Chances are, if you've eaten a few chinese meals or wandered through China town and peered into those intriguing large sacks outside the shops you'll have already encountered something very similar to this tasty morsel. The chinese produce around half a million tonnes of a cultivated relative of this species every year and use it regularly in their cuisine.

They're called Jews ears or Jelly ears (Auricularia auricula- judae). The foremost name is a reference to its main host -the elder- the unlucky tree upon which Judas Iscariot hung himself in shame. It's an unlikely story and more likely cynical propoganda promoted by the early Church in order to villify what was once a much reveered and celebrated tree in celtic folk lore- but I digress.

Name, and to some extent looks, aside this really is a great little mushroom and the only one I know that can be picked year round. Just look on the underside of old and decaying elders and you should find some pretty easily- these ones were growing along a track near Wick meadows on the edge of Bournemouth.

They need to be cooked and the best way to prepare them is to dry for a couple of days, cut into chunks with some scissors and them simply add to soups, stews or currys. The pic on the left is after a couple of days on the radiator. As they rehydrate they absorb whatever is in the pot and impart a mild mushroom flavour and slightly chewy texture to the dish.

It's difficult to mistake this for anything poisinous. It should have a distinctive ear shape and be growing on an elder tree- use the internet or a book to check what this tree looks like if neccesary (I have found it on other trees but that's fairly unusual).

In fact, the real word of warning must be to anyone thinking of frying these in their fresh state. Don't- their high moisture content causes them to explode scattering tiny pieces of scorching hot mushroom around the room!

Today I walked out with my good friend Tess and gathered the first spring greens of the year- handfuls of super nutritious, ultra delicious wild garlic (Allium ursinum).

It has to be one of my favourite forages and can often be smelt from quite a distance. A few years ago, and a bit later in the season, I was walking along the purbeck ridge, above Corfe Castle, when I was stopped in my tracks by a waft of garlic drifting up from the woodlands hundreds of metres away in the valley. It was a magical moment to literally follow my nose and stumble across a green ocean billowing through the woodland as far as the eye could see. 

Not only is wild garlic tasty, there are many health benefits too. It is rich in vitamins and anti-oxidants and is a very good cleanser of the blood, helping to increase circulation and so strengthen the heart. It's also very benificial for the digestive system- helping to balance the gut flora and proving benificial in conditions such as IBS, Chrone's disesase and gastroenteritis.

Finally, the whole plant also has a strong antibacterial and antifungal quality and can be applied as a poultice to cuts and boils to speed up the healing process and to tooth abcesses to reduce the infection

While I admittedly picked this garlic, also known as ramsoms, from a very sheltered south facing woodland, over the next few weeks and months we can expect it to really burst forth in broadleaved woodlands all over the country (down here is has a marked preference for chalky/calcareous soils).

One of the best things is it's long harvesting season and the uses are only limited by the imagination. First come the green leaves which are  great in a salad, stir fried or added to an omlette- I've even frozen them and although they come out looking a bit sad they go fine in a soup. This is followed by the delicate white flowers which are perhaps even more potent and give a really fun splash of taste and colour to a salad. Then finally, we are left with the round green seeds. Picked in bunches and pickled in a good vinegar, they are great on winter salads or in a cheese sarnie!

As for our first harvest? We sat in front of a blazing fire at the local pub and ate them with a bowl of chips and a locally brewed ale!

Update, June 2012: If you haven’t managed to harvest any yet, all is not lost. The leaves and flowers are pretty much finished but the green seed heads are now ready for a good pickling (thanks Lucie Cowles for teaching me this one). Simply fill a jar full of them, pour a good quality vinegar (I use apple cider) over the top and leave for a few months. They’re fantastic sprinkled sparingly over pretty much any savoury dish and make a potent addition to the winter bug arsenal.

Foraging considerations: The smell of garlic should be a distinct enough ID point. However, it's worth mentioning that, early in the season, it could potentially be mistaken for Lords &

Ladies (Arum maticulatum). Although it often grows alongside wild garlic, you'd have to be pretty careless to mistake the two- Lords and ladies has a rounded 'v' shape at it's base, is thicker and often (although not always) has spots-the opposite photo shows a comparison with the Lords and Ladies on the left. It's a pretty poisinous plant but, by all accounts, tastes like battery acid and burns the lips, so if you are unlucky enough to have a nibble, your senses will tell you to spit it out before it's ingested (recorded poisonings have nearly always been from children eating the red berries). Much less common but very poisinous, so worth a mention, is escaped Lily of the valley and Autumn crocus/ Meadow saffron. None of these smell of garlic so again a careful forager should be fine. As always, if in doubt- leave it out.