WE ALL love something for nothing, especially when that something is free food (even better when it sounds like it’s straight from a Michelin star menu). In search of these elusive and free fine-dining ingredients, I ventured out on one of Msitu’s Forage and Feast Walks.

we're given the obligatory safety talk, including the legality of carrying knives through a public park

Foraging involves reconnecting with nature and searching for what Mina Said-Allsop, Msitu’s foraging guide, herbalist and general friendly face, calls the Four F's - flowers, fruit, foliage and fungi - the four food groups you can legally forage from common or public lands.

If you’ve been ordering from restaurant menus with ingredients like porcini, sorrel, fat hen spinach or wild berries, chances are your chef has been getting out of bed early to go collect half of those ingredients from their local woods (or paying someone else to do it for them...).

Real flavour, for those in the know, is seasonal - and it’s growing all around you.

We meet Mina at the entrance to Meanwood Park where we're given the obligatory safety talk, including the legality of carrying knives through a public park, along with a few choice catchphrases that are aimed at keeping you alive. Handy rhymes like 'Never munch on a hunch' demonstrates the importance of being completely sure that you know exactly what it is that you're about to eat, rather than becoming just another statistic, and victim to culinary catastrophe.

ApplesAll apples are edible...

It's not long before we come across our first interesting catch of the day; a simple apple tree. This isn't your ordinary Cox's Pippin though, this tree is full of tiny cherry like apples, tart and sweet, and perfect for making jellies and jams. Apples are a nice place to start too, as Mina explains; “All apples are edible - some apples are more edible than others”.

In mushroom territory the group fans out like a search party hunting an escaped convict; looking for something - anything - hiding in the undergrowth, or the unusual splashes of extraordinary colour exploding out of the woodland.

Our first find was Fistulina hepatica, Beefsteak Mushroom to you and me, a meaty looking bracket fungus clinging to the side of an oak tree like a window tray in a butchers shop. Only minutes later and we were on to our second find, a sulphurous explosion of alien colour sticking out like a sore thumb in amongst a clearing of trees.

....all mushrooms are not

Chicken of the woods as it's affectionately known, due to the textural similarities it shares with Colonel Sander's favourite food stuff. Thankfully the one we found was young and at peak eating age, as the older stuff can be a bit chewy.

Later on we round off the trio of fungus with some Meripilus Giganteus (more commonly known as giant polypore because of its potential to grow to an enormous size) which Mina cut away from the stump of a chopped down tree, leaving plenty behind for other savvy foragers.

Making our way back to the gazebo it was time for the best bit, getting to eat all the tasty delights that we'd foraged on the walk, along with a few things Mina had prepared earlier. Here Mina's husband, known as 'The Logistics', helped to set up the portable kitchen/shelter/dining room, as Mina began preparing the mushrooms.

Mina at workMina at work

Lunch consisted of fat hen spinach pakora with a goat milk nettle-seed raita, field blewit pate with some of Mina's gluten free sourdough - which was indistinguishable from ordinary sourdough - beefsteak fungus carpaccio, pan fried giant polypore, scrambled eggs and a Swahili mung bean and giant polypore curry with coconut rice. All with distinct and distinguishable fresh flavours. But the highlight came when the buttery and tender pan friend chicken of the woods mushrooms arrived, with the quality of flavour usually reserved for £75 a head fine dining establishments.

If all of that food wasn't enough, it was accompanied with a fermented blackberry leaf tea and a selection of Mina's famous whoopie pies featuring lime blossom and white chocolate, strawberry and meadowsweet and chocolate, mugwort and catnip flavours. Now before you go shouting Diagon Alley and throwing magic soot into your fireplace on a quest to find these excitingly flavoured cakes, you can pick them up at Kirkstall Deli Market on the last weekend of every month.

The bountyThe bounty: elderberry, chicken of the woods, beefsteak fungus, stink horn eggs, giant polypore, water mint, sorrel and chamomile

I won't lie, it did rain all day, but Mina provided all the rays of sunshine that were needed to make the walk thoroughly enjoyable, as well as all the knowledge required to make it highly informative.

The walks last around five hours and cost £45 for an adult place and £15 for a child, which isn't cheap, but when you consider the quality of the ingredients you're eating and the uniqueness and length of the experience, it's easy to argue that it's worth it.

For those of you on a slightly tighter budget however, Mina also offers shorter pay as you feel walks in the grounds of Kirkstall Abbey on the last weekend of every month.

For more information on Msitu foraging trails, head over to Msitu.co.uk