Born to forage, with flashback to mussel-picking; curing and brining olives from our own tree; benefits of olives; how to choose the best olive oil; the great olive oil scam

I’m back! Forgive my absence – where have the past six months gone? Actually, I know full well where they’ve gone. I’ve been writing numerous health and beauty articles for my long-time employer Expat Living Publications in Singapore: leaving me no time for this blog, which is one of my favourite things to do.

A-foraging we will go

Something else I enjoy doing is foraging, whenever the opportunity arises. The thrill of picking wild fruit and veggies is just one thing I share with my late dad, Mike Maree. Having grown up on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, he taught me to revel in finding wild berries, and obscure fruit like the one we called “martin-gulus” (a corruption of the Zulu word, whatever it is); they grow on a thorny coastal bush with fat leaves that exude a sticky white sap and tastes like nothing else in the world.

He also taught me to harvest mussels from the rocks on Clansthal beach, south of Durban, where we spent a lot of our childhood … so much so that Dale and I scattered Dad’s ashes in the waves there. He loved fishing, too, though there was seldom anything for the pot.

Harvesting mussels near eMdloti with Jeff – that’s Umhlanga in the background

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