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White House offers an abundance of places to forage. If you’re staying or visiting White House then take advantage of the best way to get to know the countryside and book a foraging experience.
Chloé Newcomb Hodgetts is a professional forager, passionate about nature and the edible wild world surrounding us. She leads foraging excursions and experiences year-round, teaching guests how to find, identify and sustainably harvest wild foods, whilst sharing how to enjoy consuming them and making the most of their incredible flavours and superior nutrition, also sharing tidbits of medicinal applications and associated folklore along the way.
When she isn’t sharing her edible wild world with learners on her courses, or serving up fabulous wild food inspired feasts, Chloé can usually be found deep in ancient woodland or along the coast, on an edible treasure hunt to supply Michelin starred restaurants and award-winning distilleries, or in the kitchen preserving ingredients in novel ways and developing innovative wild food and drink recipes.
YEAR ROUND. Join me for an edible treasure hunt around White House Glamping’s extensive farmland, riverbanks, meadows and woodland! We will spend approximately one and a half hours exploring the property, on the lookout for edible flowers, foliage, fungi, fruits, herbs and vegetables! I will teach you how to find, identify, harvest sustainably & prepare fabulous wild ingredients. I will suggest delicious food & drink recipes along the way as we walk, baskets in hand. Hopefully, you can collect some ingredients for a wild-inspired meal back at the glampsite!
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£55 per person, 2 person minimum, approx. 1.5 hours, (all ages, up to two children aged 14 and under may attend for free with any paying adult)
YEAR ROUND. We will spend approximately 1 hour exploring White House’s acreage, foraging and gathering a myriad of wild botanicals growing on site. Guests can choose their favourite flavours to freshly pick along the way, to incorporate into their choice of alcohol, either gin or vodka, and may also choose to include other exciting wild flavours I will bring along, which may be out of season or not growing on site. You can emulate flavours you already know you love, with a wild twist, such as by creating a wild Pimms, or get as creative as you like using ingredients you have never tasted before! As we prepare our pickings to infuse, we will enjoy a cocktail or two made with foraged infusions I have previously concocted, as we chat about all things foraged & cocktail related. Each participant can create a unique 70cl blend to take home as a souvenir of their time at White House, to enjoy all year or start to sip under the stars that night!
£80 per person, 2 person minimum, approx. 2 hours (adults only)
AUGUST TO NOVEMBER. Together we will explore all the wonderful wild habitats White House has to offer on a hunt for fungi! Hereford is home to a remarkable variety of mushrooms in the height of the season, so we will spend 1.5/2 hours exploring woodland, meadows, river banks and copses on site, to find and identify as many species as possible! Hopefully, we will find some edible wild mushrooms we can collect for you to enjoy for dinner! I will teach you about the incredible kingdom of mushrooms, how they grow, where they grow, how to find, identify and enjoy eating them, as well as how to recognise poisonous species we may come across.
£70 per person, 2 person minimum, (all ages, up to two children aged 14 and under may attend for free with any paying adult)
YEAR ROUND. I will arrive to your tent with a pre-prepared Foraged Feast picnic of 10 dishes plus cocktails or soft-drinks, inspired by the wild edibles surrounding us in the vicinity of White House. The day before, I will pick wild foods and create delicious dishes to introduce you to their remarkable flavours and culinary uses. I will explain the ingredients of every dish and how they grow and serve you a decadent wild food picnic, using both freshly-picked wild ingredients and some which I have preserved in various ways throughout the year from previous seasons. Wild-inspired dishes may include: Rock samphire seed focaccia / Rare-breed Welsh Harlequin duck eggs marinated in beetroot with wild garlic salt & Gochugaru pickled wild garlic buds / Wild woodland mushroom soup / Wild venison pâté / Wild boar kebabs spiced with wild herbs / Puffball mushroom burgers with mugwort crumb / Brie stuffed with caramelised morel mushroom mascarpone / Estuary coastal vegetable fritatta / Jack-by-the-Hedge hummus with Meadow Cress / Slow-cooked wild-hare, cider & juniper puff pastries / Wild leek pesto / Woodruff (vanilla of the woods) & silver birch sap infused caramel desserts / Stinging nettle cupcakes with flowering currant blossom icing / Elderflower champagne / Pine & Mugwort gin / Alexander vodka liqueur
£85 per person, 2 person minimum, (all ages, up to two children aged 14 and under may attend for free with any paying adult) All dietary requirements can be catered to.
ForaGIN – Beachley Island & Chepstow town centre – YEAR ROUND
Create your own utterly unique gin blend at an award winning craft distillery, with foraged botanicals you pick yourself! We will start our afternoon on the Severn Estuary in Chepstow, where we will follow a gentle 1.5 hour route covering salt marsh, meadow and hegrerow habitats. As we wander, baskets in hand, I will teach you how to recognise the wild botanicals we come across which lend themselves fantastically to flavouring gin. We will pick a myriad of leaves, flowers, seeds, bark, berries and fruits depending on what is available in season, each of which we will taste along the way, so you can start to choose which flavours you prefer from all of the intense new tastes you will discover! We will then drive just a few minutes to the artisinal distillery where we will spend the rest of the afternoon with expert distillers, who will introduce you to the world of gin, explaining how it is made & the associated botanicals. You will have the opportunity to sample several varieties of their craft alcohols, and enjoy a cocktail or two, before creating your very own unique gin recipe with your wild pickings and any other botanicals you are introduced to during the tour which take your fancy. You will then be assigned your own beautiful miniature copper still to produce your special gin, drop by drop before your eyes! Once measured and blended, you will bottle your personal concoction to take home and savour!
£150 for one person using 1 stil, creating 1 bottle, or £225 for 2 people using 1 stil, creating 1 bottle (adults only), approx. 4 hours.
1.5 Hour Estuary, Meadow & Hedgerow Forage – Beachley Island, Chepstow – YEAR ROUND
I will lead you on a guided tour of an outstandingly rich and biodiverse site along the Severn Estuary, close to Chepstow, the most bountiful spot I know of in the entire county! We will discover edible meadow, hedgerow and estuarine species as we walk, baskets in hand. I will point out all of the notable edibles along the way, teaching you how to find and identify them in future, whilst suggesting food and drink recipes you might try with our findings. Prepare to be amazed by the incredible flavours on your doorstep, from fabulous woodland and field mushrooms to mind-blowing meadow and estuary herbs and vegetables! You can expect to be introduced to around 30 edible species on any given day of the year, which you can pick a basketful of, to take home and experiment with to enjoy!
£45 per adult (all ages, up to 2 children aged 14 and under may attend free with any paying adult).
3 Hour Mushroom Forage – Wentwood Forest – AUGUST TO NOVEMBER
We will wander through South Wales’ largest ancient woodland and neighbouring meadows, baskets in hand, spotting, identifying and harvesting the UK’s finest edible wild mushrooms! I will take you to some of the richest mushroom grounds in the county, where we might encounter Ceps (Porcini), Chanterelles, Chicken of the Woods, Boletes, Deceivers, Hedgehogs, Oysters, Waxcaps & field mushrooms & more!
£70 per adult (all ages, up to 2 children aged 14 and under may attend free with any paying adult)
Full Day Forage & Feast Safari – Severn Estuary & local woodland – APRIL TO NOVEMBER
This is an extended all day foraging safari experience, incorporating multiple sites to show you as wide a variety of edibles as possible, with foraged refreshments along the way and a fabulous feast at the end, in the heart of the ancient forest or along the coast! We will pick wild edibles from one or more sites along the Severn Estuary then we will head to ancient woodland just a short drive away, close to Chepstow. I will introduce you to edible hedgerow, woodland, meadow and estuarine species. We will then dine together in the wild and feast on our foraged bounty and a myriad of other wild food dishes which I will prepare freshly in advance. You are also welcome to pick for yourself along the way and take home a basketful of wild edibles to share with family and friends!
Example menu:
AMUSE BOUCHE:
~Roe buck venison broth
WILD ANTIPASTI:
~Freshly picked porcini, hedgehog, golden chanterelle, winter chanterelle & amethyst deceiver wild mushroom puff pastries
~Venison liver & brandy pate
~Wild garlic pesto
~Wildflower hummus
~Freshly baked rosemary focaccia
~Wild salad picked along our forage tossed in walnut oil
MAIN COURSE:
~Mugwort crumbed puffball mushroom burgers with blue cheese & caramelized onions on brioche buns
~Slow-roasted juniper & cider pulled venison wraps with celeriac & fennel slaw & rowan berry jam
DESSERT:
~Lavender shortbread & vine blackberries
2 person minimum, approximate timing 10am-3.30pm, all dietary requirements catered to.
£140 per adult (all ages, children aged 14 and under may attend for a small surcharge of £15 per child, with any paying adult)
Just send us a message and we will help to arrange a date and time.
Chloe has £2M Public Liability Insurance cover.
Please see the packages on offer higher up in the page.
Participants’ well-behaved dogs are always welcome to join us.
Rates can be reduced for larger group bookings.
We will agree a time with you when you contact us for booking.