Dandelion focaccia? Look again at those weeds, they could be a tasty treat

Sunday, 19 November 2023

There’s a chef in Christchurch who’s doing more than just stopping to smell the flowers – he’s eating them.

My Patch of Dirt chef and forager Adam Harrison sources some of the best ingredients straight from Mother Nature’s pantry, and it’s a skill he’s been fine-tuning since growing up in rural UK.

A peek at his menu at Eliza’s Manor is a giveaway that Harrison has added his magic touch, including accents of birch-sap treacle, porcini marmite and magnolia syrup, with all the main elements undoubtedly found at some of his favourite foraging sites.

While creating his own pestos, preserves and honeys, amongst numerous condiments for his menus and home dishes, he also sells foraged produce to restaurants around the country.

His foraging began in Boverton, Wales, when he was a young lad in his early teens with “nothing to do” except wander the local land and woods, he says.

“Just walking round, I’d find things. It started with super basic things like apples, pears, elderberries, blackberries, that sort of thing.”

He remembers taking elderberries home and asking his mum what to do with them.

Wild onion growing on the banks of the Avon in Christchurch’s red zone tastes like spring onion and can be pickled, eaten raw or made into a pesto, Harrison says.

“Your grandad wants an elderberry syrup,” she told him.

“It’s simple,” he says, “that’s what their natural winter cough remedy was.”

They wouldn't go to the doctors for antibiotics; instead, he says, they’d have a big bottle of elderberry cordial or syrup in the fridge.

With his interest piqued, Harrison began collecting books on the topic, including one by the late British foraging expert and guru, Roger Phillips.

“Still walking around the same routes, I was finding more and more things out of the book.”

As it turned out, his foraging would continue to feature more seriously when he pursued a culinary career.

Harrison makes dandelion honey from the plant considered a weed, and uses the leaves to bake into focaccia.

“I ended up working in some of our beautiful country-house hotels and I got working with a Scottish chef, Norman Mackenzie; he was big into his foraging. We ended up at this country-house hotel with 100 acres of land around us … and just learnt from there.

“We were foraging things like wild garlic, mushrooms, sweet cicely and all these things that were just coming to my attention like tapping birch trees.”

Harrison has worked at restaurants around the country since moving his family to New Zealand post-Covid, finally settling in Christchurch, where there are endless options to forage.

It’s something that’s really only just been catching on in Aotearoa recently, he says.

“I’d say in the past 10 years it’s become big in New Zealand – a lot of people are doing foraging tours.”

And what better place in Christchurch to forage than a big expanse of public land that was once a neighbourhood by the banks of the Avon with gardens of flowers, fruit trees, and weeds.

Harrison hosted the Sunday Star-Times for a wander through the red zone, where at every step there was something new to try, as if entering nature’s buffet.

The wild onion growing in abundance by the river was munched on to discover the white flowers and stem tasted a lot like spring onion; magnolia petals were chewed, giving the flavour of ginger with a bitter aftertaste; the violets taking shade under trees had leaves that could be added to a salad, “and you wouldn’t be offended,” Harrison says.

As we trample through dandelions, Harrison says his toddler helps him collect them.

“He’ll come back with big bunches, then we take it home and make it into dandelion honey.

Tapping into trees, the sap from birch trees can be boiled down into a treacle which can be used for a glaze on chicken.

“It’s a vegan-style honey. You collect all these flowers, get the blossom, boil that up in a sugar syrup and reduce it down so it’s super thick. You get all the pollen and flavour of the petals.”

He also puts the dandelion leaves in focaccia bread.

There are drawbacks, though, in taking his young sons foraging, especially when it comes to heading to his secret spot for the highly coveted porcini, “the world’s king of mushrooms”.

“That’s a really desirable foraged item. You can’t buy it in a shop. If you don’t know where to go, you’re not getting them.”

He shares the story of taking his 2-year-old son foraging: “He was going, ‘Mushroom, mushroom’, and I was like, ‘Shhhhh you’re telling everybody Daddy’s secret’.”

“It’s not about the money all the time, it’s about the experience,” he says. Teaching the kids there are other options outside the supermarket.

At home, he has shelves stocked with a variety of items; some waiting to be turned into a vinegar, syrup or cocktail infusion, while others are already adding flavour to dishes.

“For me, it’s not about constantly going out and foraging … it’s just adding little accents of flavour into every meal.

“That’s really how our family approaches it. We do a lot of drying and preserving. We’ll eat everyday regular meals, roast chickens and braised leg of lamb and stews, but we’re just adding accents in.”

Harrison started foraging as a teen growing up in Wales, finessing the talent to use it in restaurants and at home.

When nettles are in season he blanches them, before putting them in the fridge, or drying them to a powder. “When you’re glazing your veges, maybe just a sprinkle of nettle powder in there.”

He also taps into trees – literally.

Birch, maple and walnut trees are a few that create sap in the spring when they’re coming back to life.

“The nutrition is going from the roots back up into the tree to send into bloom … and that sap has sugar in it.”

During birch sap season, he harvests the liquid, boils it in a pressure cooker and reduces it to refine the sugars.

“So we might glaze some chicken with some birch sap treacle.

“For us, it’s about the frequency we have it rather than the quantity. We’re not trying to be hunter-gatherers that solely live off foraging, but to have these flavours and these little benefits, it’s nice.”

You don’t have to be an expert forager though to get some of the best in-season fruit for desserts, including currants, gooseberries, wild cherries, blackboy peaches, pears and apples.

Every year the family goes to North Canterbury for a big apple forage, he says, and not just from the trees; also from the ground, collecting tens of kilos to make cider, apple cider vinegar, molasses, and of course, apple crumble.

“The only way to get [proper] baking apples is to go out and forage them,” he says, and they store for months in a cool shady spot.

One year they were eating crumble for months, he laughs.

“It got to the point where my wife was sick of crumble.” (Yes, it is possible to reach that point, apparently.)

“There are so many modern techniques in cooking now, like molecular gastronomy and breaking things down and adding chemicals. But really the original processed foods are acorns, dandelion roots, all these things we used to process, store, harvest and eat.

“That’s what really attracts me to it, just learning those techniques we used to do in the past, and are actually now becoming relevant and trendy right now.”