foraging – Delicate Balance

Wild Ramps. A Gift from the Forest.

April 17, 2020April 17, 2020by Alicia Winter3 Comments

I was going stir crazy last week, so I decided, despite the frigid spring temperatures, to go for a little walk and check on my not so secret spot for wild ramps. It is still very early in the season, but I figured a status update would be beneficial, and I needed something to do. Lincoln was all in for a walk by the river, so off we set, basket and digging tools in hand.

Ramps are a type of leek that populate forest floors and river valleys. They are difficult to domesticate, but are abundant in the wild in some areas of the United States. They have a mild onion flavor and are simply delicious.

My little spot is right on the side of a dirt road that is a very popular walking spot, even more so now that everyone is seeking escape from confinement. In fact, it is so close to the road that I hesitate to go when I might be seen, for fear of others finding my spot and cleaning out all the ramps. This type of secrecy is symptomatic of a condition is called ‘locaphobia’. It is very common in foragers, and causes all sorts of subterfuge and erratic behavior. (Just kidding, I made that up. Not the condition, but the name for it. The condition is very real.)

The ramps were there. I made my introductions, asked permission of the grove, and ‘heard’ an assent. (This hearing, I’ve learned, is a skill that develops with time). They were small, but there seemed to be plenty. Baby spinach, baby carrots, baby lettuce, why not baby ramps? As I was on my knees in the dirt, a meanderer ambled along and asked me what I was doing. I tried to hide behind a tree, but he wasn’t fooled. “I’m harvesting baby ramps” I mumbled. “What are they?” he wanted to know, so I told him. He said “Wow. Free food.” I agreed and he went on his way.

When I had enough, I offered a thank you and packed up my things. As I was walking back to the car I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. The whole hillside above where I harvest was covered with wild ramps. Acres were blanketed with them. They were everywhere. Amazed, I suddenly wished I had someone to show.

I thought of the man walking. Something about our conversation niggled at me. Free food, he had said. Was it really free? Certainly no one had to pay for it. But free has connotations of disregard, of lack of value, and possibly of neglect. Free comes without conditions. That didn’t feel right. The ramps weren’t free, they were a gift. A gift denotes a relationship. A gift involves generosity, caring and even love. A gift requires a response. The forest gives to us. It’s up to us to give back.

The ramps I collected require not only gratitude, but compassion, thoughtfulness, protection and respect. I want my relationship with the earth to be reciprocal, not based in abuse or greed. As such, I never take the first. I never take more than half. I always say please, and I always say thank you. Just like I would do with a friend.

I decided to make a quiche with my ramps. The very flexible recipe follows.

Ingredients for Ramp Quiche

1 bunch of ramps, washed and dried.

I TBSP butter

8 eggs (or 6 if that is all you have)

1 cup milk (or half and half)

1 cup sour cream (or other dairy like ricotta, yogurt, cottage cheese)

1/2 cup Bisquick

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (or any cheese)

1 pie crust.

DIRECTIONS

Roughly chop the ramps an saute them in the butter. Allow to cool.

Mix the next 5 ingredients and add the ramps. Pour into the pie crust and bake at 350 for 1 hour. It’s not necessary to preheat the oven. Enjoy!

Cooking and Recipes, Gardening

Morning Score

August 7, 2016February 24, 2019by Alicia Winter2 Comments

This morning, as I walked up the cool dewy driveway to feed the horses, I noticed something in their pasture that hadn’t been there yesterday. The pasture grows rocks; I know because I pick them up and toss them over the fence regularly, yet there still seem to be plenty around. This didn’t look quite like rocks though, or any of the other paraphernalia the horses lose in the pasture, so I walked down to investigate.

Hooray! It was what I was hoping they might be…some puffball mushrooms. They must have blossomed in the field after the hard, much needed rain we had yesterday afternoon. The horse had stepped on some of them, but I managed to salvage some good mushrooms “for the pot”. I didn’t have my camera with me, so I can’t show you, but there was clear swath of darker color in the grass where the fungus was growing, like a big comma, and there was a sweep of puffballs, the fruit of the fungus, blooming right down the center.

As I walked back home with my loot I got to reflecting about mushrooms, for which I have a deep fondness. They often grow in dead or dying material. In other words, they are a product of decay. It amazes me that nature is structured in such a way that life flows naturally from death. Take compost, for instance. I have a compost pile into which I tossed a rotting pumpkin last year, as well as all my other garden waste. This year I can’t see my compost pile for the hybrid squash/pumpkin Audrey III growing there. Abundance from decay. And yet we still see death as a finality.

Back in the kitchen putting away the mushrooms, I was chagrined to remember that I have two dozen jalapenos, 10 ripe tomatoes, 4 cabbages, 6 cucumbers, 2 giant zucchini the size of my arm, 3 peppers, a basket of green beans and a watermelon already stuffed in the fridge. Why can’t I find a score of puffball mushrooms in February, when there is nary a fresh thing in sight? So I’ll make some hot sauce, roast the tomatoes for the freezer (a yummy trick I learned from my mother-in-law) whip up some coleslaw for dinner, jar some pickles, freeze the green beans, and leave the zucchini in my neighbors car, but I am definitely having a mushroom omelet for breakfast.

MUSHROOM OMELET

2/3 cup mushrooms of any kind, diced

2 fresh local eggs (3 if you are hungry)

2 tsp. butter divided

1 oz. goat cheese

Salt and pepper

Heat a nonstick pan on medium low heat. Crack the eggs in a bowl and scramble lightly with a fork. Saute the mushrooms in 1/2 the butter until tender and most of the water has evaporated. If the mushrooms dry out before they are cooked through, add a tablespoon of water to the pan and cook until it’s dry again. Add the eggs and the rest of the butter and cover for 2-3 min. When the eggs are mostly cooked, add the cheese to one side and gently fold the eggs onto the cheese. Turn off the heat. Cover again for a few more minutes until eggs are cooked through.

Food, Cooking and Recipes, Gardening, Seasonal, summer, Uncategorized

Berry Season

July 3, 2014July 3, 2014by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

Summer’s heat is upon us, with temperatures climbing towards the 90’s, and with the heat comes the season of the berry. Blueberries and black raspberries are the first out of the gate in early July, changing almost overnight from pale green and rose to deep blue and black, respectively.

Wild black raspberries are one of my favorite summer treats. Of all the things I forage for in the wild, these luscious gems are a truly one of my favorites. Sweet yet tart, they are best eaten right away, or as soon as you can get them home and into a bowl of cream. They are very delicate and don’t hold up well to storage, unless you plan to freeze them. If you intend to make anything other than jam with the frozen ones, it’s best to freeze them in a single layer on a sheet. Otherwise they will end up as juice in a bag.

Picking black raspberries is no picnic, as they say, and this is one treat you have to work for. They mostly grow along hedgerows and by the sides of dirt roads, and are often laced with stinging nettle and Multi-flora rose brambles, neither of which feels good on bare skin. They like shade and the first ones to ripen are often under other plants. Plan your berry picking foray to include boots and long pants, as well as a wide brimmed hat to protect against the ever present gnats. A long sleeved shirt and some bug repellent go a long way toward making it a pleasant experience. Berries ripen over time, so if you want any quantity for jam or jelly, plan on picking every two days while they are in season.

Picking fresh blueberries is somewhat easier, especially if you have a well tended patch, as we do. I was just in the nick of time in getting mine covered against the birds this summer, as the day after I put up the netting they began to turn blue. Experience has taught me that the berries I deem to be “almost ripe” are perfectly edible to the host of birds hovering just over my shoulder waiting for me to leave. We have lost entire crops of the succulent morsels by waiting one too many days to put up the nets. The protective tent only helps so much though; almost every day I shoo out a hungry fellow that has managed to find a hole or sneak under.

Blueberries are very easy to maintain. They don’t require spraying and are not bothered by pests. They need little pruning and seem to winter well. We have not had any problems with the deer eating them. Harvest seems to depend more on the weather than any other factor and this year they are ripening early. Ours have grown slowly over time, but are abundant producers and we average about 5 gallons a year from 10 bushes. Pie, and more pie, is our first choice for stored berries, especially in the winter months. They freeze well, but I can’t tell you how long they keep because they don’t last long!

Berries are one of natures super-foods, and wild berries even more so. Packed with antioxidants, vitamins and fiber, they not only taste delicious but are really good for you. Everyone should save a spot in their garden for a blueberry bush or two, and if you don’t have a garden, try growing them in pots. It’s well worth the effort, for your taste buds as well as your health.

Uncategorized

My First…Morel

June 9, 2014June 9, 2014by Alicia WinterLeave a Comment

For those of you mushroom fanatics in the know, and those who desperately wish you were in the know, finding your first morel is about as memorable as your first kiss. Mushroom hunters spend months and years wandering around in dead fall and through mushy forests in search of these precious gems of the spring, and once found, guard the secret of the location like treasure. Many’s the time I have engaged mycological foragers in conversation trying to ferret out information about when, where and how they found these fungal delicacies, and never did I get a hint of a reliable clue. Sure, anyone will give you generalities that you might find in any book on the subject, like look at the edge of the woods near old orchards, or where there are lime deposits, or near dying ash or elm, but disclose their secret spot to an outsider? Never.

A few weeks ago my husband came back from hunting turkey with a giant brownish fungi that he imagined I’d find interesting. It was about 5 inches tall, hollow, and had spongy pits all over its “cap”. Although his hunt was unsuccessful, I was much more delighted with his efforts than if he had brought home a fat tom. Little did he expect my shrieks of delight and demands that he take me immediately back to the exact location where he had found it. We agreed to go back and I spent the next half hour poring over my books and through mycology websites to ensure that what he had found was indeed a true morel. I’m sure I’m not the only newby mushroom forager to worry about poisoning my loved ones! In fact it was a real morel, albeit an old one, and off we went to see if there were more.

After a short hike through some soggy march and then woodland brambles, we found an old tree with a half dozen large morels under it. Mushroomers say that in order to know mushrooms you must know trees, so I suppose I’m not much of a mushroomer. It’s no wonder I haven’t found any myself. I can’t identify an ash from an elm, so I have no idea what type of tree they were growing under or why. They were easy to find as they stood 5 to 7 inches tall, and were about 2.5 inches wide. Morels are best when young. As they mature they tend to get drier and more brittle, less tender and moist. We decided to give them a try anyway. After picking off a few slugs and a good long soak to drown any other bugs inside, I cut them into chunks for a soup.

I decided on a soup for two reasons; they were old, and my sons hate soup. It’s not that I didn’t want to share, it’s just that they might be less likely to try mushroom soup than something like mushrooms in pastry crust, and therefore I had less of a chance of poisoning them if I had somehow made a mistake in my identifications. Did I mention I was nervous to eat them? I sauteed them in some butter and took a nibble. The flavor was surprisingly good for slightly out of date mushrooms. Earthy and pungent and very…mushroomy. I waited a half an hour and didn’t develop stomach cramps so I decided to go ahead. The recipe that follows is a delicious and decadent way to eat a morel.

CREAM OF MOREL SOUP

4 to 5 cups sliced mushrooms

3 tbs butter

3 tbs flour

2 cups broth

1 1/2 cups half and half

1 tbs dry sherry

1 tsp fresh chopped thyme

Cut the mushrooms into small pieces and saute over medium heat in the butter until soft and tender, about 5 minutes. Add the flour and stir. Add the broth and stir until smooth. Cook until the broth starts to thicken, about 5 to 10 minutes minutes. Using a handheld puree tool or a blender, mix until smooth. (if you like you can leave some chunks for texture) Add the half and half and the sherry, making sure to keep the heat to a low simmer. Serve topped with the chopped thyme and enjoy!

Food, Cooking and Recipes, Seasonal, Spring

Cattails. Yum!

April 15, 2013April 15, 2013by Alicia Winter1 Comment

I wonder how many people have said or thought that in the last 50 or 100 years. Not many, I’d bet, but perhaps I’m wrong. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised and find that it’s more than I think. I know there is a semi-secretive but emerging group of wild food specialists out there, but I thought they stayed mostly to mushrooms.

Speaking of pleasantly surprised, I was after my recent cattail adventure.

Our pond is overrun with cattails, and up to a few days ago I looked on them with disapproval mingled with despair. Our pond wants to be a swamp again, and the cattails are the first determined step it is taking to revert to its natural state. In the past we have used a backhoe to dig them out when they got to be too abundant, and on occasion my husband will don full waders and attack them with hoe and shovel, but it seems to be a futile attempt: they continue to populate at an alarming rate. Well, yesterday I got my revenge. I went out to the pond, sharp knife in hand, and cut all the new shoots just emerging from the shallows. I peeled off the outer green stalk, took them home and ATE THEM! HAHAHAHA!

The surprising thing was that they were actually good. Really. Good.

Cattails can be great fun, especially for kids. Bashing each other with the cigar-like heads and creating a haze of cattail spores is a treasured summer pastime for those with ponds nearby. The heads can also be used as impromptu torches. They smoke wildly and make a terrific mess, but it’s still fun. Then recently I was killing time reading a book called Foraging New England by Tom Seymour and learned that cattails are edible. I thought I’d give it a try.

Eating something entirely new can be a daunting experience. For a few minutes after I ate them, I thought I might get a stomach ache. Not because I felt funny, but because they were so entirely different. If someone had served them to me on china and called them something fancy, I might have relished them right off the bat, but plucking them out of the mud and scraping off the tough outer layer, then slicing them on a salad, made me a bit skeptical of their authenticity as food. I tried to remember the first time I had had endives, or leeks, as they have a similar flavor, but I couldn’t come up with anything. Then I remembered trying fiddlehead ferns for the first time. Earthy, delicate and entirely delicious, fiddleheads are one of those strange spring delights that my children anticipate, harvest, cook and serve to us each year. Finally, after not getting sick, and realizing they tasted pretty good, I decided that they might have a place in my repertoire of “wild things I eat.”

First I tried them raw. As I had been thinking about endive, I started there, and made a salad with celery, Bibb lettuce, endive, and sliced cattails. For protein I added some chopped grilled salmon and some bacon, and topped it with a crumble of chevre and pine nits. It was entirely delicious.

Then I decided to try them cooked. Everything (in my opinion) goes with eggs, so I decided on an onion and cattail scramble, served with salt, pepper, and a dash of hot sauce. (My favorite is homemade, but Cholula is a good store-bought second). That was a success. The cattails held up well, and didn’t get mushy as I feared. Next time I’ll try sautéed fennel and cattails with garlic cream sauce as a side. I even served them to a young friend of my son in a salad and he gobbled them up, not even noticing they were there.

If you have any nutrition information for cattails, or any tried and true recipes, I would love to hear about them!

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