For those lucky enough to attend her Veld & Sea experiences, it’s a journey that yields many treasures to share. Scheduled a few times a month on the weekends and during the week by appointment, the half-day experience involves fascinating wild food, flower, and herb gathering missions in the fynbos-lined slopes up above the nursery and forays into nearby rockpools to gather mussels and whatever other offerings the ocean might yield that day. After a morning of hunting, gathering, and absorbing fascinating morsels of information from Roushanna, guests return to the Veld & Sea classroom to prepare a feast featuring their bounty. “The entire experience is dictated by the seasons and the moon phases that determine the tides. I devise a menu according to what is prolific at that time of year, and we go out looking for these and other edible elements essential to the different dishes on the menu. After that, we come back and break into groups to prepare for lunch. It’s a really interactive experience and people love discovering that plants they’ve never heard of as well as quite alien things, like seaweed, are so delicious,” says Roushanna who gives us mouth popping, peppery nasturtium pods to sample while we chat. In the winter months, pungent pine ring mushrooms are the prized harvest while in the summer, delicious delicacies from nearby rock pools and nutritious sea vegetables offer a taste of the ocean. Luckily for Roushanna, there is a wealth of information available for those who seek information on wild food foraging. The internet, local experts, and both historical and recent books yield regular fascinating discoveries for this intrepid hunter-gatherer who says she learns something new every time she ventures out on a walk. “When I first moved here I had no idea what I was doing, I went off into the veld and picked a pretty bunch of flowers, and came back to proudly show my family only to discover I had picked some rare endemic flower. Now I only pick what I know grows prolifically and does not suffer from being cut back a little,” she says. For added flavour, colour, and for medicinal uses too, Roushanna has planted a variety of edible flowers in the family’s vegetable garden, and workshop participants are given equally interesting insights into the further layers of flavour these can bring to many dishes. From pansies with their grassy fresh taste to sweet and spicy cornflowers and piquant calendulas, many flowers, we learn, can bring fascinating and mouthwatering depth to food while beautifying things as well.
Claudia Uffhaus, Pippa Williams, and Roushanna Gray in front of the Veld & Sea classroom.
What Centaurea Cyanus or Cornflowers lack in
fragrance, they make up for in their sweet and spicy, aromatic flavour which is not unlike cloves. Delicious and pretty when chopped and sprinkled over salads, omelets, and pasta dishes.
116
Powered by FlippingBook