Ah, fiddlehead season. It comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Literally, if you start to see those little leaves unfurl you have a day maybe two to get those little curls before they are all open and bitter. It’s for this reason that I love growing them at my house. It allows me to know exactly when to start foraging in our area.
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I’m starting to feel my age. Not in the sense that I feel feeble and tired, though I’m pretty tired of this shoulder injury, but I’m feeling it on an intellectual/emotional level. We’ve got summer interns in the office now and nothing makes you feel old like having a couple cocky young things almost 10 years younger than you hanging around. I mean really, I was one of the youngest people in the office until last week, my whole life ahead of me and all that, now looking at them I almost feel bad because they have so much to learn and suddenly they are looking at me like I know it all.
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Since spring has come Chuck and I have started to make walks around the yard a regular habit. It usually happens when we get home from work or on Saturday mornings before breakfast or even just randomly throughout the day if we are home. It’s a great way to look and talk over the projects that we have going and see how the garden is doing. It’s also a really great time to talk and reflect about the day ahead or behind or days far into the future. We have a lot of future plans to talk about between the two of us.
It was on one of these walks that we first stumbled across what looked like morels. Having never picked them without my dad around I sent one home with my mom to make sure before we harvested some. When we bought our house it was surrounded by trees that were owned by our neighbor, who had them removed shortly after we moved in, leaving behind a thick bed of wood chips from the process. These morels were found all along the edge of our property where the wood chips ended. I’m wondering if the small forest (she said it was something like 150 trees) was home to a well-developed morel colony and if these are all that could make their way out from the suppressing wood chips. I suppose we will never know, but I’ll take what I can get from my own back yard.
The first few morels were just sautéed up in a pan with some oil to see what they tasted like, and the second round was put into this dish. I made this meal on a whim last Sunday since it was one of the few nights that Chuck and I had alone together, we decided to have a kind of date night in. We cooked fiddleheads and morels from the back yard, micro greens from the garden, and venison that Chuck got last year. If only my potatoes had gown last year (and not gotten water logged) then all the main portions would have come from our own two hands. Creating a meal from things completely at my own hands is something I would like to make a regular occurrence one day and a goal that I’ve had for a very long time. We are getting closer every day and I’m so excited about that.
Spring is an awesome time of year if you are interested in foraging. There are so many things available that it almost makes your head spin. We’ve seen morels, fiddlehead ferns, nettles, violets, and ramps.
Ramps (also known as wild leeks) are a relative on the onion, and therefore are very reminiscent of them in both scent and taste. They have a small white bulb and usually two wide leaves protruding from it and they usually grow in large groupings. The leaves are also edible though I personally think they have more of a garlicky flavor which makes them really unique.
Lately there has been some talk that these guys are getting overharvested in the upstate New York area and run the risk of becoming extinct in the region. While I find this hard to believe since they are so prevalent I also believe that many people do not understand sustainable harvesting. With the rise in popularity of foraging, and native foods I can completely understand why these easy to find and harvest beauties have also risen in popularity. It should go without saying, but in case you weren’t already aware if you plan to harvest any wild plant please do not wipe out the entire grouping. Just take a few to thin the group and allow some of the younger plants to grow strong. I suggest taking less than 25% of any wild grouping.
Once you have harvested a few ramps it’s important to wash and trim them. While there are roughly a millions of ways to use ramps a simple sauté has always been my favorite. Already being full of flavor on their own makes them a great little side dish to any meal.
Wild Berry Barbecue Sauce
Spring Harvest Risotto
Fiddleheads with Garlic
Violets are one of the first things to pop out of the ground in spring, along with tulips and daffodils of course, but the great things about violets are that they are edible. Both the flowers and the leaves can be eaten, and are a great addition to salads, cocktails and to decorate cakes, I mean look how pretty they are!
These little babies have been used for centuries for their medicinal properties. Its recorded to have been used as far back as Ancient Greece to prevent headaches and dizziness. I found out that violets actually contain salicylic acid, which the natural “raw” material for aspirin. So it stands up to scientific analysis against these claims.
I had always known that these pretty little flowers were edible but other than salads, and maybe a decorations for sweets, I had no idea what to actually do with them. I mean tossing the leaves and flowers in a salad is easy enough but can get boring pretty fast and honestly I don’t bake all that often. This year however I put in a little effort (thank you internet) and came up with this delightful syrup recipe.
The sweet syrup is a great thing to have around because it can liven up a cup of tea, a simple cupcake recipe or even a cocktail. Because its a simple syrup it can be used to sweeten just about anything (use it like maple syrup or honey), so long as you don’t mind the floral touch or bright purple color it adds.
To test it out I made a pretty pink cocktail mixing rum, lemon juice and the syrup. We don’t follow exact cocktail recipes in this house, but it came out pretty darn good anyway. I also tried it in my chamomile & mint tea when I had a headache last night and it was a really lovely addition.
Using it as a cocktail got me to thinking about turning it into a wine next. I think a pretty purple wine would be awesome, so that might be on next year’s list of projects.
