Aroundtown MEETS
‘‘Nature is never still. Tomorrow always brings something new and witnessing the cycle of life through flora and fauna is good for my soul.’’
“Becoming a professional forager happened
organically. One day in 2005 I was in the hairdressers when I decided I was going to pick mushrooms for a living. I’d become obsessed with truffles and would take my mum and the world’s worst truffle hound out most weekends excited to find new hotspots.”
While truffle hunting, she came across a patch of giant puffball mushrooms which look rather like a large skull or boulder. She posted a photo on a fungi forum and was contacted by a man she’s since dubbed Mushroom Martin. He put a huge order in and subsequently introduced her to Manchester-based chef, Aiden Byrne, the youngest ever recipient of a Michelin star. This stemmed a voyage of discovery into landscapes she never thought possible. Foraging may not be a traditional career choice – it’s certainly a first for us - but Alysia soon found it could pay the bills and relieve the work-based stress she’d felt in other jobs. “Nature is never still. Tomorrow always brings something new and witnessing the cycle of life through flora and fauna is good for my soul.” She quickly garnered support from other chefs who were dazzled by her sparkly personality and stunning plant knowledge. People like Danish chef, Rene Redzepi, who runs the four-time winner of the world’s best restaurant, Noma, were calling her to place orders.
This rural renaissance also saw her husband Chris join the team alongside the couple’s four- legged colleague, Fred the chocolate labrador. Her mum, Barbara, now 69, also helps and she’s
recently got her two teenage nephews interested. As Grandad Dan used to say, ‘if you know where to look and what to look for, nature will always take care of you’ and Alysia and Chris spend nine months of the year travelling around Yorkshire to revisit their hotspots. They pick coconut-scented gorse from the banks of a local castle, wood sorrel from a forest in Barnsley, and sea faring plants from the Humber estuary. In spring, they can pick up to a tonne of wild garlic a week; summer sees the transition between seasons; autumn sparks a flurry of fungi from Jew’s ears to St George’s; then before winter takes hold lingonberries and bilberries are picked in sub-arctic conditions on the moors. All produce is then delivered the same or following day to ensure optimum field to fork freshness. However, foraging has taken a different direction this year due to the coronavirus pandemic; the continuity is not there within the hospitality industry through no fault of its own. But not one to rest on her laurels, Alysia has started a master’s degree in food consumer marketing and product development to steer her business through another avenue.
– The plan for the next ten years is to build
the Yorkshire Foragers brand and create a supermarket range to improve wild food accessibility to the public. Initial ideas include wild horseradish sauce, hedgerow vinegars and wild garlic mayonnaise.
This September she also released a gin in partnership with the Poetic License Distillery in Sunderland. But this is not her first dapple in alchemy. She previously worked with Lakeland to develop a Christmas tree syrup from which she gained invaluable experience in food safety and hygiene standards which can be difficult to apply to wild foods.
She then made unique gins using British foraged ingredients, one which won gold at the 2018 SIP Awards in San Francisco – the Oscars of the alcoholic beverage world. Her new Yorkshire Foragers gin has been finely tuned to transport drinkers to the wilds of the Yorkshire moors, the winding rivers through picturesque villages and ancient Limestone woodlands.
“Creating a gin isn’t too dissimilar to making a curry; a good base is your starting point. But it can be trial and error. Some gins smell amazing like perfume then taste like nail varnish remover.
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I changed the base recipe six times and the top and bottom notes maybe 12 times that I think the distillery were getting fed up with me. But when they asked me to write a flavour profile it just confirmed I know what I’m on about.” One ingredient in the gin is sweet flag, or tangerine root, which led Alysia on a wild goose chase to find it. After great research, she eventually realised that the key to her quest was to search the water gardens of stately homes. With the emergence of syphilis in the 1600s, men lost their hair so wore elaborate wigs to hide baldness. Some were made of goat or horse hair so didn’t smell pleasant. To mask the pong, wealthier men made pomades from tangerine root and then ensured they had a resident stash so they never ran out.
The new gin is just the tip of what is to come for
the Yorkshire Foragers, a beacon of the beauty of South Yorkshire’s natural world. “What I’ve learnt in life is you cannot be frightened. You have to take every opportunity you can. I’m 50 next year I still want to keep pushing boundaries, keep learning and keep evolving. Some of the weeds I pick have overcome all potential obstacles and environments to grow so why can’t we.”
For more information about Alysia, the Yorkshire Forager book or limited edition gin, visit the website
www.yorkshireforagers.co.uk
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