Review: Overcoming The Boredom Of At Home Dining

By guest writer Lara Page. First time delivery box consumer.

I’m probably not alone in saying that I’ve exhausted most menu options during lockdowns. Over the pandemic, we ate a lot of pasta, and soup with questionable attempts at homemade bread. In the Summer, we switched to Greek salads and frittatas with the occasional pizza.

In Autumn, we discovered exactly how much you could do with polenta and ate it with everything, occasionally mixing things up with a butternut squash or pea and mint risotto. And as Winter arrived, we’ve moved onto a predictable rotation of warming weekday meals, mostly based on one-pot, two-day minestrone soups or vegetable casseroles.

With each season, I’ve memorised these basic ingredients and their location in the aisles of our local Sainsbury’s, in order to do a ‘dash and grab’ and get out of there as soon as possible. It certainly makes shopping quicker, but it also makes our suppers a little bit too predictable.

Normally, we’d mix things up with a monthly restaurant trip, but those options are obviously limited. It was apt timing, then, when I was browsing the latest Instagram updates from @GBExperiences and spotted a post about Totally Wild UK – a foraging company which finds the best wild food of the season, and sends it directly to your door.

I didn’t recognise any of the typical ingredients listed in their One Off Wild Veg Box, and that’s precisely what appealed to me; I wanted to try something totally new, without having to spend a long time in a crowded supermarket or farm shop to find it. It turns out I wouldn’t have found any of these ingredients in a supermarket anyway, since they can only be foraged from the depths of the British countryside – which is even more appealing.

The box arrived promptly, and contained a collection of freshly picked and washed items I’d never seen before; alexanders, three-cornered leeks, sea cabbage, salty fingers, hedgehog fungus, baby oyster mushrooms, brown beech mushrooms and penny lettuce. Their website has lots of recipes and ideas, but the mushrooms looked so good that I decided to keep things simple to enjoy them in the most rustic way possible; on toast.

I popped some sourdough in the toaster, sliced the mushrooms lengthways and sauteed them in a little butter, salt, garlic and fresh thyme from the garden – nothing else. The colours and textures were exquisite; hedgehog fungus and oyster mushrooms are incredibly thick, flavourful and meaty, while the little brown beach mushrooms added a delicate flavour to the dish.

Simply served with a side of delicious, peppery penny lettuce, it was truly a meal to savour; a completely different experience to eating supermarket mushrooms, even organic ones. I remember thinking: ‘Wow, this is a completely different level of mushroom…’ – not a thought I’ve really had before! The flavours were immense, and I knew then that I’d need another wild mushroom fix, pronto. I actually placed another order there and then.

The next evening, we tried the greens. As a huge fan of samphire, I went straight for the salty fingers. They’re like a larger and more succulent version of samphire, almost like grapes. When you bite into one, you get a satisfying salty pop and I ended up snacking on them for most of the eve.

Since we were having steak that night, we had the alexanders and sea cabbage as a side dish with parmesan mash. I simmered the alexanders in a little vegetable stock and cooked the sea cabbage in a pan of butter; they were quite tasty but rather unusual. The sea cabbage was a little bitter for me but had good texture, while the alexanders had a strong hint of celery but without the crunch. The star of the evening was undoubtedly the three-cornered leeks, which were a revelation.

Three-cornered leeks are actually an invasive species which grow widely across Southern England; they look almost identical to actual grass, which they’re often mistaken for. Apparently, you can tell which is which because three-cornered leeks look vibrant, green and fresh year-round, while grass in the winter months may not. Startlingly similar to chives, we chopped them up finely and sprinkled them on blinis smothered in cream cheese as an appetiser – they were scrumptious!

Sampling professionally-foraged, wild and seasonal ingredients has shaken us out of our winter recipe rut. It’s allowed us to try things we might’ve only encountered in restaurants (and not many, at that), and introduced us to completely new textures, flavours and combinations.

I’m still in awe of the fact that all of these things are widely available in the English countryside, if only you know where to look. Despite my regular walks in the fields and woodlands near my home in Shropshire, I definitely don’t know where to look, and I’d really like to learn – as soon as we’re able, I’ll be enrolling in one of Totally Wild’s popular nationwide courses.

But until then, I’m quite content to let them send me the fruits of their labours to bring a little joy and wonder into our kitchen on the dark winter evenings.

SAMPLE ONE OF LARA’S WILD FOOD BOXES:

We have teamed up with our partners at Willys’ Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, with the health boosting ‘Live Mother’ enzyme, and Totally Wild UK Foraging specialists, to create a unique Gourmet Kitchen Pickling Hamper for an immersive At Home GourmetXperience.

Each Gourmet Pickling Hamper contains:

6-8 different wild ingredients which are on average 100g per item

* A wild produce tip sheet to give you info and inspiration on your wild ingredients
* Handy Pickling Guide to get you started with pickling, accompanied by video demo.
* 500ml bottle of Willy’s Organic ACV, with the Live ‘Mother’ enzyme for good gut health, created with apples from ancient Herefordshire orchards RRP £8.95
* A copy of The Foragers Cookbook by James Wood of Totally Wild UK RRP £14.99

£28.99 incl UK delivery

ORDER HERE