There is a particular kind of hunger that arrives during long days out in the mountains. It’s different from the ordinary hunger that sends us rifling through office kitchen cupboards or queuing for takeaway coffee on grey commuter morning in the city. This hunger is older, slower, it rises after hours spent under endless sky, after cold rivers and steep switchback paths, after the body remembers what it means to move through the elements rather than merely observe them through a window.
Somewhere along the trail, between the heather and stone wall, beneath pine tree canopies, beside the bubbling edge of a stream, our landscape offers something back; a wild blueberry; wood sorrel sharp as citrus; the earthy perfume of mushrooms pushing through damp soil; a sprig of wild thyme crushed between fingertips.
Foraging, at its heart, is not simply about food. It is about attention. About relearning the landscapes we walk through so casually. Foraging asks us to slow down enough to notice what the earth provides. Across the UK, interest in wild foraging has exploded in recent years. Guided walks sell out months in advance. Restaurants build seasonal menus around wild garlic, sea herbs and mushrooms. Social media has romanticised baskets of chanterelles and fruit crumbles cooked over campfires. We were lucky enough to be joined by The Wild Cooke during February’s Fort William Mountain Festival. Lucy Cooke is a foraging tutor who regularly leads guided foraging tours, workshops, and talks. She is also on the committee for the Association of Foragers.* Their website lists all of their members and where they work across the UK and beyond, as well as going into detail on the principles around foraging, and some further resources to learn more on the topic. Responsible foragers rely on expert guidance, field guides and caution rather than confidence alone!
The Wild Cooke, Fort William Mountain Festival.
Beyond the aesthetic appeal of foraging lies something much deeper; a longing for reconnection. Many people today feel that modern life has made us spectators in our own lives. We scroll through photographs of nature whilst not finding enough time to participate in it. Many of us often know the names of outdoor brands better than the trees lining our footpaths. And yet the instinct to gather remains somewhere inside us. You feel it the first time you discover a hillside heaving with blaeberries (or bilberries) in late summer, or when the unmistakable scent of wild garlic drifts through ancient woodland in April. Suddenly the landscape changes, the forest is no longer simply scenery. It becomes a provider. That shift alters the way you move through the outdoors.
Once you begin noticing edible plants and fungi, the UK landscape reveals itself differently. Hedgerows become seasonal pantries, coastlines transform into herb gardens. Even mountains, often perceived as harsh and barren, hold surprising abundance for those who know where to look. In the Scottish Highlands and upland areas of Wales, blaeberries carpet the moors in late summer. Their flavour is deeper and more floral than cultivated blueberries, and they make exceptional compotes, sorbets and jams. Along rocky coastal paths, sea beet and samphire thrive in salty winds. Woodlands throughout Britain erupt with wild garlic every spring, while autumn brings Penny Buns, chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms to damp forest floors.
Some of the most beloved British wild foods are astonishingly ordinary once you learn to recognise them.
Nettles, for example, feared by anyone enjoying the outdoors in bare legs, are one of the most nutritious edible plants in the country. Rich in iron, calcium and vitamins A and C, young nettle tops can be transformed into soups, risottos and pestos with a flavour surprisingly similar to spinach. A simple nettle soup remains one of the great traditional wild dishes of the British countryside: onion, garlic and potatoes softened in butter, a large handful of young nettles stirred through stock, then blended into a vivid green soup.
Wild garlic, meanwhile, has become the unofficial poster child of British foraging. Entire woodlands smell of it during April and May. The leaves can be blitzed into pesto with hazelnuts or walnuts, folded through fresh pasta, baked into sourdough or stirred into butter for campfire cooking in the hills.
Then there are brambles (or down South, “blackberries!”), perhaps the gateway forage for many Britons. Found along almost every rural footpath from August onwards, they connect people to place in an almost universal way. Nearly everyone carries some memory of stained fingers and scratched arms from childhood berry picking expeditions. The simplest recipes are often the best; bramble crumble cooked in an enamel dish over a camping stove; brambles folded into oats beside a bothy fire; wild bramble and apple pie made with windfall fruit gathered from old orchards.
Food gathered outdoors carries an emotional weight supermarket produce rarely achieves. Perhaps because it comes with weather attached to it. With memory. With effort. Foraging also changes the pace at which we experience landscapes. You cannot do it quickly. You must notice the subtle details; leaf shapes, habitat, smell, seasonality. You begin paying attention to rainfall, temperature and soil conditions. You learn that nature runs not on convenience, but timing. Miss elderflower season by two weeks, and it is gone. Arrive too early for chanterelles and the forest keeps its secrets. That attentiveness creates an intimacy with our great outdoors. Experienced foragers often know particular landscapes with remarkable detail. They remember where mushrooms appear after the first autumn rain. Which coastal paths hold alexanders and sea purslane. Which woodland edges produce sweet chestnuts in October.
Over time, these places become more like old friends. In the mountains especially, this relationship feels profound.
The Wild Cooke, Fort William Mountain Festival.
Mountains strip life back to the essentials; the weather becomes immediate, shelter matters, water matters, warmth matters. Add foraging into that experience and something ancient is awakened, a sense of belonging in the outdoors rather than trespassing in it. Imagine a long day spent in Snowdonia or the Cairngorms. The weather closes in. Your feet are wet. Then, back at your air bnb, camp or in a bothy, you brew some hot pine needle tea. It is not gourmet, yet somehow it tastes extraordinary because the landscape itself feels woven into the drink.
Another classic British forager’s meal might be panfried chanterelles on toast; mushrooms sautéed simply with butter, thyme and garlic. Chanterelles, with their apricot like aroma and golden colour, grow in woodland across the UK from late summer into autumn and are prized by chefs for good reason. On the coast, samphire steamed lightly and served beside fresh fish captures something unmistakably British; salt air, sea spray, summer evenings stretching long across harbour walls. Even drinks emerge from the landscape. Elderflower cordial, perhaps Britain’s most iconic foraged recipe, transforms roadside blossom into something fragrant and almost nostalgic. Sloe gin, made by steeping wild sloes in gin and sugar remains deeply rooted in rural tradition.
We live on a planet exhausted by extraction and endless consumption; forests cleared, rivers polluted, oceans overfished. Against that backdrop, the act of gathering a handful of berries or leaves thoughtfully, seasonally and locally feels almost rebellious in its restraint. The wild offers abundance, but only if approached carefully. Perhaps this explains why so many people are returning to foraging now. Beyond the recipes and romance of it lies a deeper craving; to feel connected again. To understand where food comes from beyond packaging and supply chains. To experience the natural world as a relationship rather than a backdrop to our lives. People protect what they love, and they love what they know intimately.
Statistics about biodiversity loss rarely stir the heart for long, but kneeling beside a patch of wild thyme high in the hills might. Watching children discover chanterelles hidden beneath pine needles might. Tasting soup made from nettles gathered minutes earlier beside a river certainly might. Wonder creates stewardship. The best foragers speak about landscapes with tenderness, they understand that wild food is never guaranteed. Frost destroys blossom, dry summers reduce mushrooms, storms flatten coastlines. Nature remains beautifully unpredictable. And perhaps we need that reminder now more than ever.
In a world obsessed with efficiency and control, the mountains still operate on ancient rhythms entirely indifferent to human schedules. Trees grow slowly, rivers carve patiently, seasons arrive in their own time. Foraging teaches us to move at that pace again; to wander rather than rush; to observe rather than consume; to participate rather than merely pass through. The mountains remind us how little we truly need to feel alive; fresh air, moving water, warm food, open sky.
The earth still provides these things freely, many of us have simply forgotten how to notice. Foraging is, ultimately, a way of remembering that humans are not separate from nature, nor masters of it, but participants within a vast and delicate system of exchange. To kneel in wet grass gathering mushrooms or berries is to place yourself back inside that relationship, however briefly.
Maybe that is exactly the feeling we need to cultivate now. A fierce, attentive love for forests, rivers, coastlines and mountains. For the scent of pine after rain. For the miracle of edible leaves returning each spring. For the quiet generosity of the wild. Because once you truly fall in love with the living world, protecting it no longer feels like obligation. It feels instinctive. Like caring for home.
With special thanks to Lucy Cooke
All photo credit Ben Barendrecht
*Resources