THE REALITY OF PRODUCING WILD FOOD

Phil Spahn from ‘The Wild Table’ takes us to ‘the fringes’ and shares his knowledge of harvesting wild food.

The reality is that wild food has for the longest time been a “fringe” thing. Not fringe as in only few do it, although that might very well apply today, but fringe as in a thing on the side of something else. Small areas in the peripheries, on the outside. Such as the areas where a paddock meets a forest, or a park meets suburbia.

Let me explain what I mean. To hunt a deer in the dense forest can be a daunting task. I recall my first few hunts and the challenge of getting close to the deer, even though I knew full well where they were, approximately anyway. Time after time I returned home, tired, exhausted and empty handed. I can smile on this now but at the time I felt so deflated. I just couldn’t get that shot off. Until I did of course but that’s another story.

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Phil eyeing up the best patch down into the forest gully
at our Blue Mountains Forestry Block

ENTER THE FRINGE ZONE

I have successfully killed, butchered and eaten many a deer since but the challenge remains. On the edges of farmland and forest on the other hand, a hunter must only be fractionally as stealthy and perhaps a little more patient.

“The fringe zone is the ideal place to harvest wild deer.”

Because chances are, that if deer are present, they will come out to feed in the early evening. So, the fringe zone of the farm, is in all reality the ideal place to harvest a wild deer.

One foot in the hut, the other into the wilderness
at our Blue Mountains Forestry Block

LIFE IS MORE INTERESTING ON THE EDGES

Wild fruit tends to grow on the edges. In parks, where there can be a sort of wildness to it, or on the edge of towns. To be more specific, I harvest avocados from a tree that I must climb into, it is largely forgotten about and gone wild in the sense that no has looked after it for some time. We also harvest figs from such trees, plums and berries. They are neither native nor truly wild, but they are plants that thrive on the edge of human populations.

“How easy it is to stop and harvest apples that grew from seed unlike their grafted cousins.”

In Christchurch I was astounded to see how many wild apple trees adorn the roadside. Fringe strips of semi wildness. How easy it is to stop and harvest apples that grew from seed unlike their grafted cousins.

The areas where the ocean meets land is a fringe, a zone for wild mussels and seaweed, for surfcasting and kite-fishing. A much easier task then diving or taking a boat to the big blue.

I encourage you to head to the fringes and take a walk on the edge.