Foraging

Foraging--by the common people; not by a professional forager--is a widely-practised skill in the Teardrop Sea Islands. Although agricultural farming is commonplace, many staples in the cuisine are foraged.   The degree to which people forage themselves, as opposed to buying foraged food at the market, varies depending on the region, the people group, and the type of foods involved. Some ingredients are riskier to source wild than others, so in many cases, people choose to buy them from licensed sellers instead of trying to collect them themselves.   Some foraged cupboard staples are lichen, various small crustaceans, ancient beans, saltflower, nettles, nobbleroot and spiked mushroom. However, lichen and crustaceans are more often left to a professional due to there being many unsafe varieties that aren't easy to distinguish from edible ones. The others, however, are easily identified. Lichen is a used as a food source in itself, but it's also used to make lichen bread. Ancient beans, saltflower and nettles are used in various everyday recipes, such as butterfly vegetables. Nobbleroot and spiked mushroom are used to make spiked mushroom jelly. Several of these ingredients are served at every table in some form daily.   Lavender and sleeping rose are also plants that are commonly foraged, but for slightly different purposes. Lavender is used for a huge variety of things, including cooking--it's a common ingredient in a traditional salt blend and it's the basis of the popular dessert lavender cream--but it's also used for other purposes, such as home scenting, bathing, decorations and herbal infusions. Sleeping rose, however, has a very specific purpose, and that's to aid sleep.   A forager's toolkit will include items from the following: thick gloves for handling spiked mushrooms and nettles, and moving dangerous plants out of the way; a penknife for removing lichen; blacklight torch for distinguishing poison lavender from benign lavender; a face covering to protect from inhaling spores from the sleeping rose when harvested.   Foragers must be constantly aware of their location. Under the land laws, amateur foragers are permitted to forage on any land that belongs to the landowner whom they are already paying rent and taxes to, as it's a legally protected activity that comes under their tenant rights. (Professionals have to pay extra.) However to forage elsewhere they must get permission from (and pay) the correct landowner for their land's resources.