What is scrumping?
In autumn when apples cascade off the trees and bedeck the orchard’s floor with fields of red and gold, thoughts naturally turn to an ancient survival instinct: foraging, or, as we tend to call it in my part of the world, scrumping. Yet although scrumping seems as English as Shakespeare, conker fights and Bonfire nights, it is quite a recent word borrowed from the Middle Dutch schrimpen, meaning shrivelled (or perhaps a derivation of the verb ‘to scrimp’).
That same instinct lives on today in freeganism: the deliberate choice to eat what would otherwise go to waste, dumpster diving included, less out of necessity than as a healthy, waste-conscious way to live.
When sugar was scarce in medieval times, fruit was an obsession and the autumn harvest closely guarded. Not just apples either. There is the Chaucerian medlar in the Reeve’s Tale:
A fruit which is rotten before it is ripe / Unless I fare like medlar, all perverse / For that fruit’s never ripe until it’s worse.
Scrump helps you find and anonymously share foraging spots on a map. It works online and offline as a PWA. Always respect landowners, local bylaws, and leave enough for wildlife.
Roadmap
- 2026-08Scrump launches: map, anonymous reports, offline queue, heatmapShipped
- 2026-08Photo-based species ID (Pl@ntNet) ships for fruit, veg & herbsShipped
- 2026-08Filters, favorites, share links, directions, draft autosaveShipped
- 2026-08Corroboration: mark a spot as "Still there"Shipped
- NextRealtime nearby spots as you movePlanned
Community stats
- 15Fruit
- 8Vegetable
- 0Herb
- 0Mushroom