Category Archives: Foraging

Wild about spinach

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Yesterday on our way home I saw three ladies foraging in the grass at the side of the road.  I am very interested in learning more about local foraging so I stopped to see what they were picking.  After a few stumbled attempts at finding what language (including sign language) to use in addressing them I found one lady who could speak a little english.  They were picking what they called Morogo ( the “g” sound being made as a scraping sound in the back of your throat – don’t choke).

Morogo

Description
Morogo, an African spinach, refers to a group of at least three different dark green leafy vegetables found throughout Southern Africa and harvested for human consumption. It is considered a traditional South African dish and forms an important part of the staple diet in rural communities. The Leaves have a protein content of up to 36% and high levels of vitamins A and C low levels of calcium, magnesium and iron, consumption may lower the risk of vascular-related chronic diseases and type 2 diabetes
Also known as: Wild spinach

Use
The leaves must be well washed in running water, then soaked in cold salted water. They are cooked as for spinach, wilted or steamed and seasoned, often with samp beans or potatoes and onions. Young morogo can be eaten raw in salads.

The plant they showed me however was definitely not of the amaranth variety that I know about. It was more like a creeper and they explained to me that it can climb up trees.  I managed to get a cutting which I planted at home.  Does anyone know which variety of plants are used as Morogo besides amaranth?

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Feverfew

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How to Use Feverfew for Healing

Feverfew is the herb that has been given eleven different names. References to the plant were found in the works of ancient Greek physicians.

Numerous studies, conducted over the past several years, have shown that feverfew has numerous healing properties. One of its most common benefits is the ability to reduce the frequency and severity of recurring headaches, such as migraines. This is due to the presence of tanetin and parthenolide. One of its active ingredients is borneol which improves general circulation and also helps to stimulate the production of gastric juices. Feverfew also contains camphor, which is an expectorant.

Growing feverfew is easy and although the plant originates in Europe, it will grow in most climate zones except for where it is really cold. In these cases it can simply be grown indoors. . It has attractive light green leaves with a pungent scent and many clusters of pretty white flowers. Feverfew favours full sunlight in well drained soil and will flower from early spring through to the first frost.  Flowers, leaves and stems can be harvested for medicinal use.  The most simple and the fastest way of getting the most out of the medicinal benefits of Feverfew is to make an herbal tea.

Tea

Simply add an ounce of the fresh or dried flowers to a pint of boiling water.
Allow to steep for 5 to 10 minutes then strain.

It can be drunk either warm or cool and can be taken as a general tonic to boost well being or to ease anxiety or depression. If you drink half a cup twice a day, you should begin to notice the benefits within a week.

Another way to use feverfew is by making a tincture.

Tincture

To use this method you will need a large jar and fill it with either 300 grams of fresh chopped flowers, leaves and stems or 200 grams of the dried herb.

To this, add 1 liter of liquid – usually a 25 percent alcohol/ water solution is used made with vodka, which helps with preservation and also sweetens the taste.

If you prefer to make a non-alcoholic tincture then you will need to replace the vodka with distilled water or vinegar.

Cover the jar with a brown paper bag and leave it to steep in a cool place for 2 to 3 weeks.

Feverfew tincture can be taken in a dose of 4 to 6 drops every half hour.

You can also make an organic cream from feverfew, for topical use.

Cream/ointment

Mix together

  • 25 g of beeswax and
  • 25 g of water-free lanolin
  • 100 ml grape seed oil,
  • 25 ml of glycerine and
  • 75 ml. of distilled water

gently heat the blend

  • add 50 g of dried herb

stir into the mix to obtain an even distribution.

allow to stand for a few minutes

Strain the mixture and pour the cream into an airtight jar, sealing the lid once it has cooled.

Use caution when eating the fresh leaves as they can cause inflammation of the mouth. To prevent this problem, you can sauté the leaves before eating them.

Do not use feverfew while you are pregnant or if you are on blood thinning medication.

The tincture can be used to reduce arthritis pain by taking ten to twenty drops every half hour for up to five hours. The tincture is more effective if it is made from fresh leaves rather than dried leaves.A poultice can be made for stomachaches by steaming a half cup of leaves and applying the leaves to the area when they are as hot as you can tolerate. Capsules are available at health food stores that can be taken daily as an effective way to control allergies 

Recommendations from users

  • I recently won a thirty year battle with migranes. Feverfew works  miracles, and everyone with headaches should try it., but first make sure you have taken your magnesium citrate, calcium citrate, and riboflavin(b-2)  – this acts as a cytalyst for the herb, as with migranes your blood vessles are spasming and need the muscle relaxtion that magnesium provides, also your cells tend to work better together. Taken all together, it will make you believe you are working on the cause.
  • My 8 year old son had horrible migranes almost everyday. Someone told me about this miracle cure and I am so glad they did! My son hasn’t had one migrane since he started taking a supplement with feverfew, magnesium, and riboflavin. He is a completely different child now and I am so so happy I met the woman who told me about feverfew.

Read more about this great herb here.

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It’s not easy being green

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Some friends of mine, Gavin and Vanessa, recently posted me a pile of dvd’s on some subjects we share a common interest in.  They are also interested in becoming self-sufficient and are on their way to setting up their lives on the Natal coast of South Africa. On the dvd’s I found many interesting shows on permaculture, forest gardens and lots of other facets of living a greener life.  I still have so much to learn so they have been great to watch.

One of the series I watched was called “It’s Not Easy Being Green” by the BBC.  I was lucky enough to get all three seasons  so for many days I have been following Dick Strawbridge and his family as they sell up their urban home and move into the English countryside to establish a green life.

Some green shows can be seriously boring but this one is really great and you have a good laugh while learning much about changing your lifestyle. Besides, if you get bored all you need to do is watch Dick’s HUGE, massively scary moustache. I couldn’t help but make the connection between his moustache and his surname :)

In the picture above you can see the family and the house they renovate in the background.  The Bean enjoyed the shows too because they often include his children and their perspective.

I can highly recommend the series for those of you who are interested in all things green.  You can download them here:


http://www.ovguide.com/tv/it_s_not_easy_being_green.htm

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Thanks Gavin and Vanessa!

 

Warning – marula beer update II

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Be warned!

 

Don’t forget to release the pressure in your bottles daily or at least every second day.  We learned the hard way and the Bean and I scrubbed walls, floor, counters and tables till late last night.  At least they say that beer conditions hair because  I got a good dose of it over my head as it dripped off the roof 5 meters above the explosion.

Marula beer – part II : The results

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This post follows my article published two days ago which you can read here.

I was highly sceptical of the marula beer I was making.  My taste of Warren’s beer put me off for life.  It was really so very sour and vinegary.  I was curious about my batch but was ready to pour it down the drain or give it to some of the local people who like it.

For three days the lid had been popping off despite the heavy cast iron pot that I had balancing on the container to keep it closed.  Every time I reclosed the container I got a slight whiff of vinegar – bleugh

Last night was the night to test the final product as it had been fermenting for three days.  I made sure I had had my dinner first because I was sure the beer was going to turn my stomach.  There was a huge glob of pulp that seemed to have formed in the beer and had floated up towards the top of the container slowly.  By last night it was all on top of the beer.

I moved the container to the sink to open it and gently raised the lid.  Surprise surprise – there was no smell of vinegar but a lovely yeasty smell similar to that of homemade ginger beer.  The glob had formed a nice foamy head.

The head was about 2 inches think and was really compact. I was able to lift it off the beer using a slotted spoon in two big blobs.

Underneath I found a fresh, sparkling, bubbly golden liquid.  My hopes were rising.

I quickly dipped a small glass into the beer to have a taste.  YUM!  It is so fresh, yeasty and bubbly – just like homemade ginger beer with a marula twist.  I am so glad that I added the sugar.

I quickly sterilised some old beer bottles that I had on hand and bottled my marula beer before The Bean could get her hands on it – she loves it too.

I still have loads of marulas so I think I will be brewing another batch next weekend.

Warning : Please read this update  – click here

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Making your own homemade Marula beer

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I know that most of you don’t have access to marula fruit so you won’t be needing this recipe – feel free to skip this post or just look at the pretty pictures.  I don’t think I will need this recipe again either.  I don’t even like beer.  You have to try once though. Right?

I roped in the expertise of Warren who makes quite a few batches of this beer each season. He just loves the stuff.

First collect ripe fruit from the ground beneath the trees and wash the fruit.

Remove the skins of the fruit.  I cut them round the equator and twist and squeeze the fruit pulp, pip and juice out.

Warren used this method for the photos but afterwards told me he is much quicker just using a butter knife, spoon or fork  and a special peeling motion. He told me that his friend, Masheplane does it so fast his hands blur.  I can imagine…

Collect all the pulp, pips and juice in a large container and once you have finished peeling the fruit, add clean water to just cover the fruit and mash the fruit thoroughly till the liquid in the bucket becomes quite thick.

Remove the pips and left over pulp by squeezing them a few at a time.

Cover and leave for 2-4 days depending on the strength you desire.

Skim off foam and pulp that has risen to the surface and if you wish you can strain the beer through muslin before bottling it.

Bottle in hot sterilized bottles and seal well

Store in a cool place till needed.

I added sugar to my brew after Warren gave me a taste of his beer.  Bleugh – it was VERY sour.

I will update this post in a few days once my brew has brewed and I have tasted it.

Edit:   To read about the final product and my opinion on it  please click HERE

Warning:  Please read this update HERE

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Foraging for food in the African bush

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Most of us are accustomed to buying our food in shops or at the most picking your own homegrown veggies and fruit.  It doesn’t even occur to most of us to look for food in any other way. There is food all around us. Foraging and gleaning is so much more fun than shopping, you never know what tasty and unusual treats you might find around the corner, and you’re reducing the amount of food going to waste too.

Some folk in frugal circles in urban environments go dumpster diving and find the most amazing things and tons and tons of still edible foods thrown out by supermarkets and other stores. There are many blogs and stories about these people in the US and Europe who never need to buy anything.  In South Africa however, most of the food rejected by stores is given to the poor. Dumpster diving is like shopping in a crazy sale with hundreds of other people trying to get in first. There are very many hungry people here.  For this reason I find that I have shunned dumpster diving, leaving the pickings to people in more desperate circumstances than myself.

I do however want to make good use of the free food around me growing in the wild.  In Europe and the USA there are many books and manuals on how to do this and what you can pick and eat.  Africa has not been explored that well by foragers who write books.  Most foraging is done by the indigenous population and the knowledge is passed down the generations verbally so it is quite hard to find validated information with regards to food safety etc. I am slowly learning about some of the plants from various sources.

One of the most productive plants in our area is the marula tree.  I wrote about it some time back so if you want to learn more about the tree click here.  It is currently marula season.  We have about 6 of these trees in the immediate vicinity of our cottages, with two hanging their boughs right over the swimming pool.  The fruit drop out of the trees just before they are ripe and ripen on the ground.  Currently amidst the beautiful sounds of birds chirping and crickets cricking you hear the plop………….plop………….plop of marulas falling to the ground.  An occasional loud GLUG as one falls directly into the pool, and quite a few  thunk……drrrr……plooop of  fruit falling onto the patio and rolling into the pool.  At night we jump awake when they hit something hard when they fall (like our water tank for instance.)  I have read that each tree can produce more than a ton of fruit per season!  Thank goodness ours seem to have much less fruit than that.  I would be drowning in 6 tons of marula fruit by now. As it is, we struggle to keep up with collecting all the fruit that fall.

The Bean and I are taking turns to fish out the fruit that fall into the swimming pool.  We collect about 20-30 a day from the pool.

What makes the marula fruit such a brilliant free-food is that it is very healthy and can be used for so many different purposes.

Nutritional Information: Vitamin C: 180 mg, per 100 g of fruit (4 times that of an orange).
The kernel (nut) is calorie dense: 700 calories per 100 grams. The nut is considered very nutritious, being high in healthy oil (57-61%) as well as protein (30%), and a collection of trace minerals and b vitamins.

The fruit itself can be used in many ways:-

  • Fresh fruit
  • Jams and jelly
  • Beer and wine
  • Fruit juice
  • Seed oil for cooking (very similar to olive oil properties), preserving and cosmetic use.
  • Seed kernels for eating and cooking. – High protein and healthy oils. (African substitute for pine nuts)
  • Kernels can even be used as a light source. They burn like candles.

Last year we had just moved onto the property at the end of marula season and all of the fallen fruit went to the animals and compost.  This year I have been determined to make use of this valuable and free resource, so this weekend I made marula jelly. (I will post the recipe as a separate post) and I will be making marula juice and will attempt to brew some experimental beer. I will also be trying to get the kernels out of the seeds to use in salads and if I can will try to produce some of my own marula oil.

Although you may not live in the countryside or have a marula tree in your neighbourhood, keep your eyes open for wild fruit trees or even ones planted in parks, find out about plants in public areas that can be foraged for free and lastly look around your own garden – you’ll be surprised at what you can find. There are many flowers, weeds and plants that you can eat.

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