johnsunter.com - The adventures of an ordinary person...

I had originally planned to take part the Autumn Harvester course (a kind of wild foods and wilderness cookery course) to give me an edge when taking part in the abo course.

In the end it turned into much more than that. Here, Ben takes us out foraging where we collect all sorts of wild food, which we will use throughout the course.

Here I carry a basket with various types of mushrooms, berries, nuts and the like.

The estate used by Woodsmoke is beautiful, and it was great to be back there enjoying the countryside.

I also carry my trusty woodlander knife around my neck.

I break the mould a bit with my clothes, as I always wear traditional outdoor gear and most of the other people on the course wear "green".

After we return from foraging, the lovely Lisa goes through the baskets we are all carrying, and sorts them so that we have a reserve of wild food for our cooking.

Whilst foraging, we came upon an amazing natural phenomenon called a stink horn.

Plants need to find ways to spread their seeds, in order to re-produce.

Here the stinkhorn, naturally smells of rotten meat, and attracts flies.

As the flies fly away, they take the mushrooms spores with them.

An interesting twist in the course, was it was in 2 parts.

The first part was how people would have cooked whilst living wild ie backwoodsman stew and wild berry jam.

The 2nd part of the course, was how backpackers could take key ingredients and adding foraged resources, make "proper" food.

We baked cakes, cooked pizza's and even made a pigeon pie.

The format of the course extremely relaxed and yet very productive.

One of the instructors would demonstrate a meal or technique, we would be invited to ask questions, and then have a go ourselves.

There were loads of instructors around the help out. Here Ben demonstrates bread pudding, which can be made using only a pan and a cold stream as utensils.

We prepared fish and pigeons as well as the foraging stuff.

Here I worked with Jeff to create a pigeon pie. suet, pastry and water provide the pie crust and pigeon, mushrooms and berries provide a filling.

An entire pie cooked, using a pan (a Dutch oven) and a fire.

I will never eat re-hydrated meals again !.

Many different types of oven were demonstrated.

I had seen one some years ago, in the SAS survival handbook, but it was a revelation to actually see a Yukon oven for real.

We prepared Pizzas in here.

We learned various cooking techniques such as planking (where food is fastened to a board with small wooden pegs) and making bread using a flat board as a cooking utensil.

Here some doe is made into a sausage and wrapped around a stick. The simplicity of this system is amazing.

Ben demonstrates a hay oven beloved of boy scouts.

It has no heat source, you basically put something like a stew in there, and the water remains warm and cooks the meat and vegetables over time.

Brilliantly simple.

The three stages of a Hangi oven (the very simplest form of oven cooking).

Some rocks are placed on the fire until red hot. A hole is dug, and the hot rocks placed in there.

Meat is wrapped in leaves, then placed on the hot rocks.

Some sticks and other foliage are placed on top.

Soil is placed over the foliage to concentrate the heat back onto the meat.

Two hours later, the meat is cooked, tender and delicious.

A weekend of wild/improvised cookery course at Woodsmoke.