On the road with game picker Edwin Florès

On the road with game picker Edwin Florès

If you want to know anything about edible nature you need to be with wild picker, farmer and pioneer Edwin Florès. The good man is bursting with knowledge, knowledge of which WINELIFE would like to share a little. And so together we go into the woods, fields and gardens to pick berries, seeds and leaves and taste them. TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHY KATJA BROKKE

Edwin Florès is a tad chaotic, straightforward and an enthusiastic storyteller. We notice this immediately when we meet the game picker at a car park on Zijpendaalseweg in Arnhem. Next to our cars, on one of those wooden picnic tables, he serves us a pan of lentil soup with some bread, water and homemade syrups. One of rhubarb, angelica and knotweed, and one of woodruff. To establish a base for the long walk. The ladle is missing, forgotten. Meanwhile, Edwin talks about his work with many hand gestures. How he has always been interested in edible nature and can now make a living from it. Indeed, he is extremely busy, shuttling back and forth between Ressen, Arnhem, Amsterdam and Yerseke for his garden where he likes to experiment, the wild-picking walks - also in and along the sea - and the chefs who like to work with his picked plants, leaves, nuts, mushrooms, seeds and kernels. Once every two weeks or so, Edwin sends them a list of what's on offer - think chefs like Joris Bijdendijk and Ron Blaauw. With the latter, he also wrote a book: Mijn Amsterdam (My Amsterdam). He did the same with three-star chef Jonnie Boer: Mushrooms. He also wrote three other books himself: Het paddenstoelenboek, Het grote wildplukboek and Het wildplukookboek (see recipe). So he is a busy man, but fortunately never too busy to take interested parties into the woods. Wild picking is tolerated, as long as you don't overdo it. So no buckets full, but enough for a jar of jam or bottle of syrup.

Four-leaf clover
We cross the road and at the first bush Edwin is already standing still. He picks some blackberries and, spitting out a blackberry, warns us that there can sometimes be worms in the fruit. He himself has now been trained enough to taste it immediately if something is not right. Next to the blackberry is an elder with green berries, great for pickling and using as a kind of caper. Chefs throw it in with a nice fried fish, he assures us. Berries are very popular in professional cooking at the moment anyway, along with seeds and nuts. Then we set course for the forest. In the meantime, we stop every few metres to pick a leaf or some seeds. For instance of the European and large spring balsam, which you can dry and roast to sprinkle over a brown bread with cheese, or through granola. Also delicious for in your yoghurt are the seeds of the nettle or those of the wild carrot, a tall plant with bitter seeds. Very intense. In a kombucha, the seeds are also delicious, says Edwin. If you like it more acidic, you must have woodland clover sorrel. This clover is a common plant and you have probably unwittingly picked a lot of it in your life, looking for one with four leaves.

Read the whole article in WINELIFE #67. You can order here.

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