‘I am foraging my entire Christmas dinner from food I find in the wild - and have even foraged a Yorkshire pudding’

A woman is foraging her entire Christmas dinner by searching for essential festive foods in the wild. The 29-year-old from Cheshire has spent a year gathering mushrooms, chestnuts and acorns - and has even found a way to forage a Yorkshire pudding.

Zoe Young has an interest in social history and has previously challenged herself to eating a rationed diet for the week, similar to meals families during World War II had to dine on. This means the young woman from Macclesfield found herself turning to nature to scavenge for food.

The ration challenge in December 2022 forced Zoe to think outside the box – picking wild nettles and hawthorn berries for soups, teas and jams.

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The support worker has now challenged herself to make an entire Christmas dinner from foraged food, to feed herself and her partner Matt. She said: “I started off doing social history – like the ration challenge.

“I found out how much I liked it. I found myself going outside looking for stuff. I thought I could try foraging for Christmas dinner. Everything is seasonal – you find things as you go along. It completely surprised me how much you can find.”

She has spent the year hunting for mushrooms – such as oyster and chicken of the woods mushrooms – and chestnuts to use in a wellington. Zoe also urban foraged - identifying and collecting foods growing freely around her city – finding unopened jars of jam and sauces on the streets.

She has found extra unopened sugar, salt, pepper, milk and sauce sachets from the streets to include in her recipes and the couple