Wild Flavours

Discover Scotland's natural ingredients with foraging expert Lucy Cooke

- RACHEL McCONACHIE

DRIVING to Port Appin feels like slipping into a pocket of Scotland that time forgot. The road winds past lochs and woodlands, skirts the sea and gives you a perfectly framed view of Castle Stalker - that iconic tower house perched dramatically on its tidal islet.

By the time you reach the end of the peninsula, the world feels quieter, the air saltier. Here sits The Pierhouse, a whitewashed inn and restaurant right beside the passenger ferry across Loch Linnhe to the Isle of Lismore. It's the kind of place that makes you want to stay a while, to walk the shoreline, to watch the weather roll in over the water, to eat well.

And eating well is precisely what The Pierhouse does best. This quiet corner of Argyll is not just rich in scenery - it's rich in wild food.

From seaweeds and samphire along the shore to berries, mushrooms and edible leaves inland, there's something to be gathered in every season. This is where forager and educator Lucy Cooke comes in.

On her guided foraging tours, Lucy leads guests along the coastal paths and hedgerows, teaching them how to identify, harvest and use Scotland's wild ingredients.

Then she delivers some of these treasures to The Pierhouse's head chef, Michael Leathley, who transforms them - Ready, Steady, Cook style - into a multi-course feast. about the food that’s growing right around them.”

Lucy grew up in rural Shropshire, where her early work in farmers markets sparked a lasting interest in food. Later, she studied anthropology and archaeology in Edinburgh – a path that, she says, makes more sense now than it did at the time.