Nature features

In an age where fast food is king one woman is trying to get us back to basics.

Rebecca Beinart has developed a Field Kitchen - a bespoke bicycle trailer that incorporates all the equipment needed to cook edible plants found on expeditions into urban Nottingham.

Rebecca Beinart's Field Kitchen

All the ingredients

Rebecca says there's food all around us; you just have to look.

"You'd be surprised how many wild plants you can find in urban areas and along roadsides.

"At this time of year (August) you've got rose hips starting to come out, hawthorn, fresh nettle tips. There's mallow where you can use the leaves and flowers to make salads and soup."

Grub up

When the ingredients have been gathered there's no need to return home to cook them. Rebecca has her own cooker attached to her bike.

"I've got a rocket stove that's made out of old tin cans. It cooks really efficiently.

"I can cook soups, I can fry things, I can make sauces.

"I can't bake anything because I don't have an oven but I've been making things like mallow soups, nettle fritters and elder flower fritters."

Why?

It might not sound like art but Rebecca is trying to raise questions about our relationship with plants and food, our reliance on imported goods, and lost fields of knowledge.

Throughout the summer of 2009 she'll be taking people on foraging trips and also cooking on a floating kitchen along the River Trent.