A crazy beautiful bounty…

Mugwort or Artemisia vulgaris is soft and tender leafed right now and we have been using the mugwort soup recipe from Foraged Flavor (also online here) . We have also been cooking it in to pasta with a lemony sauce and bacon, or in rice and stir fry and with spring tempura. We also dry up a batch which Europeans used as smudge sticks to ward off evil spirits (and insects!) and Asians store and use the powder for rice cakes and pancakes. In Korea they even have a “mugwort” wellbeing spa.

This invasive Eurasian species is very easy to identify with the telltale silvery back to the finely dissected leaves (with many lobed, finger like projections), similar to chrysanthemums.

10-12 cups (lightly packed) garlic mustard leaves and tips

1/4 cup pine nuts

1 clove garlic

1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon sugar

2 squeezes of lemon juice

Chop  up the garlic mustard leaves. Set aside.

Grind the garlic and pine nuts and add the parmesan cheese. Add the garlic mustard leaves and blend, adding in the olive oil until smooth. Mix in the salt, sugar and lemon juice.

Mix with pasta and serve with extra parmesan cheese and pepper.

You dont need to walk to far to find garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) This invasive weed from Eurasia has remarkable survival tactics: one plant can produce thousands of seeds and the rhizomes exude chemicals that inhibit tree growth on the edges of forests where they are easily spotted. Pick all you can when the lighter green growth springs up from the older basal ground leaves. These are more tender and not bitter. The flowers are delicately pretty too.

We have been longing for something fresh and green and are enjoying this taste of spring salad:

1 cup lesser celandine (young stems and leaves)
1 cup (or less) coarsely chopped raw swiss chard
2 tablespoons whole/coarse grain mustard
1 tablespoon agave syrup
1 tablespoon red wine/sherry vinegar
slivered almonds
dash of black pepper and cayenne pepper

Wash and rinse the greens thoroughly
In a small bowl, whisk the dressing
Add the dressing to the greens and toss with slivered almonds.

DOs: choose lush and abundant yet delicious “invasives” such as garlic mustard and lesser celandine (before flowering), or “weeds” such as chickweed, nettle, onion grass or wild cress

DONTs: leave in the wild:  native specialist plants of spring such as spring beauty, toothwort, trillium, trout lily and wild ginger. These are only above ground for a few weeks and are important to the underlying ecology of the landscape even if you see “a lot” in a particular spot. See below from the Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

Learn the difference by looking at the sustainability code for each species in Foraged Flavor or by taking a class at Bowmans Hill Wildflower Preserve www.bhwp.org or sign up for one of our invasive plant foraging events.

Native Spring Ephemerals

By Mariellé Anzelone on April 1, 2011 |

A walk in the woods in early spring is an optimistic activity. What I hope to find are wildflowers, but my rewards are often tawny, shriveled stems—the remains of last fall’s flora. If I’m lucky (more accurately, if it’s early April and warm), I’ll find the blossoms of Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria). These flowers are funny looking, distinctive floral pantaloons, creamy white with yellow trim. They dangle above feathery sage-green foliage that grows in mounded colonies. This unique wildflower has a short aboveground presence—it blooms, sets seed, and dies back before the trees overhead block the sunlight with their leaves. By June, the plant has utterly disappeared. In botanical parlance it’s a “spring ephemeral.” Other plants share this strategy: spring beauty, trout lily, trillium, Virginia bluebell, toothwort, rue anemone. These species have a small window of sunshine between snowmelt and leaf-out in which to grow, flower, be pollinated, and produce seeds. By mid-June the deciduous trees that tower above have cloaked the forest floor in deep shade. Spring ephemerals disappear in the heat of the summer, retreating underground until next year.

Found throughout the eastern United States and Canada, spring ephemerals thrive on the floor of rich, undisturbed woodlands. This verdant, moist environment is the ideal site for myrmecochory, seed dispersal by ants. The seeds of spring ephemerals bear fatty external appendages called eliaosomes. The insects, attracted to the elaiosomes, carry the booty back to their nests, where the lipid-rich food source is consumed by their young. The unharmed seeds are thrown into a midden, a rich, composting stew that stimulates germination. A single ant colony may collect as many as a thousand seeds over a season. While the volume is great, the distance is not; on average, a seed is carried just two meters from the parent plant. Because offspring remain so local (unlike plants dispersed by birds or wind), habitat fragmentation is a major threat to the survival of spring ephemerals. Once these plants are gone from the forest, it is rare that they return.

Of course, to have fruits, you need flowers. From a woodland walker’s vantage point, this is where spring ephemerals shine.

DONT PICK: TROUT LILY

Food and health are one and the same for Chinese and part of daily life. It is traditionally good luck to eat arrowhead tubers on Chinese New Year. Another name for them is katniss, which the heroine of the Hunger Games is named for.

RECIPE:

• 6 katniss tubers (ask for arrowhead or chi gu in Asian markets)
• ¼ cup coarse salt
• 2 Tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 2 scallions, chopped (we also used wild garlic shoots)
• 1 Tablespoon roasted sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Wash the katniss tubers in warm water and remove.

Spread the rock salt in a layer on a baking tray (we used a loaf pan) and place the katniss on top and cover with aluminum foil.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Peel the katniss tuber while still warm and cut in to quarters.

Heat the sesame oil in a medium pan at medium high heat. Stir fry the katniss until they reach a golden color. Add the garlic, red pepper, scallions and sesame seeds, toss and serve.

(For extra flavor you could add 1 tablespoon fish sauce or oyster sauce.)

Professor Ed Gamber, head of Department of Economics at Lafayette College developed a first year seminar on Food and the role of food in society. “Food shapes our identity and how we see the world. How are food choices influenced by nutrition, culture and religion? Are our food choices conscious decisions, habit, or mere calorie acquisition? What are the economic, technological and political influences on food choice? The course will critically examine the varied, complex, and often subtle influences on the most fundamental choices that all humans face: What do I eat?” I was thrilled to give a lecture for the Found Food class as well as take the students on a forage around the campus in Easton Pennsylvanie. Professor Gamber then gave the students this writing assignment:

Question: How do I start foraging?
Answer: Don’t try to learn everything at once. Start with something simple that you see a lot of, like wild garlic (onion grass), dandelion or chickweed in the cool season, or lambsquarters and purslane in a hotter season. Start to get to know it: notice when it is looking its best, i.e. tender and perky.

Question: I looked at the photos in Foraged Flavor and also at the field photos in the e-book but I still cant match it to my plant! Do you have an easy solution for identifying plants?
Answer: Try to start by following the easy five steps we outline for each plant. Of course, pictures are helpful but you almost never find a plant that will exactly match a photo. Wild plants can have so much variability in color and size based on the different soil, climate and other conditions of nature across the country. In Foraged Flavor we selected delicious plants that are most easy to recognize without having to use extensive keys or microscopes! Botanists use dichotomous keys, which are steps with two alternatives. For example: are the leaves opposite branching or alternate? Understanding just a couple of these steps can help immensely in discarding a huge number of wrong plants.
If you are still in doubt post or send us a photo on our website’s forum with your questions.

Question: I tried dandelion in a big salad and it just tasted bitter! What should I do?
Answer: Yes, this is what I remember when my mom made me try dandelion when I was a kid. Instead, BEFORE the plant flowers, choose the younger, lighter leaves from the inside of the cluster (basal rosette). These leaves are sweeter and not fibrous. We offer you an Asian style recipe which pairs the dandelion leaves with a beef and a western style using a vinaigrette, that moderate any bitterness so that it is enjoyable!

Question: Is it ok to pick by the roadside?
Answer: It is so important to pick from a place that is a quality landscape: not sprayed, exposed to gasoline fumes from traffic, or runoff from animal waste, or heavy metals. This is also why it is best to forage on your space or at least have permission from the owner. That way you can be sure that you know the land conditions.

Question: I think that chickweed tastes great raw as a salad! How do you recommend eating it? 
Answer: That’s fantastic, I learned from a number of people that they like green smoothies. But for those people that think it tastes like grass (which I tend to) and don’t want to eat more than a sprig or two that way, there are other recipes for lightly cooking it in Foraged Flavor. We also substitute it for spinach in other cooked dishes.

Question: How do I store wild greens? 
Answer: I learned not to overwash them as they tend to get moldier and wilt faster as wild plants have not been bred for a long “shelf-life”. I pick the tender parts, usually top 3-4 inches, so as not to carry excess soil, and store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. If conditions are very dry I put a lightly moistened paper towel in the bag. Most will keep up to a week this way and we use the greens all week long.

Question: I want to eat a pawpaw and anise hyssop but I cant find it in the wild or my backyard! What do I do?
Answer: Some delicious plants used to be as common as weeds but they are declining and don’t particularly like to spring out of lawns in many heavily populated areas. However these “foraging code Red” plants are beautiful and carefree perennials in the garden. By planting them you can help restore a little patch of wild to your own backyard. Our website gives trusted resources for buying these plants.

Eddy made a special at Restaurant Daniel of tender chickweed tips to add a fresh green spark to a black trumpet and pancetta crusted sea scallop with two kinds of squash.

And for home cooks we have a couple recipes in Foraged Flavor and an old Wong standby for chickweed and wild garlic frittata, on chilly Sunday brunch…

Some ideas for your pine trees:  Eastern white pine needles form the core flavors of a winter turbot dish on the menu at Daniel and can also be made at home into a citrusy greeny oil to baste on meats and fish. In addition to our Foraged Flavor recipes, Daniel Patterson at Coi in San Francisco showed me how to make an easy oil by blending in a vitamix the evergreen needles while adding light olive oil, then throwing in a sauce pan over high heat for 20 seconds and then straining out the needles for an emerald green flavorful oil…..wonderful for basting or dribbled on a plate. Last weekend Jonathan Gushue and Todd Collins in Toronto Langdon Hall made a mushroom tartlet with dried pine needle powder, while Sarah Villamere made a buttermilk pine syrup pannacotta.

One of the easiest ways to enjoy the pines flavor is to toast or dry the pine needles until they become almost crumbly like little sesame sticks! The native American Indians used the needles in a tea that was high in vitamin A and C in the winter.