The Manawatū River Shared Pathway in Palmerston North runs along the river’s western bank, a 10.3km asphalt track that takes in a lagoon, dog park and a wilderness reserve of oak trees bowed by unseasonably warm temperatures.
It’s where you go to find Helen Lehndorf. The day we speak, the writer and forager is behind a flax bush, pulling tiny purple berries from an elderflower tree. Later, the 50-year-old will boil them with cloves, ginger and cinnamon, add a glug of honey, then bottle it for a shot of vitamin C whenever she feels a cold coming on.
Before Lehndorf takes the 15-minute walk home, she’ll fill her basket with nasturtium flowers and chickweed leaves for tonight’s salad, along with bright-green fennel seeds that might end up in a tea or a fritter, depending on how she feels.
Foraging has become popular with foodies and hipsters, and chefs in high-end restaurants such as Copenhagen’s Noma charge eye-watering sums for food plucked from the local landscape. But Lehndorf was doing it long before that.
“Although when I was growing up, we called it gathering or scrumping,” says Lehndorf, whose new book, details her lifelong passion for wild foods. “I didn’t hear the
