Wednesday, April 06, 2011
Foraging can yield some wild tastes
Foraging can yield a world of edible things -- right in your own back yard.
Photos by Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times
Mark Crim, executive chef at Blackwater Cafe at Smith Mountain Lake, mixes in his dressing on garlic mustard, dandelions, violets, purple dead nettle, mallow and hoary bittercress.
Violets
A mixture of plants
Wild garlic
Dandelions
Mark Crim measures pawpaw paste into a bowl while making creme brulee.
Mark Crim, executive chef at Blackwater Cafe at Smith Mountain Lake, mixes in his dressing on garlic mustard, dandelions, violets, purple dead nettle, mallow and hoary bittercress.
Food writer Lindsey Nair
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When I was a kid, my whole family would often set out for a long walk through my great-uncle's wooded property. In autumn, my sister and I kept our eyes trained to the edges of the wagon wheel trail, searching like ravenous squirrels for tiny green sprigs that sheltered fire-red berries.
Whoever spotted a teaberry first would pluck it, pop it into her mouth and savor its minty flavor. My sister liked to stick out her tongue on occasion just to drive home the point that she'd found the teaberry first.
We never found enough teaberries for more than a fleeting taste, but we did find huckleberries -- grandma used to make huckleberry pies -- and, after my folks got interested in hunting wild mushrooms, we hit the mother lode a few times and brought home a grocery sack full of morels.
We also knew the whereabouts of a big blackberry patch and some darn good watercress.
Despite all that foraging, I now realize we were walking past a world of edible wild things, even in our own well-manicured back yard.
True foragers know so much about edible plants that they could survive off them in the woods for a few days, if necessary. Increasingly, chefs have become interested in the subject, as well, and have been researching, foraging and incorporating finds into the dishes they set before their diners. This fascination is especially common among a new generation of chefs who are committed to using local ingredients.
"I think a lot of the younger crowd are eating out a lot and exposing themselves to a lot of different things," said John Shields, co-executive chef at Town House in Chilhowie. "Say, 15 years ago, having a mesclun mixed salad was kind of different for a lot of people, and now you have these mixes that are pretty much standard."
Mesclun does seem pretty pedestrian when you consider that diners at Town House may find themselves consuming meals made with such ingredients as clover, Queen Anne's lace, dead nettle and chicory, which are considered by many to be nothing more than pesky weeds.
From sweet to bitter
In 1806, Lewis and Clark fueled themselves for 150 miles of their expedition with little more than pawpaws, the small, green, oval fruits that grow prolifically in these parts and ripen in the fall.
I never did anything with pawpaws other than look at them and get the song "Way DownYonder in the Pawpaw Patch" stuck in my head. But Mark Crim, executive chef at Blackwater Cafe at Smith Mountain Lake, recently gave me reason to want to pick some of those banana-like fruits and eat them.
On March 28, Crim gave a presentation to the Blue Ridge Wildflower Society, discussing wild foods. He demonstrated how to make creme brulee with pawpaws, a persimmon pudding and a gooseberry crisp. His talk drew about 50 people, and he's already booked for a similar presentation next year.
Crim said his former job as a chef at the Snowbird Mountain Lodge in western North Carolina got him really interested in the topic. There, people would appear at the back door, hawking morels, ramps or wild berries. Once, he said, someone brought in a chicken of the woods mushroom so big it took two guys to carry it.
"If you bring me the product and I know I can trust you, then I can taste it and figure out what to do with it," he said.
Crim also put together a wild greens salad at the meeting and dressed it with a warm bacon dressing. The salad contained dandelion leaves, wild mustard greens, wild onions, wild garlic, violets and a few other common backyard plants foraged by a club member.
While some greens, including violets, dead nettle and mallow, are very mild in taste, others, such as dandelion greens, can be bitter. Crim said our ancestors knew how to appreciate a little bitterness to complement sweet, salty or spicy flavors, but most Americans these days do not tolerate bitter foods.
If you think about it, it's true. Other than hoppy beers and some salad greens, such as radicchio or endive, not much else comes to mind.
Jeff Farmer, executive chef at Lucky in Roanoke, said he wants to forage for his menu. He said he hasn't had time to do his own hunting, but he recently purchased fiddleheads and stinging nettles. He plans to make nettle soup with veal stock and cream.
Later this year, he said, he'll probably pick some chicory leaves for a salad. Finding them will be only as hard as finding a country road -- chicory bear those cornflower-blue flowers that decorate the roadsides of Southwest Virginia every summer.
Don't kill yourself
Anytime one speaks of edible vegetation, the subject of safety should remain in the forefront.
As Crim frankly put it, "You certainly don't want to kill a customer. That's the worst thing you can do for business."
Neither do we want to accidentally poison ourselves at home, so caution and an abundant amount of research are imperative before foraging.
A few unsettling examples:
>>Morel mushrooms are very distinct, but false morels do exist, and they look remarkably similar to the real thing. They can sicken or kill people.
>>Queen Anne's lace is a kind of wild carrot, but it looks like poison hemlock, the plant that famously offed Socrates.
>>Violet flowers and leaves are edible, but the root will make you sick. Also, African violets are not in the same family and are not edible, so please don't eat your houseplant.
I do not aim to deter anyone from foraging; I only mean to show how important it is to be knowledgeable. With research, it is easy in most cases to distinguish between friend and foe.
Beginners can start with the easiest foods. Huckleberries, or wild blueberries, look just like their grocery store cousins, except smaller. The same holds true for wild strawberries, and wild blackberries and raspberries can be identified with just a little homework.
As for restaurants, I'm told by Robert Parker, spokesman for the western division of the Virginia Department of Health, that there are no laws about serving wild plants with the exception of mushrooms. In terms of plants, it is only required that they be gathered legally. In other words, chefs should not buy from someone who has trespassed on private property for the bounty.
The rule for mushrooms is understandably stricter: They must be individually inspected and deemed safe by an "approved mushroom identification expert."
The definition of said expert is still somewhat amorphous in Food and Drug Administration guidelines, but they do dictate that the inspector be familiar with the Latin and common name of the mushroom, must inspect the mushrooms while they are fresh and must provide a statement as to his or her qualifications.
With all these precautions, why even bother with foraging? Because wild food can pack a nutritional punch and often tastes really good. Some are sweet, some spicy, some pleasantly bitter, some nutty or earthy.
Said Shields, "I never picked a green and put it on a plate because it looks good."
On the blog this week
Say goodbye to synthetic dye: How to dye foods naturally.
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Read about these topics and more at blogs.roanoke.com/fridgemagnet
