Would you eat deep-fried leaves? One man foraged London and lived to tell the tale

Put your city on your plate, from stinging nettles to wild mushrooms

Cow parsley or wild chervil, ice cream (Forage London)

We can blame Noma, the Copenhagen restaurant once voted the best in the world, for making delicate foraged plants and flowers sprout up on our plates at fancy restaurants and the shelves of Waitrose.

But with a little knowhow anyone can pick and choose from the plants and flowers that we walk past each day. Even the bustling streets of London can become your outdoor kitchen cupboard, as food writer and forager John Rensten explores in his new book The Edible City: A year of Wild Food.

If the idea of eating plants growing around an apparently grimy city puts you off, Rentsen is the perfect person to walk you through the process. Since he opened a gastro pub The Green in east London with his friend, he has been gathering items from edible mushrooms to wild garlic and sorrel to add the menu. In the square-mile that he lives in he has found over 200 edible plants. And his book offers thorough advice on how to avoid plants that are poisonous or sprinkled with animal pee.

The Moon Dog of gin, sorrel,mint,hogweed seed & dandelion syrup topped with apple juice (Forage London)

He hopes the book will transform how we view the cities we live in. Stinging nettles will no longer be a nuisance to be avoided, but inspiration to make tempura. Rather than be irritated by the petals which fall on your car in April, celebrate the chance to make spring blossom champagne. Seasonal food will take on a whole new meaning.

And many of the recipes are laughably easy. The ground ivy and wild garlic pakoras recipe for instance, feature potatoes, onion, chilli and other bits and bobs easily grabbed from your cupboard but is designed to make the natural flavours of the foraged food shine. Deep-fried leaf crisps – the result of trial and error where Rensten dismissed bitter hawthorn but found beech and birch to be particularly tender – involve zapping pickings in hot oil, and can even be served unseasoned. Steamed and fried hogweed make a happy addition to a stir fry from those white-flower topped storks which are ubiquitous to the green areas around the country.

Wild garlic and chorizo soup (Forage London)

Concoctions you would proudly present to guests at a dinner party are also on the menu, from Japanese knotweed and beech leaf punch, to mangnolia petals lightly pickled in elderflower vinegar which hang ethereally in a jar.

A bento box made of foraged food (Forage London) (photographs: Forage London)

Now all that’s left to do is take a bit out of your town, city or village. In Renten’s own words doing so will make: “The buildings, the cars, the streets and the shades of grey all fade away to be replaced by a vibrant, fertile landscape, full to the brim with sweet smells strong flavours and bright colours”.