Ox eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) are a common weedy wildflower, and a versatile wild food every forager should know. Today I’ll share what I know about identifying, harvesting and cooking with this special edible flower that doubles as an herb. Also known as the dog daisy or moon daisy, Oxeye daisy is native to Western…
Wild Herbs and Spices
Spruce Tip Key Lime Pie
Bright green, creamy and bright, spruce key lime pie is one of the most enjoyable spruce tip recipes I’ve made. I love spruce tips, but cooking with them is kind of a misnomer. Besides making syrup (which is great) I don’t really cook them much. Just like paw paws, spruce tips keep their flavor and…
Ramp Leaf Garum (Vegan Fish Sauce)
Ramp leaf garum is a fermented, plant-based substitute for fish sauce made from ramp leaves, salt, water, and time. A few of my chef friends have been trying to make vegetarian fish sauce recipes using different things to replicate the umami flavor. Most of the techniques include lots of ingredients like coconut aminos, shiitake or…
Ramp Leaf Infused Soy Sauce (Fermented)
Soy sauce makes just about everything taste better, and there’s a lot of options to pick from. There’s aged soy sauce, shoyu and tamari, for starters, and then, pertaining to this post, there’s flavored soys. You can add soy sauce infused with ramp or wild onion leaves to the list. Before I made this, the…
Sweet-Scented Galium: A Wild Vanilla Substitute
For most of my career working with wild food I’ve ignored cleavers (Galiums) with one or two exceptions. Galium triflorum or sweet-scented bed straw is the exception, and I now harvest the plant each year for commercial projects and personal use. I struggle to think of a wild herb with as much potential as both…
How to Make Foraged Vanilla Extract
Wild vanilla extract. Yes, you read that right. Everyone knows how indispensable vanilla is, especially chefs who buy the whole beans. It’s also no secret that the price has been rising, and a pound of vanilla beans can now run over 300$ a pound, which, depending on what year you compare it to, along with…
Foraging and Cooking with Golpar (Cow Parsnip Seed)
The moment I smelled the aroma of cow parsnip seeds, I knew there was great potential to use the seeds as an herb. Indeed, the seeds of the plant are an ancient seasoning from the Middle East, but there was a lot more to them than I first thought before I’d looked at the plant…
Marinated Feta with Golpar and Herbs
I’d struggle to think of anyone I know that doesn’t like marinated cheese. This marinated feta is probably my favorite recipe from my book using golpar / cow parsnip seed. Typically the seeds are ground and mixed with cumin or another spice and used to season beans and a few other traditional dishes like whole…
