Wild Garlic

A classic wild food, wild garlic is a great 'improver' ingredient... or just eat it raw!

Wild Garlic (allium ursine, top), known to gardeners as Ransoms, is widespread throughout the British Isles. It has a strong garlic smell that hits you as you walk past it, and once the leaves are torn the smell is even stronger. The leaves and flowers can be used to flavour dips, omelettes, mashed potato, stews and soups, or eaten raw in a salad.

The bulb can be dried out and used in place of farmed garlic, but we think it’s a shame to go uprooting whole plants for this purpose. It tends to grow in patches, so harvest a few leaves from each plant instead of decimating one singular fellow.

We’ve found ransoms in London, but a rarer plant of the Allium family, three edged leek (allium triquetrum, bottom), seems to be more prevalent in the capital.

It has hanging umbel flowers and long slender leaves. It is just as good to eat, and the flowers are a pretty garnish.

Check out Caroline's Ransom Quiche recipe...