Fly Agaric

Not much else in the woods today, not edible stuff anyway, so it was back to the preserving pan, but now we've moved from jam to Delia Smith's spiced damson chutney - should be good. We had enough damsons over to make some damson vodka. That too is on the go now, sloe gin next up.

So in the last few days we've (I'm using the term "we" loosely here, I did stir stuff occasionally) made blackberry jam, damson jam, apple and blackberry crumble, mushroom risotto, damson chutney, damson vodka and sloe gin (to do). Just to add to that hunter gatherer feeling, we hot smoked some salmon in the barbecue this evening that Gill caught on the Tay in April - very good it was too.

The book I'm reading, Sapiens, is putting me even more in the foraging mood, arguing, as it does, that the agrarian revolution was a disaster in human evolution - the author calls it "history's biggest fraud". I hadn't realised quite how destructive of other species people have been until I began reading this book. If you're interested I linked to it in yesterday's blip.