I’ve been preparing this breakfast for days. Collecting acorns from the local park; rosehips from the graveyard; dandelion roots from the patch of weeds in the garden. It’s like the Mystery Box round of MasterChef, if the show was produced by squirrels. On the subject of squirrels, there will be more later.
Foraged food has been in fashion ever since eating began. It’s the diet we evolved on and, according to a newly published study, we should all be getting more of it. The study – organised by ethnobotanist and author Monica Wilde, in partnership with Zoe, the nutritional science company – challenged a group of 24 experienced foragers to spend up to three months dining like hunter-gatherers. The results? On almost every single measured health marker, the group showed dramatic improvements: the obese dropped kilos, blood pressures normalised, inflammation fell and gut biomes bloomed. But is it a diet any of us can hope to follow? I decided to try it for a day and see.
The truth of the matter is that donuts, in some form, have existed since antiquity. Donut eaters of old didn't always call them "donuts," but a cross-check comparison of past and present ingredients reveals some consistent findings. That is, people have always loved a good bread recipe that's fried in fat and covered in sweetness, whether it be honey or sugar, regardless of whether the treat comes from a modern cookbook or the unearthed frescoes of Pompeii. The sweet and sometimes savory goodness of these recipes has filled tummies both in the trenches of war and during the greatest celebrations society has ever known, and because of the donut's long history and unparalleled comfort food factor, it can't help being one of the most popular and long-lived foods on the planet.
That football is so important to so many is absurd, and certainly not in every respect benign. But from one angle, football’s exorbitant significance is wondrous, because it’s stylised proof of a broader truth: that we can make meaning together, that we can and do make things matter for ourselves – not only sport but literature, art, politics. That football matters so blatantly and irresistibly is enough to convince you of – is overpowering evidence for – the existence, and importance, of culture. If football matters, anything can.