Foraging for figs, pears and blackberries

We all love a trip out in the wilds in the Autumn to gather free food. The French regularly hunt for mushrooms, cepes and fruits to adorn their winter tables and there's so much more than your average blackberry in the hedgerows down our way.

My kitchen table has a lovely little pile of sweet pears I plan to transform into a pear and pecan salad over the weekend and the blackberries I've picked up on my usual dog walking route have made a fine addition to my morning yoghurt ( as ever trying to become thin a la Sienna Miller ). I planted strawberries and raspberries at home this year but didn't exactly get a bountiful crop, small but sweet maybe.

All this colourful fruit around takes me back to being small and watching jam tarts, apple and blackberry pies and fruit fools being turned out week after week to our dining table on finest chintz willow. We used to keep pigs in the dining room at one point ready for butchering so the crockery and table were quite a step up!


This year I've received loving baskets of plums from workpals as well as apples and the first bunch of grapes from our vine in four years. I've compote'd, if that's a word, stewed, baked and gobbled up all of these with great gusto and am wondering what I'll do when they're all finished.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of all would be the most beautiful fruit of the countryside; finest french figs. I've got used to seeing these buxom fruits dangling from the side of the road over the years but the sight of them never ceases to please me. Big flat leaves with green and riper purple fruits dotted in between.

My pockets are full after my walk, so much so there's no room for the dog lead. So pleased am I with my foraging that my figs have been the staple of my morning porridge and then again for lunch some days with locally cured ham and creamy goats cheese. So pleasing, so pretty and so free! I am no spiritual guru but unloading my pockets onto the kitchen table with these lovely finds makes me feel both happy, naughty and lucky all in one.

Unfortunately the biggest, juiciest ones are always out of reach...