Our intrepid Exec Chef Oliver Pratt has just spent the weekend foraging in the Wye Valley for all the wild goodies he can find to add a genuine taste of autumn to our seasonal menu. Oliver makes this trip annually with his ecologist friend Ben and this year's trip resulted in a bumper haul of autumnal fruits, nuts and berries - not to mention buckets of inspiration!

Oliver says:

'Here at Watershed when we use the phrase 'from Plot to Plate' we really mean it! I'm astonished by our incredible haul this year. We couldn't believe the amount of berries we found - the hawthorn was particularly abundant.'

Hawthorn berries are very visible on our roadsides at the moment. Edible fresh or cooked they make a great snack (the taste is similar to cooked sweet potato), and they can also be dried for later use or mashed and pulped to make a jelly. Hawthorn, packed with antioxidants, is being recognised for treating hypertension, heart conditions and angina.

Oliver and Ben returned to a shelter that they built in the depths of the woods last year. A cat-sized animal had even made a nest from the ferns laid down as bedding and sheltered during the cold winter. The shelter was still clean, dry, warm and instantly reusable.

The adventurous pair picked large quantities of hawthorn berry and beechnuts and in addition to chestnuts, hazelnuts and elderberries - along with dandelion and horseradish roots, wild mint, apples, sloes and blackberries. They built a fire outside their shelter and roasted the nuts to complement their basic rations of rice and chickpeas. Oliver explains that the beechnuts open up in the fire when roasted and they are very tasty, not dissimilar to pine nuts.

Oliver adds:

‘The food highlight for me was picking fat juicy ripe elderberries that had just been washed by the rain and eating them straight from the tree. Elderberries have been used in medicine for hundreds of years and medical studies are proving their health benefits against viral conditions, colds and flu.’

Our new Autumn menu is about to be unveiled – and inspiration has been taken from this trip. Oliver is using fresh blackberries to make the ice creams and sorbets - the flavour is out of this world. Planning for the Christmas and Winter menu is under way, with dishes involving roasted nuts and dried berries. Oliver says ‘I would love to make a hawthorn jelly to complement a dish and incorporate the refreshing pine needles into a recipe too.’

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