Thursday 05/03/15

I remember when I was a small child; my grandfather gave me my first lesson in foraging for food. It was a cold winter afternoon on the beach and the surf was rough, but that didn't stop the men from fishing. After an hour of no luck, my grandfather looked at them walked over to me with an old jam tin in his hand and said "I bet you we can get a decent feed before any of them even catch a fish".

I wasn't exactly sure how an old man, a small boy and a jam tin were going to achieve this, but I was keen to find out. He took me along the shoreline where the waves washed onto the sand, and told me to look out for any stones the waves washed onto the sand. The next wave left behind a stone. I pointed it out and he told me not to take my eyes off it, not even for a second. I watched it like he told me to, and to my amazement, it upended and started working its way into the wet sand, then disappeared. My grandfather stood on the exact same spot and wiggling his hips and digging his feet into the wet sand. The more sand he churned up, the deeper he went. Like magic, that rock appeared on top of the sand; only it wasn't a rock, it was a pipi. He quickly picked the pipi up and dropped it in his can. For those unfamiliar with seafood, pipis are similar to a clam and about the size of a rock oyster.

He filled the can with seawater; then we continued patrolling the shoreline. The two of us dug up many pipis in a short amount of time. When he decided we had enough pipis he drained the water from the can and refilled it with more seawater. Using rocks, dry grass and driftwood he found in the sand dunes, he built a small fire, then put the tin on the fire to boil. When the pipis were cooked, he removed the tin and drained the water. We left the pipis to cool for a few minutes, then enjoyed our meal.

By the time we finished eating and cleaned up our makeshift campsite, the weather had turned foul and the rest of the afternoon's fishing was cancelled. The men returned home cranky and empty handed. I returned home with a full belly and a valuable lesson. Not long after this I learned how to safely remove oysters from rocks.

This might not seem particularly impressive for the average adult, but my grandfather taught me at the age of eight how to safely forage for food.