounts of ground bait into the water in the hope of attracting a fish (regardless of size) to the hook. What an absolute waste of time! Fishing is about outwitting the fish…Stalking it and tempting the slippery bugger with a single morsel it cannot refuse in the most simplistic of ways.

The people who turn around and say fishing is boring, say it because they have never caught a fish…of worthy proportions. To feel your line suddenly tug and pull away creates the most exciting, heart-jumping of moments a human being could wish to have, its all about ‘the take’, the fight is just about getting the fish in to the net and proving you ability of how not to lose a fish.

Tropical islands and me are the best of friends, I hate the cold, why I haven’t found a way of skipping Britain’s dismal winters is a mystery to me, but I am working on it, believe me! Little Cayman is to the northeast of Grand Cayman and fairly small: 10 miles long and 1 mile wide, stepping of the equally small plane out into the tropical humidity was glorious: the smell, the sounds and the fact that I had 2 weeks to explore this lush paradise both in and out of the water. The island is known for it’s diving, in particular the bloody bay wall, a sheer drop from the edge of the reef down to the ocean floor 3000ft! That’s deep.

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Wild Camping / Photo by Nick Weston

Glamping: hunter wellies and short shorts, yurts, tipis, gigantic gas ranges, slick fire pits, shitters with a view to die for and a heftus price tag to boot- strictly for media types, Cotswolders, Chelsea wenches and people with money to burn looking for a “wild” experience. Having said that, if you are going to pimp it up in the great outdoors, this is mutt’s nuts and I should now…I teach foraging at just such a place (wouldn’t mind living there actually!). Foie gras for starters followed by chateaubriand on the barbie and a few bottles of Petrus 2005…darling.

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