Taught by John Wright

Foraging & Feasting

£45
Level: Peer






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Level: Peer

Course overview

Foraging expert John Wright, author of three River Cottage Handbooks about foraging, will take you on three forays: along the hedgerow, beside the seashore, and to the fields and woods hunting for mushrooms.

These are real forays, with all the hopes, disappointments, limitations of season and joys that we must expect when venturing into the wild for our dinner. They all take place in an autumnal Dorset, but the lessons learned here can be applied to other places and other times.

In John’s trusted and experienced hands, you will learn the basics of identification and understand how to forage successfully, responsibly and safely.

You'll learn:

  • where to forage for foods
  • how to identify your foraged finds
  • foraging ethics and how to forage safely
  • basics of wild mushroom and fungi identification
  • recipes for your foraged food and drink

The course includes:

  • 4 on-demand video lessons - presented by John Wright and River Cottage
  • lifetime access to the videos, notes and interactive class
  • flexible classes - join and learn when and where you like
  • downloadable lesson notes
  • practical foraging assignments and recipes (with tutor feedback available)
  • access on your mobile, PC, Mac or laptop
  • small interactive online classroom - chat online to students from around the world and share your creative ideas

Independent Cookery Schools Association approved

This course has been approved by the Independent Cookery Schools Association (ICSA), recognising the highest standards of training.

Time to complete the foraging course:

Every student is different but in general we think the whole course will take around 15 hours to complete including:

  • Video lessons: 3 hours in total
  • Course notes: 30 minutes per lesson
  • Your foraging and foraged foods recipe assignments: at least 2 hours per lesson
  • Interactive classroom time: 15 minutes per lesson
  • Tutor feedback review (Expert level): 15 minutes per lesson

You'll need:

Your lesson notes will include the full details of the ingredients you'll need, but you will be making food from your foraged finds, so you'll need standard kitchen equipment.

Ready to get started?

Just add the course to your basket above - choose the 'Expert' option for personal feedback from John on your foraging assignments.

If you know someone who'd love this course then give it as a gift - just tick "This is a gift" at the checkout.

Any questions? Contact us by clicking on the orange speech symbol - we'd love to hear from you.

Watch course trailer

Lesson summary

Bountiful Hedgerows
The beautiful local Dorset hedgerows, woodlands and fields are full of wild food secrets, easily shared when you know what you are looking for and where to find them. This course is the perfect introduction to edible wild plants and you will learn where to forage and how to successfully identify your finds.
The Edible Seashore
For the forager, the seashore holds limitless culinary potential. In this authoritative, entertaining and rather adventurous course, John Wright takes us on a trip to the seaside. In this lesson John will introduce you to the various species to be harvested, you will learn the practicalities such as conservation and the ethics of foraging; the importance of habitat; how to forage safely on the seashore; landing sizes; seasons; and equipment such as nets and crab pots. In the lesson, John collects and describes the seashore species he finds on the day, complete with quite a few gratuitous but fascinating diversions. The species you will discover include some crustaceans (brown shrimp, common prawn and velvet swimming crab), plants (marsh samphire, shrubby seablite, sea purslane, sea rocket, spear-leaved orache); and seaweed (carragheen, dulse, gut weed, laver, sugar kelp, kelp).
Wild Mushrooms
With a passion for fungi spanning 50 years and a handful of books under his belt, John is one of the most experienced of all mushroom guides. During this lesson, in which he explores both pasture and woodland, John will introduce to you the fundamentals of mushroom identification, and explain where to look for various species and pass on numerous mushroom-hunting tips such has how to spot edible grassland species even when they are not yet there and the safest places to search. People are rightly concerned about collecting and eating wild fungi, so, in addition to the edible species he finds on the day, he will describe some of those that are poisonous so you can forage safely.
Cooking Wild Food
Although they are simply ingredients like any other, wild foods sometimes pose difficulties for the uninitiated: What can you possibly do with rosehips or hawthorn berries? How do you cook seaweeds? How can you preserve your wild mushrooms or four gallons of wild apple juice? John provides guidance in all these things and more, and will show you that a splendid meal can be made from the most unlikely of things.

Get the most from peer knowledge

  • Start course whenever you like
  • Practise what you learn with your peers
  • Online classroom with up to 20 classmates
  • Lessons with videos & notes
  • Course assignments
  • Group chat & direct message classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes & classroom
Portrait of John Wright

meet the expert

John Wright

Foraging expert and author with decades of experience sharing wild food wisdom and leading nature expeditions.

Read more

Why choose Learning with Experts?

Start whenever it suits you, and immerse yourself in motivational lesson tutorials with expert guidance.
Enhance your learning and personal growth with lesson assignments. Each course includes an optional assignment at the end of every lesson.
Drop a friendly message or respond to your assignment feedback. Our world-class experts are just a click away, ready to help you!
Stay informed about your own progress and those of your peers, and take joy in celebrating achievements along the way.
Chat and share ideas with passionate communities of learners from around the world.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between PEER and EXPERT options?

At Peer and Expert level, you get access to the same core content and features:

  • Video lesson tutorials led by your expert tutor
  • Downloadable lesson notes
  • Option to practise what you learn with lesson assignments
  • Group learning within an online interactive classroom of up to 20 classmates
  • Lifetime access to videos, notes and classroom

If you choose Expert level, you get all of the above plus the following:

  • Personalised assignment feedback and coaching from your expert tutor
  • Opportunity to interact with your expert tutor through a private messaging system
  • Certificate of completion.
What is an online classroom?

Our online classroom has been developed to allow you to learn from our experts in a sociable environment alongside up to 20 other students. After each video tutorial led by your expert, you will be encouraged to practice what you have learned with optional assignments - these can be seen by the other students in your class, who are free to share their own thoughts and questions with you.

You will be encouraged to take part in an ongoing class discussion where you can discuss ideas, post images or work, and comment on each other’s assignments. It’s a great way to learn from other like-minded people who share your passion from all over the world.

This means not only do you benefit from people who are outstanding in their field, but also from a close-knit group of like-minded people whom you can learn alongside. Group learning has shown to greatly improve not just the experience of studying, but also how well you retain the knowledge, and we have built our classroom experience around this fact.

When can I start my course and how long will it take?

You can start your course any time within 12 months after receipt of your purchase confirmation email. Once you start, you’ll have lifetime access — meaning you can revisit the lesson videos and notes whenever you want.

Our courses are designed so that you can study at your own pace, some prefer to binge learn while others like to spread their studying over a longer period of time - it’s completely up to you. To give you a rough time frame, each lesson video is approximately 30-40 minutes long, and we recommend that you spend around an hour on each assignment.

Support and full FAQs

If you need any help with a course, be it one you’ve started already, or one you are looking to purchase, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Support email address, or view the full FAQ’s here.

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Awards and accreditations