From pineapple flavoured feijoas to bush jellybeans, ecologist Bella Burgess spills the secrets to foraging in the land of the long white cloud
Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Description: Sub-tropical and humid with lush coastal environments.
Common edible plants: Kawakawa, guava, loquats, bananas, feijoas, nasturtium, sorrel, three-cornered leek, manuka, plantain, miner’s lettuce, rosehips, tōtara, tawa
Transferable tip: Don’t underestimate foraging for invasive and pest species – introduce the BBQ to the three-cornered leek!
Credit: (as above)
Bella Burgess is an ecologist living in Auckland, New Zealand. With its mild winters, sub-tropical humidity and verdant growth from city to coast, it couldn’t be a better spot for someone with an interest in foraging.
“Things that struggle in other places are weeds in New Zealand,” Bella explains with the tone of someone who knows they’ve lucked out. “There’s this abundant mixture of native and exotic plants all over the country and we’ve got forests, pastures, beaches, parks and bush all in quite close proximity.”
For Bella though, if you’re looking for the very best foraging spots, you’ll want the weediest corners of the city. Partly, this is because bush foraging for native plants can pose ecological challenges to protected species, but taste also comes into it.
“I think anyone that does foraging learns really quickly that there’s a big difference between something being technically edible and something actually being nice to eat, and while a lot of our native plants can be eaten, not all of them are worth eating. That’s where our unkempt urban areas come out triumphant.”
In uncultivated pockets of parks or growing on rough urban verges, Bella forages for invasive weeds widely considered biological pests. These include species commonly found in Britain such as onion weed (three cornered leek), nasturtium and sorrel. In New Zealand it’s a great irony that many UK gardeners actively try to grow plants that for Kiwis sprawl over the land in excess.
“Nasturtium has the lovely pepperiness of watercress which makes a really good pesto, the seeds can be caper substitutes and the orange, yellow, red and pink flowers are also edible and provide a little nectar spurt which makes them sweet and spicy in salads.”
Harvesting is a balance though and Bella says in New Zealand she’d also advise doing a quick once over of an area to make sure you aren’t pulling out plants from sites of cultural or archaeological sensitivity. The nation’s Treaty of Waitangi enshrines indigenous rights to harvest resources from the land but there are additional laws about taking living organisms from conservation areas without strict permits. Additionally, New Zealand ecosystems are protected by the Wildlife Act which forbids wider hunting of birds, lizards and even some seaweeds to protect habitats for marine life.
That said, in recent years the country has seen a renaissance in interest for foraging more broadly with this including greater engagement with Rongoā Māori, a traditional healing practice used by the indigenous population based on plants and materials from the bush.
“I think that revived openness helps people connect with the land, seasons and sustainability in general but greater formal education in schools would definitely help too,” she says.
“It’s a delicate balance because nowadays environments simply can’t support everyone going out foraging, but you also don’t want to pull the ladder up from behind you.”
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“While a lot of our native plants can be eaten, not all of them are worth eating. That’s where our unkempt urban areas come out triumphant.”
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This sensitivity is something Bella carries into her own foraging practices where she tends to steer clear of secateurs. Instead, a simple pinch with the fingernail normally does the trick and she trusts that if you have to yank at something to get it off the branch it’s probably not going to be worth picking the fruit. With all the exotic plants New Zealand has to offer though it’s easy to see how you might give into temptation.
“There’s always a danger of taking too much and we need to adjust the focus from harvesting alone to also using foraging as a tool to better understand the environment around you.”
Bella herself began foraging as a child and channelled her youthful curiosity into the colourful fruit trees and verdant undergrowth of the city. To her, foraging was like one big scavenger hunt, and once she was told what she could eat, she began developing an internal map of the best spots each season. This included guava, loquats, bananas and feijoas (a sweet fruit that resembles a lime, often called pineapple guava due to their taste), with Tawa being an example of a native tree with edible berries from the Avocado family.
The tōtara tree is another one of the country’s ancient forest species popular with adults and children alike, with its sweet yellows and pinky-reds cones being known locally as “bush jelly beans” due to their sweet taste and resemblance to the American sweet. As an adult, one of Bella’s other favourites is called Supple Jack or Bush Asparagus, which is a large vine that grows straight up from the forest floor. As the spears mature they become woody and inedible but when very young they can be eaten raw or cooked just like their namesake.
As with foraging in the UK however, caution is king, and some have fatally mistaken the early Supple Jack with one of New Zealand’s most poisonous native plants – the Tutu. For Bella, knowing your edibles is only half the picture; you need to learn the toxic plants in your environment too. On the other hand, she reflects on the way New Zealand is also heavily influenced by British attitudes which tend to treat foraging with suspicion.
“If you compare us to Europe where foraging is a normal part of people’s cultural upbringing, we’re still dealing with this inherited aversion. Caution is important of course and I was an overconfident kid who had some lucky escapes but sometimes we label things as toxic when they have the same chemical properties as our common vegetables. People say to steer clear of sorrel because it can effect calcium uptake in the body, but that’s just as true of spinach so I think it’s about asking for advice, cross-checking and using common sense moderation.”
At the same time, there have long been individuals turning to the country’s native plants specifically to improve their health. There’s the internationally renowned manuka honey, famed for its anti-inflammatory, antibacterial and soothing properties while the native kawakawa has long been used by the Māori, who chew upon its fragrant heart-shaped leaves to treat toothache due to its slight anaesthetic properties.
“The health side of things is really interesting, and you can also take kawakawa like an aromatic tea with lemon and honey, but coming from the same family as black pepper I’ve
used them instead of vine leaves for tiny dolmades or chopped them up in curries. You can also eat the orange fruits if you can beat the birds to them.”
The social side of the practice is also something that underpins Bella’s own experiences. She and her partner bonded over foraging early on in their relationship and enjoyed sharing new locally edible plants week on week. From infused gins to summer salads, foraging brought successes, failures and colour to what might be written off as mundane suburbia. It’s a reminder from down under that sometimes it’s okay if chaos reigns.