There's free food in abundance around New Zealand if you only know where to look, Michael Daly tells Charmian Smith.
Michael Daly can't go anywhere without spotting something to eat.
It may be a plum tree in the middle of a park, puffballs under some bushes at the side of the road, wild fennel on waste ground, mussels or seaweed from the rocks at the beach, or even a neighbour's tree dropping fruit on the ground or the chickweed and onion weed in the garden.
He never goes for a walk without a bag in his pocket and he gets excited about finding things that are edible, he says.
He has written a book, Find it Eat it: Cooking foraged food gathered around New Zealand (New Holland), to help others do the same.
Born in Ireland, Daly came to New Zealand 12 years ago and worked as an executive chef around Auckland. Then, 16 months ago, with his wife, Llewela, and two children Ciaran and Padraig (now 10 and 7), he took to the road in a house-truck.
"My wife kept talking about doing it before the children got too old," he says.
Besides doing a bit of fruit-picking, he worked on the book full-time for eight months, sometimes using the kitchens of friends they were visiting, and sometimes preparing and photographing the dishes in the truck kitchen.
As a child in Ireland he used to go foraging with his granddad, Mr Daly says.
"He took me out gathering hawthorn berries and wild blackberries and wild crab apples, and the different varieties of apples and pears, and stinging nettles - there are loads of them over there. I used to run through the fields and get stung by them and my granddad would say 'run down to the bottom of the garden and grab a handful of dock and rub it all over your legs and that will take it away', which it did."
Dock leaves are edible but it's best to go for the young leaves in spring, he adds.
Dock is not actually in his book, but dandelions, chickweed, onion weed and puha are, along with elderberries, wild strawberries, field mushrooms, rosehips, totara berries, sea lettuce, tuatua and pine needles.
Pine needles can be used to make pine-needle tea, or used like rosemary as a flavouring.
They have a slightly earthy taste along with a fresh citric acidity, he says.
For each of the 56 plants, fruit, nuts or seafood there is information on where to find it, how to identify it and use it, and recipes, but it only scratches the surface. He has enough for another book, if this one catches on, he says.
Foraging is big in the United Kingdom, Europe and the US and he expects it to become more popular here as people's food budgets are tightened and we become more aware of wastage.
"I hate to see food getting wasted, so being in the country and travelling round and seeing the abundance of food that is actually out there for the picking saddened me in a way, and that was probably one of the main driving forces to get this book up and going - and seeing the price of what is being charged in the supermarkets," he says.
You do not have to go out into the wild to find free food.
Foraging begins in your own garden and with your next-door neighbour and in your neighbourhood, Mr Daly says.
"My next-door neighbour, when I did own a house, had nashi pears, feijoas and tamarillos in his garden and they just used to hit the ground.
"Every single year - I lived in the house for six years - I had to go across and ask him could I take some because he was just leaving it rotting on the ground.
"I said why don't you just put them into buckets and put them up the top of your drive and let people have it? It's going to waste; someone could eat that.
"This is the thing, you could knock on your next-door neighbour's door and say 'I see you've got heaps of mandarins on the front lawn. Are you going to be doing anything with them?' I think people are just scared people will think they are poor or just scrounging."
Bartering is a good way to work with neighbours. Give them a couple of lettuces you have grown for a bag of their unwanted fruit, he suggests. But the neighbourhood will also have many sources of free food, he says.
He was at a park in Levin where a lot of parents and children were playing. In the middle was a plum tree with ripe plums which he could not resist. He climbed it to knock down the fruit and his children picked them up. When he came down the tree, there were 15 or 16 people watching and wanting to know what he was doing. He explained it was a plum tree and the plums were free, and as he drove away with a couple of kilograms of fruit, he saw some of the dads starting to climb the tree.
Talking to locals on his travels, he finds many people have favourite spots where they regularly gather wild food.
"It starts from your own backyard with all the edible weeds and things that grow in your own garden, through to your next-door neighbour and down the street, around your neighbourhood and out into the countryside and over to the coastline and so on. That's where foraging begins. It begins in your own backyard."
Foraging
Several communities now have maps on websites showing where to find free food in cities.
Google "New Zealand Fruit and Food Share Map" which has links to other maps in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch - but not yet Dunedin.
Recipes from 'Find it Eat it', by Michael Daly
Chestnut and pumpkin sweet loaf
Makes 2 loaves
Ingredients
1kg chestnuts
cold water
250g caster sugar
200g butter, softened
4 eggs, size 6
400g self-raising flour
350g steamed pumpkin, skin removed, mashed
150g sultanas
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp golden syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180degC.
Preparing the chestnuts: Cut a cross into the top of each chestnut, to stop them exploding during cooking. Place in a large pot, cover with cold water and bring to the boil.
Reduce to a simmer and cook for around 10 minutes.
Remove from heat and drain into a colander. When the chestnuts are cool enough, remove shells. Roughly chop and place in a food processor to blitz into fine breadcrumbs. You will need 200g of these chestnut crumbs for the recipe.
If there are chestnut crumbs remaining, they can be divided into smaller batches and put into the freezer for later use. Chestnut crumbs will keep in the freezer for at least 6 months.
Making the loaf: Line a couple of loaf tins with non-stick baking paper. Beat the sugar and butter together until light and fluffy. Fold in ingredients. Give it a good mix and divide evenly between the loaf tins. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 35-40 minutes, or until cooked and spongy to the touch (it should spring back when pressed lightly with a finger).
Remove from the oven and cool in the tins.
Tip: Don't boil the pumpkin for this recipe, because it will absorb the liquid and you don't want that. Instead, steam it or put it in the microwave with a little water and a tight-fitting lid and cook until tender. If you do find the pumpkin to be a little watery, gently squeeze out the excess water through a fine sieve.
Tuatua cottage pie
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
400g tuatua meat, minced
1kg agria potatoes, peeled and washed
5g fresh rosemary
1 tsp salt
cold water
½ cup full-fat milk
50g butter
100g cheddar cheese, grated
⅓ cup Italian flat parsley, chopped
native salt and pepper mix (see recipe below)
1 Tbsp oil, for frying
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
200g button mushrooms, finely chopped
120g fresh tomatoes, chopped
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp tomato paste
100g cream cheese
1 Tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 Tbsp water
Method
This is one of those recipes about which I feel somewhat proud, having created a dish that I feel I can call my own. I wasn't too sure at first whether it would work out, but after a few attempts I cracked it. When cooked, the tuatua takes on a wonderful meaty texture and seems to like the rich earthy flavours of the mushrooms and mustard. This looks like a traditional meat cottage pie, but tastes very much like a seafood pie - that's the twist in this recipe. Serve with buttered steamed broccoli.
Preparing the tuatua: Open the shells by inserting the blade of a thin sharp knife between the two shells and twisting. Remove the meat from the shell into a small bowl. Drain and pass the tuatua meat through a meat mincer or use a food processor. If you use a food processor, don't blitz the meat too long - it should only be coarsely chopped. A few whizzes should do it.
Cooking the tuatua: Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the onion and garlic. Cook for a minute or so without them picking up any colour. Stir in the mushrooms and tomatoes, and cook until soft. Mix in the mustard, tomato paste and tuatua meat. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes, until the tuatua is cooked. Fold in the cream cheese, bring back to the boil and thicken with the cornflour and water mixture. Remove from the heat and season with native salt and pepper to taste.
Cooking the potatoes: Place the potatoes, rosemary and salt in a largish pot and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook for 20 minutes, or until the potatoes are soft. Drain the potatoes, keeping the rosemary in the pot. Put back on to the heat to dry out the potatoes. Bring the milk and butter to the boil in a separate small pot and pour it over the potatoes. Add the cheese and parsley, and whisk really well until smooth. Season with native salt and pepper to taste.
Finishing the dish: Preheat the oven to 200degC.
Spoon the tuatua mixture into an earthenware dish and cover with the cheesy mashed potatoes. Place on the middle shelf of the hot oven for 10 minutes, until potato top is brown.
Native salt and pepper mix
Ingredients
200g coarse Marlborough sea salt
2 Tbsp kawakawa powder
2 Tbsp nasturtium powder
1 Tbsp black flaxseed powder
When dried, kawakawa becomes very peppery, so to me it makes all the sense in the world to mix it with salt. Not many countries in the world can say that they have a native salt and pepper mix!
To powder kawakawa and nasturtium leaves: Wash the leaves with a damp cloth. Remove the stalks, place flat on a baking sheet lined with non-stick baking paper and dry in the oven at 100degC for 20-30 minutes until the kawakawa leaves are dry and crispy.
When cool, grind into a fine powder in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle.
Repeat this process with the nasturtium leaves, but oven-dry for 15-20 minutes.
To powder black flaxseed: Break the pods open and remove the dry black flaxseeds. Toss over a medium heat in a dry frying pan until the seeds start crackling or popping. When cool, grind into a fine powder in a coffee grinder or using a mortar and pestle.
Grind the salt in a mortar and pestle or in a coffee grinder until smooth, and mix in the kawakawa, nasturtium and flaxseed powders. Store in a dry glass jar with a tight-fitting lid.
