Photo: Wild garlic in Pollok Park, Glasgow. Photo credit: Kristin Dilani Nadarajah
Kristin Dilani Nadarajah explores how much ancient knowledge is disappearing and the ways to reclaim it. Not only is this practical survival knowledge, but more interaction with nature can also promote sustainability.
In our modern, fast-paced and convenience-driven world, the idea of searching for food in the wild feels almost mythical. Supermarkets stock berries year-round, herbs come prepackaged, and the closest many of us get to “foraging” is browsing grocery aisles. But we are still surrounded by nature everywhere we go, and most food we get has its origin in the natural world
I met Jemima Hall, a foraging guide who splits her time between the rugged Isle of Mull and Glasgow, where she teaches people foraging and connecting to nature. Alongside her insights, I spoke with Lainey Cartwright, who specialises in understanding how people connect to nature, and its potential impact.
Foraging as a birthright
Although she now runs foraging walks, Jemima didn’t always have the knowledge. Growing up she was used to berry picking, but not much more. And it wasn’t until her late teens when she started to study, that she started to think more about our relationship to our surroundings. “I felt a sudden, like, frustration about realising that I didn’t know anything”, she says.
Jemima felt the bitter taste of not knowing what was edible and what was poisonous. “My hunter-gatherer ancestors have known this stuff for 1000s and 1000s of years, and now we’re here, and we’re just absolutely useless”, she says. “I felt it was really integral to being human: Understanding how we can find our own food, or medicine around us, and just as a way of connecting as well”, she continues.
Jemima explains how this loss of knowledge is also evident in language, and how words are even “disappearing from things like dictionaries”. Words such as blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow, have been removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary along with a range of animal names, and replaced with mostly digital- and social-studies related words.
Photo: Mushroom known as the Chicken of the woods in Pollok Park, Glasgow. Photo credit: Kristin Dilani Nadarajah
nature vs Nature
The word ‘Nature’ can sometimes be an abstract term that we associate with breathtaking scenery or the wilderness. Jemima describes this as “nature with a capital N”, a bit like a “David Attenborough documentary, with super high quality cameras zoomed in on like sea creatures that we will never get to experience with our own eyes”. In contrast, we have the lowercase nature, “which is just like us getting soaked in the rain, coming home really muddy, being in the cold winds, or just the experiences that are really real to us as humans”, Jemima explains.
Lainey Cartwright, MLitt in Environment, Culture, and Communication, argues that interacting with nature doesn’t have to be about big hikes, or one-week camping in the wilderness. But instead, making it about daily interactions such as walks, swims, “looking at the snails or trees in your neighborhood”, she says. By “understanding that this is nature too”, she argues we can change our view of nature from a romantic and abstract idea to a more accessible one that is not separate from the human world.
Bridging the gap between a Nature that is separate from the human world, to the nature that surrounds our daily lives can help us in becoming more sustainably minded. Lainey believes that “fostering and promoting these daily connections helps make climate change less abstract and more important”. As “it is easy to ignore when it isn’t connected to our daily life”, she continues. In other words, to help put climate change more on people’s radar and increase the importance of sustainability, we need to bring that connection to the natural world into everyday life too.
Photo: Edible plant common sorrel and Jemima Hall at her foraging walk in Kinning Festival Park, Glasgow. Photo credit: Kristin Dilani Nadarajah
Foraging as virtue development
Lainey passionately discusses how daily interactions with nature can help develop our value-system and virtues. “What if that doesn’t just mean respectful to other human beings, but what if that also means respectful to nature, to the natural world around us?”, she asks.
“We can sort of develop this value system that extends to the natural world around us through daily engagement and develop a personal relationship with the natural world”, she says.
“Forging is such a beautiful way to do that”, she argues. According to her: “There’s a direct connection between us and our environment, and foraging brings that a lot closer. Even if you’re not picking, it’s just a mindset that you sort of get into. And as you develop this sort of daily positive relationship with the natural world, I think you start to love it.”
And as we create a value system based on it, then we might also be more inclined to want to protect it. Jemima also adds that “when you see the value in something and the history and the stories and the folklore and the medicinal value in something, you want to then look after it”.
She argues that having knowledge about our surrounding nature will also make it harder to: “spray pesticides on it, pull things out of the ground when you understand what they actually are, or know the names. So it makes you look after your environment, such as stopping you from throwing rubbish on the ground.”
Photo: Teas made from foraged leaves found in Kinning Festival Park during Jemima Hall’s foraging walk. Photo credit: Kristin Dilani Nadarajah
Taking your time
Foraging can be a scary thought to many. Both Jemima and Lainey grew up being told things such as not picking the red berries. In other words, foraging knowledge is something they’ve largely gained/found in adulthood. Although foraging is less scary then it is often set out to be there are some rules to follow to ensure safe and sustainable foraging.
Jemima shares how valuable it can be to take your time and use your senses to get to know the plants. See, touch, smell, and sometimes taste. “Foraging takes time. It takes time to pick plants, take them home, process them, rinse and wash them, and figure out what to do with them”, she says.
Lainey’s tip for foraging is treating it as if you were a treasure hunter. Research and learn about a plant’s seasonality and how/where it grows, and then: “go out and find it.” For Glaswegians, it might be useful to head slightly north. But part of the fun is also finding your own spots, both locally and going on small adventures nearby.
Next time you go out for your daily whereabouts, test yourself! Do you know the names of the plants and trees around you? At the moment, my neighbourhood is full of blossoming elderflowers.
