The last time I led a foraging trip with ramsons (ramsløk), Allium ursinum, as the main focus was in 2014 on the island Hvaler in south eastern Norway near the Swedish border. This was at the time the ramsons-pesto trend was really taking off and major gourmet restaurants were paying good money for the leaves. I was shocked to see that a large area had been indiscriminately cut to the ground and I suspected commercial harvest. Since that time similar reports have come in, even from nature reserves which is illegal and there have been declines in the wild stands of this plant. In my area I heard of a chef in Trondheim bragging of big hauls of ramsons in locations at the very north of the plant’s range and at location the plants had almost disappeared. Similarly, a concerned friend showed me pictures of commercial harvesting in a nature reserve in the neighbouring county of Møre og Romsdal. Well known botany professor Klaus Høiland was also alarmed by developments and published a list of ten common sense rules (ramsløkvettreglene) when harvesting this plant from the wild. This was published in KVANN’s (Norwegian Seed Savers) newsletter and we asked people rather to grow in their gardens and to share seed and plants to fellow members. A similar development happened in North America with a similar looking Allium species ramps, Allium tricoccum, where local populations have been overharvested and cultivation has started to compensate on Native American lands (unlike ramsons, bulbs are collected in North America). Ramsløkvettreglene are repeated below (in Norwegian). I would now include Nordmøre and areas close to Bergen and Stavanger as areas where only small amounts should be harvested. Jakta på ramsløken er i gang! Men viss du plukkar i eit verneområde kan det vera forbode.
Den kjente professor og sopp- og nyttevekstspesialist Klaus Høiland har laget disse “ramsløkvettreglene”:
1) Plukk ramsløk greit på Vestlandet, Sørvestlandet og Sørlandet. Der er det rikelig av den.
2) Plukker du på Østlandet, Nordvestlandet og i Trøndelag og nordover, la små bestander stå i fred, og vær forsiktig – ramsløk er ikke vanlig i øst, nordvest og nordover.
3) Se etter at det ikke er fredet. Står det fredningsskilt er det forbudt å plukke ramsløk, som alle andre planter og trær i fredningsområdet. Sjekk uansett om det er fredet, hvor enn du har tenkt å plukke.
4) Respekter innmark, og spesielt mark rundt hus. Noen kan ha plantet ramsløk der, den kan du ikke plukke. Spør alltid grunneier om lov om du vil plukke nær hus.
5) La det alltid stå noen planter igjen, sjøl om du plukker i ei rik li med ramsløk på Vestlandet.
6) Ikke dra opp plantene med løk og rot. Det er bladene som smaker.
7) Er det andre som allerede plukker der, finn et annet sted. Da begrenses også beskatningen på området.
8) Ikke plukk mer enn du trenger.
9) Trå forsiktig, ramsløk vokser ofte i slitesvak skogbunn.
It’s ridiculous but it’s been such a busy summer that I hadn’t found time for foraging mushrooms in the forest this year until last Saturday 12th October. We took advantage of our helper Aleksandra Domańska from Sweden / Poland to harvest the ridiculous amounts of winter chanterelles / traktkantarell Craterellus tubaeformis in the forest at the moment. The first we picked were frozen but it became warmer as the day progressed. We returned to our car pool vehicle after several hours with 24kg of fungi, mostly winter chanterelles but also with a good number chantarelles / kantarell. two types of hedgehog fungi / piggsopp, one sheep polypore / sauesopp (Albatrellus ovinus), one cep / steinsopp and a few yellowfoot / gul trompetsopp (Craterellus lutescens). Some of the pictures in the forest were taken by Cathrine Kramer from The Center of Genomic Gastronomy who has been filming my autumn activities for a couple of days.
Some of the winter chanterelles drying on the living room floor after cleaning!
Some of the winter chanterelles drying on the living room floor after cleaning!
Some of the winter chanterelles drying after cleaning!
Chantarelles / kantarell
Hedgehog fungi / piggsopp
Cep / steinsopp
Winter kantarell / traktkantarell
One giant winter chantarelle with multiple caps
The winter chantarelle with multiple caps (last picture)
Winter kantarell / traktkantarell
Chantarelles / kantarell
Prime winter kantarell / traktkantarell habitat in damp mossy spruce (gran) woodland
We met this alien in hunter proof gear and satellite dish!
Spent yesterday afternoon harvesting winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) as much as we could carry out of the woods and almost all were frozen solid making some unusual sounds in the woods as they fell….
Spending so much time in the 3 gardens I look after – The Edible Garden; The World and Demonstration Gardens at Væres Venner Community Garden and the Allium Garden Chicago at the Ringve Botanical Gardens in Trondheim – I don’t get into the surrounding forest so often. Yesterday, we had a fantastic day foraging fungi in the forest nearby in Malvik and the forest shared with us and these will mostly be dried. The following edibles were picked: Winter chanterelle / traktkantarell (grows in damp mossy locations in the forest) Gul trompetsopp / yellow foot (on the edge of bogs) Chantarelle / Kantarell – a bit late for this, but we nevertheless found a few patches Rødgul piggsopp / terracotta hedgehog Piggsopp / hedgehog fungus (Hydnum rufescens)
More or less the only plant I forage these days from the wild are alpine bistort (harerug) bulbils (Polygonum viviparum / Persicaria vivipara) to dry for the winter. This is one of the 80 plants in my book and I grow various accessions of this plant also in my garden! See also my post on 25th June 2019: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=22680 The best places for this species are in the high mountains and this plant’s tubers saved many mountain folk in the past from dying of hunger. We were at about the tree line and here it’s only found on disturbed ground but in places there can be large numbers of plants as in the video. It was a little early still, so we didn’t pick a lot, but will return in a couple of weeks. As we worked, hundreds of Idas blue / Idasblåvinge butterflies flitted around us!
Although I don’t consider myself primarily a forager, I do often forage my garden if that counts…I was still chuffed to be included in this top 5 foraging guides alongside my personal favourites, Sam Thayer and John Kallas as well as Ellen Zachos!
It was a busy weekend picking our winter supplies of winter chantarelles (traktkantarell) in the forest. This abundant species is mycorrhizal, associated in Norway with spruce, usually in mossy woods.
The forest is now full of edible fungi, witness today’s haul of mostly chantarelles, winter chantarelle, hedgehog fungi (two species) and puffballs (Norw: kantarell, traktkantarell, lys- og rødgule-piggsopp og røyksopp)
Tonight’s omelette had more or less only wild edible perennial plants from my area in it, although all grow in my garden, managed in some way…with one exception which has been in every evening meal for 65 days now, the first in this list: Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde) Taraxacum officinale (dandleion / løvetann) Allium ursinum (ramsons / ramsløk) Campanula latifolia (giant bellflower / storklokke) Alchemilla spp. (lady’s mantle / marikåpe) Urtica dioica (stinging nettle / brennesle) Aegopodium podograria (ground elder / skvallerkål)
Earlier in October, we found a place with a large amount of chantarelles (kantarell); see http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=23655). We noticed that there were also a lot of winter chantarelles (traktkantarell; Cantherellus tubaeformis) growing in the same place, but we decided to wait a couple of weeks as many were still small and return before the first hard frosts (forecasted in the next few days). Here is the haul:
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
Men viss du plukkar i eit verneområde kan det vera forbode. 
(Hydnum rufescens)
