DASG Blog

Lusan an t-Samhraidh

This blog comes to you late in the season, and perhaps too late to find these plants! I hope you will still find some, or look out for these next year!

This is the time of year, and it’s not so long ago, that communities all over the Highlands would be dwelling on the shielings, on upland pastures, with their cattle. It was once a practice common all over Scotland. They would live there for about three months. It was the women and children who would go there: they would milk the cows, make butter and cheese, repair shieling huts and graze the cattle.

The children would play annd roam the extensive glens when they weren’t working. They would have fun with various tricks on the shieling as it really was a place for the youth to let loose. The mòthan, or braonan, the butterwort is the plant you would use for attracting the lad/ lass you had a notion for. The children would run shrieking around the shieling fire, and the bell heather would pop and bang when they threw it into the flames!

Dairy made up the biggest part of the people’s diet. But there were also plenty of moorland plants to be foraged, that would provide them with vitamins and minerals, and supplement them nicely. But what are the plants to be found on upland ground, which can be foraged in the late spring and early sumer, before the nuts and berries come in the autumn?

There is a wide variety of edible plants, available for foraging on the moor in summertime. Flora Celtica recommends: chickweed, wild mustard, watercress, mugwort and wood sorrel. Wild mustard and mugwort are best when harvesting the thinner stalks, which are the juiciest. They have quite a bitter taste. The roots of the wood sorrel can also be boiled. Put them in a pan with urine, immmerse your clothes in it, and the colour won’t run from your newly dyed garments!

Many of these plants can be eaten raw or by being boiled carefully. Chickweed can be eaten raw, and would be delicious in a freshly caught trout, that or watercress or sorrel.

Remember how great nettles are! Clean the leaves by boiling them. Then immerse them in cold water. This is how you get rid of the sting. They can then be used in a salad, or in soup. Eat nettles this summer and you’ll have a complexion to match the countryside:

Bheir càl duilisg is càl deanntaig
Snuadh air gruaidh mar mhadainn shamhraidh

A broth of the dulse and a broth of the nettle
Will give you a complexion on the cheeks like a summer’s morning
 
Wild garlic grows, between March and June. The following proverb tells:
Is leigheas air gach tinneas, creamh is ìm a’ Mhàigh; òl am fochair sin bainne ghobhar bàn
 
‘wild Garlic and May butter cure all diseases; drink along with the white milk of goats’.
 
Flora Celtica also tells us that there is many a plant of the goosefoot variety to be found, which is exceptionally tasty, especially if they are boiled and eaten with butter. Braonan bachlag is the word in Ainmean Ghàidhlig Lusan, for pignut, but braonan is what they would say in many a place for any type of nut.

In Criomagan Ioma-Dhathte, (page 92) there is a recipe for really delicious dandelion wine. Take a look below:

“Gather a full gallon dish of dandelion heads. You will need:

Three pounds of sugar
Nine pints of fresh water
Then an ounce of still water

Put the dandelion heads in a water press and pour over nine pints of boiled water. Put them aside for five days, stirring them well every day.

Criomagan recommends that if a bit of mould forms on the surface of the water, simply lift it off with a spoon!

Sieve the press juice and warm it on the stove. Put the sugar in another pan and pour the warm juice over it until it melts. Let it cool, pour the ounce of water over it and leave it for twenty days in a warm place.

Sieve the contents again and put it aside in a bottle for three months until the wine clarifies. Then transfer the clean, bright wine to another bottle and leave it to ripen.”

Remember, I have given you suggestions here. If you are unfamiliar with the plants or process, please seek out the opinion of someone knowledgeable, about picking and preparation, before heading out to forage summer plants. Be sure, as well, to harvest them in a sustainable way. Have fun with your summer foraging!

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