Feast yourself with free food and festivals
Food and festivals have become commonplace
Once upon a time there were few organised festivals in Ireland during the summer months.
You could name most of these events, such as country shows for the entire year, except perhaps the travelling circus, which came around reasonably regularly. But all this did not matter as by and large we were all used to making our own fun and entertainment anyway.
If you did want to go to a concert or show you had to travel some distance and this quite often entailed an overnight stay or even a plane journey in some cases. But in relative recent times there has been a sea change in what people want and expect and these include having more things done for them and the need to have entertainment provided, preferably on their doorstep. Now it has gone the other way, and you would hardly travel a half hour without bumping into a festival of one sort or other.
One of the greatest increases in exposure is the food industry. There was a time there was not much mention of Irish let alone just food but, now these weekends have almost as much importance as music events. Some have specialist themes such as the ‘Galway Oyster Festival ‘ and others have jumped on the bandwagon and did you know there was even a mackerel festival in Youghal some ten years ago but, because they have moved to Iceland that is more.
Foraging for free wild food is not something that should considered as part of a survival course but, as something that makes up part of your food requirements and is a fun occupation to do. Our ancestors did it for necessities and possibly it might be part of that DNA that interests us to have a stab at it.
I would read up about it, learning what plants are suitable and when heading outdoors include some of the time for foraging.
There are a huge amount of edible plants out in the wild that you can gather and enjoy as part of your regular food, and I think the attitude is that it should be part of your normal activity and enjoyment and managing to gather some free food is just a bonus. Most people can rattle off a list of free foods already such as blackberries, field mushrooms, the seaweeds Carragheen or Irish moss, and Dillisk, and cockles and mussels. There are many more but, for those first intrepid steps do go on the side of caution and only eat those you are 100% sure you can indentify, as some plants and many mushrooms are poisonous, but if you wish to go further there are practical field trips organised which will bring you face to face with these free foods. The whole point about foraging and food festivals is that it awakens your interest in being more creative and adventurous at home and that is no harm.
