Eels And Chicken Tika - London Food And Fishing

Old london town, home to the world's oldest continuous city archive, and easily the most cosmopolitan city on earth ( I know many of you believe that title belongs to NYC, but yer just showing yer ignorance). Here in old blighty the national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala, sounds Indian right? Invented for serving to people with a skin-full of 'wife beater' [not the vest a strong Belgian larger] the national drink. 

While we are guilty of all the things we happily project on to the French - rude and standoffish, and the stereotypes we hold true about the New Yorkers - pushy, aggressive, greedy are far far truer about us. Every so often a random meeting with a member of the GBP (great british public) reminds me why I still live here despite the many excellent reasons to swim, rat-like, from the sinking ship that is Albion.

I was on the south bank of the Thames the other afternoon visiting what was in Shakespeare's time the theatre district. In those day the theatre was a rowdy, boisterous night out, with plenty of talk of sedition on and off stage. So the theatres were set up on the southern bank of the river where they were outside the jurisdiction of the city fathers, but near enough to draw a crowd.

By chance I happened on a chap fishing, and we spent an enjoyable few minutes shooting the breeze about all things Eel fishing. An education ensued. 

I, it turns out, am way way behind the times with my 'bacon bait' strategy, apparently Eels have long been turning their noses up at bacon. But the good news is, much like myself after a skin full, they are unable to turn up a chicken Tikka Massala. Ledgered baits on a hook no bigger than 8 (although 6 has many proponents). Our man recommends ASDA as the best source of such bait, but as so many of you live a long walk from the nearest branch I thought a recipe would help.

1 pint of live natural yogurt
1 Tablespoon Cumin powder
1 Tablespoon Garam Massala
1 Teaspoon Coriander powder
1 Teaspoon Turmeric powder
1 Teaspoon Chilli Powder
Juice 1 lemon
8 cloves garlic - crushed
1 inch grated ginger
Red food colouring
4 Chicken Breasts Cubed
1 Lemon

Marinade long, Cook slow. Eat well, Save scraps for bait.

Just to prove that no good deed (or shared fishing tip) goes un-rewarded. One tourist was so taken with his bonhomie and advice - describing it as 'wikkid awesome', that she gave him a lesson in 'Massachusetts tongue kung-fu'. Lucky lucky boy.

the rules and regs
A london eel fishing post
More Soon
Your pal
SBW

Wild Camping - The Responce

This Government appreciates the potential benefits of wild camping in England and its attractiveness to campers who already have the opportunity to camp in the wild in Scotland.

The Land Reform Act in Scotland allows for wild camping, but the land issues and the legislation in England are somewhat different. The introduction of wild camping in England would be a controversial issue, which would require both significant consultation and legislative change.

On open access land wild camping is prohibited under Schedule 2 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000, which lists all restricted activities. Therefore, new Regulations would be required to exclude wild camping as a restricted activity. Any change to the current rules on wild camping in National Parks and Ministry of Defence land would require new primary legislation.

The Government has no plans to allocate the necessary resources to consider proposals for such legislation at present, and is concentrating on following up the successful introduction of 750,000 hectares of open access land with new legislation on access to the coast in the Marine Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.

So that's two petitions and twice the government has decided to do nothing!

I was going to write you a long post moaning about the state of the nation and the lackwits who are governing us, but to be fair Aktoman has raised all the necessary points without sounding like an old fart so I'll just point you in his direction.
And for those of you resident in the UK, or carrying a UK passport, urge you to get involved in stage two of the campaign for us to be able to take a nap in the big out doors that our forefathers made such sacrifice for, before some bright spark in the cabinet office invents a way to put a meter between us and the fresh air.

Hurrumpf!!

Bushwacker

Digging That Victory

Since I put up that post about suburban homesteading it seems that; either the great and the good of English journalism are reading my witterings or (more likely) I had my finger on the pulse of the weeks Zeitgeist. According to this weeks papers there are now as many people growing their own foodstuff as did during WW2!

If like me you've been thinking about getting started here's some food for thought.

If we were all to follow the advice of eating five portions of fruit and veg a day, we would probably spend at least £1 every day, or around £400 a year, at supermarket prices. But seeds for vegetables to keep a family going for a year usually cost less than you would pay for one kilo of the same product in a shop.

You can pay £1.29 for two beef tomatoes in Sainsbury's [This should be a joke surely - I checked it's true!]while a packet of 30 seeds from costs £1.25.

A Sainsbury's shopper buying a kilo each of courgettes (AKA Zucchini), beetroot and radish this autumn would have paid around £8 while packets of each of these seeds from costs a total of £3.75. And if you have neighbours with vegetable patches, you can always swap packets, as they always contain more seeds than you need.

If your aim is to save money, then you should grow more exotic produce

'Growing main crop potatoes is insane if you look at it economically,I don't think there is any more lucrative crop than hot peppers. Garlic is very expensive to buy. Rocket is quick and easy to grow but can be expensive to buy. Herbs are good. Rosemary and thyme - you can't have too much of those.'

Young apple, cherry and other fruit trees or berry plants can be bought for under £20 each, while organic raspberries, for example, cost more than £23 a kilo in Sainsbury's this year.

Richard Murphy has been growing vegetables for 18 years. This year, he has included pumpkin, salad crops, beetroot and carrots in his vegetable patch.

'For the price of one bag of salad you could grow 50,' he says. His main aims are eating well and introducing his two young sons to this part of the natural world. 'The skill level you need is pretty low. My six-year-old can quite happily plant seeds.'

All sourced from http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/dec/30/food.ethicalliving

Thanks for reading
SBW

PS for picture credit and loads more cool home front posters

Really That Long?

Yes i know its been a while since I added to the chronicle of my journey but life, as they say, keeps getting in the way. First i crashed my scooter (painful but no lasting damage), then came the stag do (joint second in the clay pigeon shooting - 14 pairs and 4 singles smashed after a two year hiatus - yeah yeah, kids stuff, you can do better, write yer own blog) the wedding itself (THE social event of the year - congratulations to Sir Hiss and the newly crowned Mrs Sir Hiss) and then a family holiday to the coast (an evil conspiracy of childcare time and tide banjaxed any fishing, there was a little bit of gathering but no hunting).

Now that i can get back into it I'm very happy to tell you that I'm due to take my first fly fishing lesson early next week.In class bound Blighty 'on-the-fly' is still seen as the way toffs fish, this is mainly due to the massive cost of fishing on the classic 'beats'.
North of the boarder, where our Caledonian cousins have perfected the art of marketing their waterways and fieldsports heritage, there is one Scottish fly fishing blogger, Alistair, who is starting to redress the balance with his tales of low-cost fly fishing on the Kelvin just outside Glasgow. Through reading his blog I found out that down south a blogger called Jeremiah Quinn has taken on the mantle and is chronicling his exploration of England's (mainly urban) low-cost Trout waters. Not for him the stocked lakes around London where bloated rainbows rise, secure in the knowledge that if they have bitten a man made fly they'll soon be back home in the water.He turns the traditionally costly country pursuit of fly fishing in to a low cost urban adventure.

During our email conversations it became apparent we're both fans of a writer (and later TV presenter) called Charles Rangeley-Wilson and his book (and TV series of the same name) 'The Accidental Angler'. For the most part C R-W travels the world to visit some of the most amazing destination fishing, then the story moves closer to his home as he investigates London's disappeared rivers, and takes on the challenge of catching a trout within the M25 (the orbital ring road that encircles London). He dismisses my local river, the Ravensbourne, and heads west to the Wandle a chalkstream transformed by the intervention of fishing enthusiasts calling themselves the Jet Set Club and local school children. C R-W wasn't successful on the Wandle, but did later do the business on the Chess. Also fished by Jeremiah

In the 18th century the Wandle was regarded as the premier trout stream within easy reach of london. In 1828 Humphry Davy wrote in his classic Salmonia:
"...of the blue dun, there is a succession of different tints, or species, or varieties, which appear in the middle of the day all the summer and autumn long. These are the principal flies on the Wandle - the best and clearest stream near London.
In early spring these flies have dark olive bodies; in the end of April and the beginning of May they are found yellow; and in the summer they become cinnamon coloured; and again, as winter approaches, gain a darker hue. I do not, however, mean to say that they are the same flies, but more probably successive generations of Ephemerae of the same species."

For navel and fly fishing history buffs it's also worth noting that Admiral Lord Nelson liked the Wandle so much he commissioned a house there, and with the cunning that made him such a great leader - he wisely told Lady Hamilton it was a present for her!

Those halcyon days were followed by 200 years of using the river as a convenient way to dump rubbish, but thanks to the efforts made the river is now one of the cleanest in europe, and as Jeremiah's picture testifies fish are thriving.

Thanks for reading
your pal the Bushwacker.

PS
If you want to know more about fishing the Wandle i found this blog
If you want to get involved in a clear up later this year the dates are:
May 11 Sutton
June 8 Merton
July 13 Wandsworth
August 10 Sutton
September 14 Merton
October 12 Wandsworth
November 9 Sutton
December 14 Merton

SubUrban Harvest

After my own efforts with chestnuts and blackberrys I'm pleased to report that one of my friends has taken the urban foraging in a new direction, with delicious results.
Last night I popped in on R&E of Stoke Newington and was delighted to try their Sloe Gin. Made with Sloes gathered on Hackney Marshes and gin gathered in from the off-license (liquor store) at the end of the road. Much better than the commercially available stuff. Interestingly E has booked herself on one of Ray Mears' six day courses. And after a bit of arm twisting WILL be writing a guest review of proceedings.

She also under taken a bit of guerrilla gardening, well more guerrilla small holding actually. She came to know where the local council were planting ornamental plants in areas where the public could see them but not walk all over them. These beds are weeded watered and fertilized by the council, she has already harvested her first crop of gooseberrys with more variety's on the way this summer!

Well Played E!!

Thanks for reading
Bushwacker

Dig For Victory

I've just seen a really interesting blog post over at Earth Connection a bushcraft school in northern Virginia. It set me thinking............

Looking out of the window, towards my my sit spot at the far end of the garden, it's really high time I got to digging over the garden to plant a vegetable patch.
Last summers apple crop was massive, but our month in France came at the right time for us but the wrong time for effective harvesting. We left unripe apples on the tree and returned to overripe wind falls on the ground. apples aside this year I want to get into it a bit more than last summers tomatoes and chills on the kitchen window sill.

During the second world war the efforts people could make at home were a valuable source of both morale and nutrition. The concept was sold to the public as 'doing our bit' on 'the home front'. The project proved to me a huge success - the British haven't been as health since! A fact that's always worth pointing out to fatties when they moan 'its my genes' - the nation had pretty much same genes '39 through '46 as we do today but the availability of processed foods was massively restricted by rationing. So people grew their own vegetables and hunted rabbits, hares and pigeons with a previously unknown vigour and were healthier and slimmer.

I once read an interesting account of a German woman's post war experiences in Berlin, after the war food and pets were thin on the ground. She said she became something of a local celebrity due to her skill at trapping! Oh and she confirmed, dog is a lot better eating than cat.

The climate change, food miles, rising food prices, and city air quality issues (lets gloss over my need for mass reduction)are compelling reasons to take up a little suburban smallholding. Could I really live in the suburbs by the estuary, on garden grown veg, and the proceeds of shotgun, rod and ferret?

I proposed as much to Mrs SBW
'Stop blogging and go back to work'

Thanks for reading
SBW.

Mother! Behave Yourself!!

Just in case you didn’t believe me when I told you about the foraging septuagenarian matriarchs!
As I was taking this picture I got into conversation with one of the park guys who told me he blamed the current crop of wildfood TV show’s.
“They only show cooking, people don’t know when they’re ripe and they just try and pull ‘em down. It’s a problem for us”.
Keep ‘em peeled
Bushwacker

Shh Keep 'em Under Your Hat

They've arrived! Ripe and ready to gather!
I picked (picked up?) this crop yesterday.
Had a few for tea, after last nights running club.
More details and Recipes in my next post
(I didn’t have a camera with me and there’s something in the park I want to show you)
Bushwacker

Those New Chestnuts

Like the our pal the American Bushman I’m noticing the shift in the seasons; London was decidedly nippy today, and the prelude to last nights fitness training was a drum roll of chattering teeth as we gathered at the park gate.
I’m not sure where it went (I’ve even been having salad for breakfast!) but I’d certainly let things slide in the last week. The regime of running, sit ups, burpees, star jumps and press ups seemed almost as tortuous as the first time I attended. I sweated like a carthorse and my legs felt like I had tree trunks tied to them. Having struggled and slithered across the wet grass praying for the strength to continue or at least a merciful end to the torment.

Having survived I started to think of myself as a rather heroic figure. Back at home; as I lay panting and moaning on the front room floor, I was quickly disabused of even this crumb of comfort. Mrs SBW delivered a ‘motivational’ lecture about the ads she seen on TV where tubby fellas of a certain age are putting their health at risk by eating and drinking to their harts content. She succinctly pointed out that it was my harts (fat) content that means it’s not a choice. I will be going back, rain or shine, like it or not.
As Carl the PTI keeps pointing out “there’s plenty of time to think about it later, just do it”.

The park is the site of an ancient hunting ground and although we’re denied the chance to shoot (or even trap) the squirrels or stalk the deer there are still some foraging opportunities to be had. I’ve only ever had chestnuts and puffball mushrooms, but my foraging days have only just begun there must be more edible species for a re-wilded bushwacker to find. The chestnuts are getting a little riper but the first sightings of the granny migration that signals their ripeness are still a little way off.
It would seem I’m not the only person visiting the park hoping to invoke the aid of the gods, I saw this offing left at the foot of one of the bigger chestnuts trees.

The history of the site as a place of worship is at least as old as the roman invasion/settlement of Brittan. Discovered in 1902 the park has the remains of the mosaic floor of a roman shrine, supposedly dedicated to Diana the Huntress an imported deity the Romans took to their harts.

The area is steeped in history; first as a hunting ground and later as a pleasure park for the royals. Just as the invasion/settlement of Virginia was getting under way Le Notre (the gardener to Louis XIV) was commissioned by king Charles II to design the layout of the park we see today. The avenues of Sweet Chestnuts were planted from Spanish seed and some of them are now 400 years old.

I was more than a little off in my tree-size-estimate this fella is 24.5 feet around the trunk!
More trunk reduction for the bushwacker to follow – thanks for reading everbody
Bushwacker

That Old Chestnut.

I’m eating one of the last apples from our tree, as I recover from the mornings exertions. Outside its still sunny but the season is starting to change, apples over, blackberries still good, chestnuts about to begin.

On the sofa my legs are aching, and I wanna go back to bed, but the goal is in sight.
Finally I feel I’m on the road to fitness, I’ve attended Military Fitness three times this week!!!! Twice to the running club, and once at the military fitness class.

Trying to keep my head up as I ran I saw that the chestnuts are in abundance, and will be starting to fall in a week or two. I really love collecting them with Bushwacker Jnr, and eating them with pork. I’m not so keen on peeling them, but its a small price to pay for the satisfaction that wildfood brings.

In the park some of the chestnut trees are literally hundreds of years old, as I ran (OK speed-waddled), I made a note to dig out the big tape measure and try to find out just how old they actually are. Some of them look at least ten feet (3m) around the trunk.

The best sign that the worthwhile nuts are falling is to watch out for the migrating herds of - Chinese Grannies! Seriously, the nuts that fall first aren’t really worth the effort, but as soon as the big fellas start to drop there’ll be septuagenarians matriarchs using broom handles and plastic bags as yokes, harvesting the parks bounty.

While we were collecting last year we’d often meet a few dog walking toffs who know the nuts are edible but are surprised that anyone would bother, they are encouraging in that patronising yet indulgent way toffs often have.

The nuts are never as big as the Spanish imports but some how they taste a little sweeter.
I’ll let you know how I get on.


Bushwacker.

Sharpening and Reprofiling

Oh the pain! Whinge-moan. Whinge. Moan. Running club! Battered. Whinge moan.
Delicious fried food danced before my eyes.
Imaginary Elk snorted contemptuously and sauntered away over the great mountain range that separates my homeland from the lands of my dreams.
Have you ever heard an Elk laugh?
Well they did, safe in the knowledge that I’d never get my wheezing butt within rifle range. Bow range? Ha!! They’re still laughing now.
Bushwacker.

The stunning picture is of the appropriately named cardiac range

Foxes Love Shoes?!!

R&E of stoke newington emailed to report being the victims of continued harassment by local foxes. They’ve also seen the family's shoes baring the brunt of the attacks. Several pairs of their lad’s shoes, left by the backdoor after garden play, have been torn up. In the most recent outrage a pair of E’s poshest shoes were snaffled. With their smelly footprints and our chewed shoes, urban foxes are annoying. But in fairness their screeching is probably the worst of it. At least they don’t have rabies! Oh and they eat rats.

Meanwhile On The Other Side Of The Pond...

Things ain’t so cushy in Salisbury, reports Earl Holland for The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md.
At Chef Fred's Chesapeake Steakhouse, Bar & Grill, the manager Sara Hall was called with claims of a wild fox in the parking lot. As she went to investigate customers were beating a retreat into the building pursued by the fox.
In what must have looked like a moment of high comedy, punters anhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd staff were jumping up on the tables to escape the invader.
She was bitten on the hand, and even with one of the bouncers holding the fox in a neck-lock it still managed to bite a punter who was trying to prize open its jaws.
Ms Hall had to attend a local medical centre where she received seven shots in case the animal was rabid, and must re-attend twice a week for three to four weeks for supplementary shots.

Rumors that E would gladly endure the shots if she could keep the shoes are unconfirmed

For the full story

For the Jimmy Chews

What The Fox Happening?

Three hundred and ten days ago, while I still lived on the other side of the hill.
I was sitting in my living room working on my laptop, when I heard a noise downstairs.
It wasn't very loud, just the sound of something falling over.
Then there was a tapping sound on the stairs, not loud enough to be an adult, but defiantly the sound of someone coming up the stairs. I looked down the stairs and found myself face to face with an urban fox, the cheeky little toe rag had come right into the house!

We looked at each other for a tenth of a second before he turned tail and scampered out of the back door.
Further investigation showed that the bushy-tailed-interloper had come in through the back door, gone into the bathroom, and then (what is euphemistically called) 'scented' our bathroom floor, Phew!!

To add insult to injury the little sod then did a victory lap of the bedroom, leaving 'scented' footprints all over the bed.
Not content with this chemical attack he then chose one of Mrs Bushwacker favourite boots and dragged it outside for a chewing session on the deck.

In the words of the late Bill Hicks
Who'd-a-thunk-it?
Bushwacker

Speaking of France

Harvested (picked?) from a pile of slates in a wooded, but still inner-city (zone 2) garden, these snails were delicious. Kept in a bucket and fed on salad trimmings for five days they purged all the grit accumulated from their natural diet. Then they were fed for two days on white bread. The bread passing through the snails and staying white, tells you the purge is complete.

Boiled, rinsed and boiled again (approx. 10 changes of water) until the slime and froth were gone. Simmered for an hour. Baked in parsley, garlic and butter.
Served with rustic bread.

Bushwacker.

Mud Larks of Deptford

Mud Lark - ‘A fellow who goes about by the waterside picking up coals, nails, or other articles in the mud.’
Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue - 1811

On its southern bank, were it meets the Ravensbourne, the river Thames has a natural dry-dock, known as Deptford Creek.
On Sunday afternoon in response to claims of a ‘spawning ground for Flounder’ and ‘squillions of Mitten Crabs’ your pal the Bushwacker and accomplice Deej joined the Creekside Centre’s snappily named ‘Spring/Summer Low-Tide Walk Programme.’
And big fun it was too.
We were issued with thigh waders and broomsticks to use for wading poles and for nearly two hours we were led up-river toward Lewisham.
There were many signs of life, not all of it the stuff vandals leave behind. Between the shopping trolleys and torn down road signs Nature has reasserted herself, the guys who led the walk must have pointed out 25-30 different plants that had self-seeded in the creek and on its walls. Nothing was introduced by the regeneration project; everything there has arrived under its own steam.

The Creekside was the site of many a slaughter house in the century before last, (Tanners Hill is just round the corner) and the sawn bones of cows, sheep and horses poke out of the mud here and there. The Creek was also the launch dock for many a colonial endeavour / piratical raiding party and handmade shipwrights nails litter the site. We had a great time poking around in the mud. Just in case any of the group forgot we were in ‘sarf larn-den’ the guides told us how one school trip to the creek was enlivened by one of the kids finding a handgun sticking out of the mud.

After a few moments to get your eye in, looking through Polaroid sunglasses there are loads of juvenile Flounder in the crystal-clear water and the cast-off shells of Mitten crabs are everywhere. The water must be in good health as Mirror carp, Tench, Trout and Eels have all been caught in the creek.
The chaps showed us how to ‘kick sample’ the bottom, collecting up slit in a white observation tray, we could see hundreds of aquatic creatures swimming about. Londoners are habitually sceptical about the quality of the water in the Thames and its tributaries, but after seeing just how much is living in it I started to believe the guys claim that the Thames is the cleanest metropolitan river in europe.
Would you Adam an Eve it, me old china?

£5 very well spent – if you’re in the area, you gottta go!

"Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts.
So long as we are dirty, we are pure".
Charles Dudley Warner 1800's

creekside centre

Get stuck in
Bushwacker.

Mitten Crabs

Seen in the River Thames since the 1930s, the Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) first arrived in Blightly as tiny larvae in ballast water in ships from China and Korea. Now there are loads of the bastards!
By burrowing into the rivers banks, (which causes rapid erosion) and eating enough stuff to put pressure on native plants and animals, they haven’t always received the welcome the deserve.
The good news is they’re not only delicious, but also very easy to catch!!
These hairy-clawed-snax-on-legs are rated 'proper delicious' in china.
The shell of a large one can be eight centimetres across. Making them perfect for the BarBQ.
You'll be please to hear the scientific community is united in its praise for this culinary delight; one serving suggestion, that sounds both thrilling and practical, comes from Richard Tullis, biology professor at California State University,
"Fixed Asian style, stir-fried with garlic, soy and ginger... it will also turn on non-Asians."
Who could ask for more than that?
Philip Rainbow (keeper of zoology at the Natural History Museum in London, England) concludes:
"The culinary route may represent our best culling strategy if we are to limit its potentially damaging environmental effects." Yummy!!
Bushwacker.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/life/other-invertebrates/chinese-mitten-crabs/crab-control-help.html

PS FOR READERS FROM THE USA (especially on the east coast)
If you catch or find a mitten crab: please keep it, frozen is best, on ice second choice, or preserved in rubbing alcohol.
Take a close-up photo of the beastie, and email your picture with
the precise location and date of the find to SERCMittenCrab@si.edu If you can’t take a photo, contact the
Mitten Crab Hotline on (443-482-2222).
PLEASE DO NOT THROW IT BACK ALIVE!!