City foraging – Collecting wild food in a City

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 02/05/09 at 09:05:35 pm

Over the last two days Dave (My twin and co-selfsufficientish fella) and I have been foraging for wild food with groups of people in Bath and Bristol.  Yesterday we were in Bath to help out Topping and Co bookshop and also to help promote our book. There we took a group of around 20 folk aging from 6  to bus pass age out for about an hour.  We found a good selection of wild edibles just a stones throw away from the bookshop, we even gave an old lady a bit of a start as we gathered outside her front door and inspected the weeds growing in a tub on her doorstep.

Today we were in Bristol conducting our monthly wild food forage. Which is is basically a walk starting at the city farm looking at the ecology, wild foods, bio-diversity, medicinal uses of plants and a bit of folklore. I have just got back and despite being rather tired I am very happy. There is always a bit of a bulletproof feeling that you get when you arrive back after a day out engaging with plants. Foraging (collecting wild food) can leave you with a feeling unlike any other outdoors pass time even gardening. It is hard to explain without sounding like a bit of a hippy so I apologise from the outset.

Foraging gives you a connection with your surroundings in many ways, firstly is a nutritional link. We have evolved around plants over thousands of year and different plants will have different properties at differing times of the year. We have different needs throughout the year. Take spring time for example, plants that are considered to be cleansing such as goosegrass (aka cleavers or sticky willy) are in abundance. During the harsh winter months we stock up on sugary and fatty foods. This winter belly is perfectly natural as it would have kept us warm. We don’t need it in the Spring and cleavers has been used not only to help cleanse the system but as an aid to dieting.

If you have been foraging for some years you will also find that you are much more likely to notice the subtle changes in the climate. Plants that are blossoming a week or two earlier or plants that simply have stopped growing in certain areas. These are a couple of the tangible things that foraging can do, the far less tangible is the overall feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself that you get after connecting with the planet (see told you I would get a bit hippy).

Anyway, back to the actual forage – we left our crew of people at the end of a  hot days foraging looking very happy if a little tired. They all want to book again later in the year and as a group there would not be a single one I would not apprechiate coming back. It does seem that mostly good folk are drawn towards wild food forages which certain does help when you are the facilatator.

To see us in action we are on this clip (after the Gurellia gardeners) it is a French/German show called Global Mag on the Arte channel. To read more look in the months edition of Ethical Living magazine. If you want to learn more about our wild food forage or book a place on the next course please do follow this link,we’d love to see you.

How to make beer

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 11/03/09 at 10:03:33 am

I gave a talk last night on how to make beer. It was in the place that I live, Bristol (U.K) and I gave the talk as part of the Freeskilling evening program. Freeskilling is the brainchild of that bloke who is living for a year without spending any money – Mark Boyle. Whatever you think of him doing this it has to be said that (at least in Bristol), he has got people talking.

Anyway, freeskilling is exactly what it says on the tin. It is people teaching others some skills for free. So I did not make any money out of my talk last night and did it just for the love of it.

What I was aiming to get across last night is just how easy it is to make your own beer and to really take control of what you are drinking.

The average hop farmer sprays 14 times a year uding 15 different pesticides and only 0.04% of the UK hop production is organic. When I found this out it made me wonder about my hangovers, could I be realing from an actue pesticide poisioning? Ok I am being alarmist, but I do try to eat organic food whenever possible so why should I make a comprimise on a Saturday night.

I opened the talk with a statement, “I want you all to leave here knowing how to make Ale”. Hopefully, everyone did. I tried to keep it as simple as possible and broke it down to 12 steps.

Step by step

Step one: Decide on size of batch, is it for a party or at home. So do you make 10 pints or 100 pints?

Step two: Choose your ingredients. What flavours do you like, perhaps try some yarrow or just a hopped beer.

Step three: Steralize at your equipment due to all the airborne yeasts and other nasties that can cause a brew to be mouldy.

Step four: Pour in malt extract.

Step five: Pour in sugar or sugar equivalent – ie molasses, golden syrup, honey or whatever. If you want to use just malt extract then use 1.5 times the amount you would sugar.

Step five: Boil up your ingredient. (hops, rosemary, yarrow or whatever)

Step six: strain using a muslin cloth or jelly bag. Pour over malt and sugar in fementation bin

Step seven: top up with cold water. To make the right amount.

Step eight: If not cool enough allow to cool until hand hot.

Step nine: Sprinkle over yeast

Step ten: leave to ferment (a week to be on the safe side)

Step eleven: Pour sugar into bottles [or honey] (prime) then siphon.

Step twelve: leave for about a week then drink.

At the moment I am experimenting with loads of different ingredients instead of hops, thyme, rosemary, sage, dandelion, pine needles to name but a few. I replace the same weight in herbs for what I would use in hops and I wash and dry all the herbs I use.

Like the talk I want you to leave this blog knowing how to make Ale. So to reiterate and add some numbers and ingredients  you might want to try  this recipe below my simple and cheap beer recipe.

Ingredients

• 1kg (2lb) of Malt Extract
• 55g dried hops (2oz)
• 750g (1.5 lb) Sugar (brewing sugar preferably, otherwise granulated)
• 20g (1oz) Ale yeast
• 13 litres (3 gallons) of water

Other Equipment needed

• Massive Saucepan/cauldron or two big pans
• Muslin cloth or Jelly bag
• Fermentation bin (at least 13 litres)
• Big plastic spoon
• Empty Beer bottles and caps.
• Syphoning tube
• Optional – Hydrometer and thermometer

Method

Get a really big pan/cauldron or if you don have that then two pretty big saucepans will do. Bring 7 litres of water to the boil then throw in the hops and keep boiling for 25-30 mins. The water should change colour and should taste bitter.

Steralise the fermentation bin, rinse and pour in the malt extract and Sugar.

Strain the hop liquid through the jelly bag. The hops should then be added to the compost heap as they are highly beneficial. Stir the wort to ensure that the sugar is all dissolved.

Pour over 6 liters of cold water and ensuring the temperature is below about 18c or 65f sprinkle on your yeast. The gravity (if using a hydrometer) should be roughly 1030.

Now put the top on the bin and seal it for a week or until fermenation stops.

Place a level teaspoon of sugar into each bottle and syphon the liquid into the bottles ensuring that you don’t syphon in any of the sediment.

Leave the bottles for 10 days then they are ready to drink.

The beer should be about 4.5% and the cost will vary depening on ingredients. It make approx 25 pints and my ingredients were £5 as they were all the best, a cost of  about 20p a pint for a locally brewed organic beer you can’t buy cheaper than that.

I sort of own a shop called the little co-op in Bristol

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/02/09 at 02:02:05 pm

Over the last few weeks I have taken over the running of a shop. I say I and really I mean we as there is a group of around 10 like minded good people also on board. So where is it I hear you shout, well it is 156 Church road, Bristol, BS5 9HX. It is all quite exciting and there is a real buzz about the place and although I love working on selfsufficientish and writing articles it is good to be involved doing something that you can touch and visibly see people enjoying. Especially at this time of year when the allotment is not doing much and we are not conducting our forages.

If you live in Bristol or are thinking of visiting then do pop in for a natter and a selection of teas and coffees and cakes or even CD’s, DVD’s and videos. We also have a good selection of books starting at 10p. We are open from Monday to Saturday 10am-5ish pm.

The aim of the place is not like most businesses we aim simply to be an asset to the community. Next week we will be selling wholefoods too. We are also open to suggestions about running the shop in the evening and have our first poetry night on 25th February at 7.30pm – 9.30pm all welcome as long as you buy one cup of tea!

I know that I have not blogged for a while and when I do it is a big advert for our new shop, but well as I said I am very excited. It also fits in with the buy nothing new 2009 considering that all the stock we sell is second hand! Well apart from the drinks.

I have to say once a again a massive thank you to everyone who donated. Your donations have been put to good use and you all helped us secure our shop.

At Teather’s End

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 19/12/08 at 01:12:27 pm

The other night I had an amazing experience; I was in a play. I don’t mean performed, I mean I was part of the play.

The play was a wonder club production called at Teathers end. Unfortunately it looks like it won’t tour as it is specifically written using the space in which it was performed namely the Trinity Centre a converted church just outside of the centre of Bristol. If it does then buy a ticket!

It is set in the Old Market area of Bristol in 1869 described as “A place of vice, poverty and grim hope” a description which would befit old Market today.

The audience gathered outside the old church drinking mulled cider. The doors of the church were slung open, mist bellowed out and haunting Latin choral melodies were heard increasing in volume as a funeral procession slowly proceeded out of the building. Without taking a cue we all followed as we were now active members of the play. We walked up stairs and the true and rather tragic story of how William Pullin was driven to the murder of his best friend PC Richard Hill starts to unfold.

Sitting as if we were in the congregation of a church we then move downstairs to celebrate the forthcoming marriage of Richard Hill. A scruffy looking bloke invites us to the three crowns pub claiming that he is the landlord. We walked down stairs and entered 19th Century Bristol. I was amazed at how much effort and detail had been put into the sets of this place. Everything was made from cardboard and as the lights were low and people were in 18th Century costume milling about the place, pickpocketing, begging and generally having a chit chat (in character) it really did have the feel of what it would have been like – I am sure the smells were very different. It almost reminded me of how Dr Who does Victorian but somehow a little more believable (I guess as their were no aliens). They must have spent hours on this area and even if you miss the play I would try and get in to the Trinity Centre just to see the set.

The play did confuse me at times as events were going on across this small square and you were not really told where the action was going to be. You could stay in the pub, visit the Doctor (who told everyone they had VD) or go to the butchers to name a few. After sinking a few pints and having my pockets picked twice I got a bit of the hang of the play and realised that you needed to listen out for clues as to where the action would be and as in any real life event everyone was going to leave with a different viewing of the events. As a hint though try following the lead (played by Malcolm Hamilton, no relation) who you might recognise from a certain lager advert and also follow the Police man.

I am not an avid play goer, in fact I can count the number of plays I have seen on just over one hand. I would say however, that this was the most moving and perhaps the best I have seen. I would urge anyone in Bristol or even near to Bristol to go and watch it. It really did move me to tears due to the extremely high standard of acting by all involved, the understated yet very appropriate music and the believability of the whole set. Again I would urge you to go and see it, ot is worth seeing just to watch the vicar get carried away with his role and to have your gloves stolen by a hobbit like street urchin.

At Tethers End

15th – 20th December 2008
8pm @ The Trinity Centre, Bristol, BS2 ONW

Book tickets @ the
Tobacco Factory Box Office – 0117 9020344

For more information – Michelle 0777 303 8570 or Nick 07533 633 308

At Teather’s end

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