Bushcraft Foraging: Ramsons

Description

A detailed look at the wild edible Ramsons or Wild Garlic.

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Video Transcription

either guys it's a beautiful spring day and we're in mid-april still and in our last video we had a look at wavy bitter grass and hairy distress we've talked about as well member the mustard family and a very delicious wild edible but again I thought today we'd have a look at one specific one edible and if you haven't guessed it I'm sitting right on it it's Ransome's the wild garlic very commonly picked at this time of year and very short-lived so I thought we'd have a look at the kind of environment it grows in the parts of the world you'll find it in its nutritional content obviously how you can process it and the things you can do with it so by the end of the video should have a good idea and what you can do with this animal so I'm surrounded by RAM syns and RAM Stearns is a member of the lily ACI family or rather a subcategory under that family good Ally a CLE so effectively it's a wild onion and it's a perennial plant meaning that it lives for longer than two years so you have annual plants biennial plants and you have perennial plants annual being a year buying your being two years some perennial being more than two years so it's good to know the kind of categories that each plant falls into simply because you know if you approach your plant before it's sprouted out the ground and you dig up the root and you can eat that root then the root will have a lot of nutrition in it rather than when the plant is flowered and fully flourished so because if all that nutrition in the root would have been used to achieve that and then the plant will go into a state of dormancy again and retreat back into the root in the ground you know start storing nutrition again so sometimes people sort of target the roots of various plants before and after they've had the best part of their life so that is an important thing really to take into account if you're after nutrition the kinds of terrain you'll find Ram stands in is again it likes soils haven't drained very well so damp conditions an ancient woodland whether it where the ground is very rich and has been standing for a long period of time you know young woodlands where a lot of nutrition that hasn't built up yet in the ground you generally don't find Ram since their so it's a good sign of ancient woodland the parts of the world you'll find it's in it will grow is pretty much through Europe given the right conditions I do believe it grows in parts of Asia and also North America although you would have to look that up and obviously have a look at the kind of environment it's around you it's obviously you know America is a very large country identification of the plant is relatively straightforward when it's in its prime like it is now it's very easy to pick out you can see this area is covered in it or at the base of a ravine it's very damp the soils very rich and if we go further up there's lots of bluebells and wooden owners everyone but down here it's just rammed sands dominating the show and that's a great way of picking out when it's in its prime because there is so much of it but when it's young you might want to pick the leaf and crush it up and smell it you can gather oniony smell and the leaf will generally look the same with a stem on it just a lot smaller the plum itself is generally pretty easy to identify if you do this if you listen to that sign that's squeaking the leaf is generally very very kind of waxy it almost has a film on it and they squeak against each other and if you take one of these mature leaves and you rub your finger on it just like this you can shine the leaf off and it has a bit of elasticity too it's slightly stretchy and if you turn it over you'll see there's linear veins running up and it's a very easy way of picking it out so it shouldn't be too hard to identify in any one plant can have quite a few different buds I've seen some with eight buds some with six so you have sort of multiple buds coming out here when the bud breaks it will break off into two little vales you know in two harps and I it will pop up to 25 little 6 petal flowers it'll look like fireworks going off everywhere but to be honest with you if you haven't ID'd it up to now then the smell should really give it away the smell it's very pungent and stinks of garlic or onion all over the woodland and when you're walking through it and bruising the plant it'll smell even more so again you can always crush the plant and smell it whatever the age and you can tell almost immediately you do need to be aware of a poisonous relative to rumsen's and that's lily of the valley and lily of the valley is highly poisonous in some cases it can kill and it grows in similar conditions in large colonies so at a glance it will look just like ramps ins you'll find it throughout Europe Asia and parts of North America and it will flower from May to June whether as ram stems will flower from April to May so they will follow quite closely after each other so if you're going out foraging and you're unfamiliar with the seasons all the sort of habitats or the plan or behavior of the plant you might get it mixed up there are a few ways to tell which one is which and really the leaf is a very good way of doing this if it hasn't flowered the leaf on rumsen's has a single stand per leaf and they grout the ground in a singular fashion but there was on lily-of-the-valley

you have two or three leaves belief stamp the flower again is very different than when they flowered you can tell them apart very easily although obviously they flower a slightly different time so again that is something to always bear in mind but probably the most useful thing you can use is your nose and I use my nose with lots of different plants just smelling them very easy thing to do so crush it up and smell it it doesn't smell like garlic or onion then it isn't Ram sense and you can put it down and wash your hands nutritional content of this plant is it's very rich in potassium vitamin E and a lot of iron so there are a lot of other vitamins and minerals it contains as well it's worth looking into someone's upset they're rutting at this time of year so they're always calling out for females you can generally tell the females they sound much higher the males are a bit basic normally solis no unfortunately can't hunt them at this time of year because they're not in season but the medicinal content going back to it anyway of this one is that if you've got hay fever this is a great tip if you're out walking and you're suffering from hay fever you've got an itch there if you crush the plant up and chew it and swallow it it will take away that itch in the back of your throat and if you smell at the same time it will alleviate any symptoms in the nose and around the eyes and it really will help kind of get rid of those symptoms of hay fever at least kind of distract you from the itch anyway but if you've got bright bronchitis or a cold you can use the plant in that context as well by eating it or simmering it up and inhaling the steam you know to get rid of symptoms - and it is a natural antiseptic so it's fantastic as a liver tonic for cleansing the blood the liver of the organs and just enhancing well-being much like the onion the link or even the garlic is and are cultivated society today processing this plant for consumption is very easy the whole plant is edible what I would say though is if you are just gonna pick it off the ground and eat it while being out just check for bird droppings because it covers such a large surface area and I can already see loads around me there's some just there you know just make sure there aren't any bird dropping on the actual leaf so I always check the underside just so you don't get any recall coming off via dropping that hits the leaf you know just make sure that the leaf is nice and clean if I'm gonna take it any and straight away without any washing or preparation if foraging on the way home you know I pick a load of this and gather what I wanted from the plant take it home and wash it you know and then cook with it so the way in which you can cook with it is completely up to you just experiment with it try it raw try it stir fried try it cooked maybe stuff some game with it and roast it in the oven just see how you like it if you like that if you like garlic if you like onion if you like leeks and you're gonna love this sometimes the plant can be a little bit too strong for some people and they go for the younger leaves because the younger leaves generally aren't as tough as the older ones in terms of taste these are really potent so perhaps from a medicinal perspective you know if you had an issue the back of your throat with hayfever or you know you really want to clear your nose you might take the toughest stuff and to get more of a fragrance

together more of a bite together to help you aim but if you like real mild flavors there is a little trick that you can use and it's these buds here and not the bub itself because they are delicious you can pick the buds off and pop them all over salad and they're absolutely gorgeous so much milder in the old leaves but if you've got damp soil just take the butt and hold it at the base just there like this what you want to do is hold the butt and just pull really slowly slow as you can oh there we go and it will just pop out the ground like that and the tips of these buns are absolutely delicious they're almost sweet if they're very sweet but with that sort of oniony taste that garlicky taste is some they're delicious but this whole thing can be it's really really yummy very strong though when you get to the top so if you like it mild just try that technique where take a bud just pull very slowly slower you go the batter and hopefully it will just pop out like that you can just clean off anything and it will be quite damp and it be easy to clean just drag your hand down and those are the bits there you want and if you chop those up and put them in a salad or I'm fry them they're amazing they're really good so guys I hope that video helped out with rumsen's or wild garlic if you live near some woodlands and definitely get in there and see what you have somewhere and pick it and take it home and the leaves are a little bit tricky to dry out and store but the buds are much easier to dry out install and they don't need much drawing at all actually it's the leaf that tends to be very moist easily bruised and quite waxy takes a bit of encouragement to drive at the stems and the buds much easier to store long term so if you do pick it and you're gonna eat it fairly soon just keep it in the fridge Russ it wilts very quickly but a delicious edible and I hope this video helped and please just feel free to leave a comment below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can and thanks again for watching