Foragers unite

Manawatu Standard

A small army of plucky foragers is on a mission to liberate food from rotting on the ground, and they're recruiting.

BRONWYN TORRIE shared a plate of elderflower pancakes with members of  the newly formed Manawatu Urban Foraging group and discovered the movement  is gaining momentum.

Helen Lehndorf hates food going to waste. In fact, when she was a poor student, she would dive into rubbish bins and "liberate" food scraps.

"My flatmate, Ben, and I used to dumpster-dive supermarket skip bins, and they were full of amazing food, such as bread from that day and bottles of beer that just had the labels ripped.

"It seems evil to waste it."

She is preparing to feast on road kill which is sitting in her freezer, but she insists it isn't as feral as it sounds.

"My dad is a hunter and recently when he came down to visit me he hit a pheasant with his truck, and it was such a beautiful bird and such a shame, so he stopped and picked it up.

"It wasn't like picking up a yucky, squishy possum."

Helen, 37, is among a growing number of urban foragers who are on a quest to gather free food and make the most of what Mother Nature has to offer within the city limits.

"It's political, as well as being an economic thing. It's about not wasting resources," she says.

Foraging isn't hard, Helen says, as her friend Toni Bragg, 30, makes elderflower pancakes in the kitchen.

You don't need to know the difference between a loquat and a kumquat, but it does pay to know where certain trees are growing and in which season to pick.

But how do you know where these opulent fig trees and shrouded blackberry bushes are?

Just step outside your front door, says Madeline BatachEl, 32, who is sitting at her yellow Formica table with her baby boy, Pippin, nuzzled against her.

A swarm of raucous little girls runs through the kitchen and flocks around Madeline.

Her table is laden with roasted thyme and oregano olives, homemade lemon cordial, a medley of dainty tea cups, a jar of homemade marmalade and vases of pretty carnations.

"They're not big, butty kalamata olives," she points out, as she spoons olives on to a saucer for the kids.

It's hard to believe they were picked off olive trees growing on a grass verge in Palmerston North earlier this year.

When Madeline and her husband, Simon, moved into their Feilding home four years ago, they quickly made friends with neighbours and began to trade their feijoas for homegrown apples.

"Actually, if you knock on someone's door and ask them for something, it's a magical, normal moment. Why not share the love?"

About eight years ago, they began to create a network of foragers, who up until a few months ago would phone each other when they spotted a new patch of chickweed or elderflower blooming.

While chatting one night, Helen and Madeline thought there must be a better way to share locations.

The next day, they launched a Facebook page and the Manawatu Urban Foragers group was born.

Since its inception in September, the page has recruited 88 "fans", who have mapped 19 foraging spots in Manawatu. Most are fruit trees on public land.

According to the map, there is a "laden and otherwise ignored-looking grapefruit tree outside a childcare centre here in Ngata St," and in Ursula St, Feilding, "there is a kids' playground that has a fig tree in it. Good luck beating the birds to the fruit".

But how do you go about foraging?

Well, you just park up, grab your bags and start picking, Madeline says.

"I've never had an issue with people saying, `What are you doing?' Most people are really welcoming and friendly."

It does pay to use your common sense and be polite, so when you return next season, rubberneckers won't kick up a fuss.

Oh, and don't go fossicking around people's yards without knocking on their door first, Helen says.

The Massey University creative writing tutor doesn't think twice about picking fruit from trees draped over a footpath.

"I really don't think of it as stealing. I think of it as saving."

She spends only $60 on groceries each week thanks to preserving her foraged food year-round and tending to her vegetable patch.

Madeline, a former real estate agent, spends the "usual" amount on groceries, but she also preserves foraged food and grows copious quantities of vegetables among what seems to be an overgrown weed jungle.

Upon closer inspection, there are broccoli, cabbages, garlic, fledgling fruit trees and so on.

Unlike most gardeners, Madeline embraces oxalis and adds the weed to salads.

"It tastes a little bit lemony, a little bit tart."

It has taken the women more than a decade to know which weeds are tasty and which can kill, and they would be lost without their "foraging bibles".

Any new forager should get their hands on a copy of Native Edible Plants of New Zealand by Andrew Crowe and Simply Living by Gwen Skinner.

So what's the future for the Manawatu Urban Foragers?

Maybe a bit of guerrilla gardening or seed bombing, Helen says before laughing.

"I seed-bombed camomile by the [Manawatu] river a couple of years ago. "It's all very arbitrary."

In her younger days, she was a stealth guerrilla gardener and planted dozens of trees without permission on public land in Wellington.

The women hope to organise a gathering with all the Facebook fans to share foraging spots and maybe a jar of stewed apple.

Madeline hopes more people will join the movement and help her to badger local councils to create open food forests on public land.

"The council spends lots of money on planting pretty trees and plants along the verges. Why not throw a few practical trees in there?"

Manawatu District Council parks and reserves manager Albert James says the council will be happy to help out the group. He pointed out the council has planted walnut, hazelnut and macadamia trees, but an experiment in planting lemon and limes failed.

"Most people don't pick them to eat. School kids use them as ammunition."

However, Madeline is confident the urban foragers' movement can change this by getting people to share the fruits off their land.

"There are thousands of people who want to pick free food."

Information: see facebook.com/pages/Manawatu-Urban-Foraging/141703493888?ref=nf