Interviews
p. 078
In conversation with a winter forager
Dandelion, wild chicory, sea beet: what grows when nothing else does.
Ana Lourenço has foraged the hills behind Sintra for thirty years and supplies wild greens to six restaurants in Lisbon. We walked with her on a grey morning in February, when, she says, most people think there is nothing to find.
What grows in winter?
“The bitter things. Dandelion, wild chicory, sea beet by the coast, sorrel if you are lucky. They come first because nothing else is competing with them.”
How do you start?
“With one plant. Learn it completely — where it grows, what it looks like in every month, what it can be confused with. Then learn the next one. It takes a lifetime and that is the nice part.”
“The bitter leaves come first. They are the ones that clean you out after winter.”
About the writer
Priya Raman
Priya interviews cooks, farmers and grandmothers for the magazine’s Interviews section and records an audio version of each conversation.
Keep reading
Reportage
№
The last salt rakers of Castro Marim
Fourteen families still rake flor de sal by hand on the Algarve’s eastern edge. We spent a summer with the youngest of them.
Words by Inês Carvalho
Essays
№
A kitchen that cooks with the sea
On the Faroe Islands, one chef has stopped buying salt altogether. Hana Sørlie on brine, patience and the taste of a cold ocean.
Words by Hana Sørlie
Recipes
№
Salted lemons, three ways
One jar on the shelf, three dinners on the table. Kwame Asante’s preserved lemons, and what to do with them all winter.
Words by Kwame Asante