Fergus the forager & Friends

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About Fergus Drennan

Fergus Drennan is a wild food experimentalist and educator, runs regular full day total immersion foraging courses for the general public and privately.

He has written regularly on wild food and foraging for BBC Countryfile Magazine, The Ecologist, Country Kitchen, Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine, as well as contributing and/or featuring in many other magazines including most national newspapers.

100% Wild food

Currently he is researching wild food and foraging in all its multiple aspects as he prepares to spend a year living entirely on what he can forage: The Year-Long 100% Wild Food Experiment., and is raising funds to do this. He is seeking individual contributions and company sponsorship

Mentality

Not believing in the separation between life and play, hobbies and work, as well as the above, he likes to swim, run and cycle, think about and research environmental issues, play the violin, cook, work and play with plants and embrace the apparent random opportunities for work and play that come his way. Increasingly that has led to greater collaboration with others and more excursions into the realms of art, bushcraft, and an exploration of primitive and traditional nature based skills.

The Roadkill Chef

In addition he made a TV programme, The Roadkill Chef, for Jamie Oliver’s production company, exploring some more extreme food alternatives. He regularly appears on radio, podcast and television talking about wild food.

Youtube video series

Fergus also outputs a lot of on the fly content on youtube.

His latest series Wild food in Covid times invites you to join him and special guests for wild walks, with a focus on a particular subject each episode.

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Latest recipes

Chamomile Wine

As a general principle, infusing flowers and herbs into wine is a fantastic hassle free way to make a country wine – all the colour and flavour without all the potential wine-making mishaps and initial investment in equipment. Lazy! Simple! Fun!

Wild Thing’s Elderflower Biscuits – for a Mad Hatter’s tea party

Makes 10-20 biscuits, depending on their size

Leaf curd pasta

Makes 10-20 biscuits, depending on their size

Latest Journal entries

Making, cooking and storing leaf curd

11th April 2020

Carbohydrate is relatively easy to come by; obtaining sufficient protein on the other hand is more problematic. One answer to the challenge lies in the wild food adventure that is leaf curd production – the extraction of protein direct from multiple leaf varieties.

Burdock

15th July 2019

Burdock, burdock, burdock, what a wonderful plant you are, and yet I feel with all sincerity that I owe you a rather large apology.

So let me thank you for allowing me a second, third, fourth, fifth and many more chances to get to know you, to make such an impressive suit from your huge and attractive leaves, to become a burdock man, and after years of friendship, have the opportunity to sing your praises to all who care to listen.

Bee the change

15th April 2019

Bees love to forage for lime blossom with its fragrant pollen as do I but the general buzz from the tree was that from large bumble bees. It became louder and disconcertingly louder but was not the bumble bees........ A huge humming, buzzing, swarming amorphous cloud had descended upon the playing field. After about an hour the swarm headed, surprisingly, not for a lime tree but for a lone sycamore. There it settled into a heaving noisy mass of bees.

Top Courses

Wild Food Walk in East Sussex (Forest Row). From 30th March 2024 + Multiple dates. 9am-2pm

On this wild food walk in Forest Row in East Sussex, participants will be provided with clear information on the foraging basics, while simultaneously looking deeply into the skills required to get the maximum benefit from wild plants. This includes precise tips and guidance for working with the 20-30 specific plants and fungi (when present) encountered on location, as well as detailed instruction regarding processes and techniques, for example, salt pickling, vinegar pickling, lacto-fermenting, cordial making, wine and spirit making, dehydrating, fruit leather creation, seasonings, and other preserving and food preparation techniques. In many instances those techniques will be brought to life by tasting the fruits of such labour.

Wild Foods of Stanmer Park (Brighton). From 31st March 2024 + multiple dates. 9.30am-2pm

On these wild food walks participants will be provided with clear information on the foraging basics, while simultaneously looking deeply into the skills required to get the maximum benefit from wild plants. This includes precise tips and guidance for working with the 20-30 specific plants and fungi encountered on location, as well as detailed instruction regarding processes and techniques, for example, salt pickling, vinegar pickling, lacto-fermenting, cordial making, wine and spirit making, dehydrating, fruit leather creation, seasonings, and other preserving and food preparation techniques. In many instances those techniques will be brought to life by tasting the fruits of such labour.

London Wild Foods, Hampstead Heath (monthly, April-December). 10am-2pm

On these wild food walks of London 's Hampstead Heath, participants will be provided with clear information on the foraging basics, while simultaneously looking deeply into the skills required to get the maximum benefit from wild plants. This includes precise tips and guidance for working with the 20-30 specific plants and fungi encountered on location, as well as detailed instruction regarding processes and techniques, for example, salt pickling, vinegar pickling, lacto-fermenting, cordial making, wine and spirit making, dehydrating, fruit leather creation, seasonings, and other preserving and food preparation techniques. In many instances those techniques will be brought to life by tasting the fruits of such labour.