Fruit leather & Jerky workshop Sunday 29th March 2026 10am-4pm
*MAXIMUM NUMBER FOR THIS WORKSHOP IS 12*
Fruit leather and jerky workshop
2025 was a bumper year for many fruits. Apples, plums and pears were soon littering the ground and often causing a nuisance… but what if you could turn all that fruit into delicious shelf stable snacks that last months and months?! Days spent preserving food as part of a family effort are some of my fondest childhood memories, and more recently have formed a hugely satisfying part of my yearly routine, not only as a valuable contribution to the household economy, but a way to live more healthily, and escape the draw of revolting ‘road food’ during long commutes, and make the most of what I can gather in the garden and hedgerows. This course will be held in March- the early part of what was known traditionally as the ‘ hungry gap’, when winter stores have begun to run dry, and the new years riches are still too young to eat.
At the moment with our cost of living crisis in full swing and many families caught between trying to live more healthily, but on an increasingly squeezed budget. Preserving food has once again come to the fore, but it can seem quite intimidating.
Fruit is only part of the story; however delicious, few people can ive on fruit alone! The deer population has been going up and up in line with industrialised agriculture since WW2. With the usual deer culls not happening due to Covid, numbers have exploded, it is now possible to obtain a while deer carcass for £1-3 a kilo, which is a price even a supermarket would struggle to match. Once you know how to butcher a deer, you can provide yourself and your family with free range, delicious, healthy meat for a fraction of the cost of supermarket meat.
We will start the day by breaking down a deer and process the meat into a variety of different flavoured jerkies. We will then move on to the basics of fruit preservation by making fruit leather.
It is likely there will be more meat than we need for jerky, so we can process some into steaks, joints and other cuts. Bring a cool-box and ice blocks to transport your bounty home!
If you book into Mondays herbal medicine course, the jerky and fruit leather will be dry enough to take home. If not it can be posted out to you.
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Accommodation is not included but if required it is available within the local area, some suggestions can be found on our 'local accommodation' page - please arrange this yourself.
Refreshments are provided on the day but not lunches. Bring own packed lunch please.
Toilet and classroom all easily accessible from the car park.
Attendees must be over 16.