Sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) and sweetgale (Myrica gale) are both aromatics that deserve some play in your kitchen, and one of the easiest things you can start out trying is a simple macerated liquor. Both plants have leaves that give off a great aroma, but for me personally, the seeds are the best part of both…
Sweetfern
Sweetfern (Comptonia peregrina) is an acidic soil-loving plant. For culinary purposes, you'll want to think of it as an herb. Many people harvest the leaves, but I much prefer using the nutlets, which keep flavor after drying and can be used interchangeably with other spices.
Sweetfern
Of all the smells I know that conjure up beautiful landscapes, sweet fern (Comptonia peregrina) is right near the top. Cracking open a jar of the seeds and crushing them transports me to the peak of summer, walking out into open pine barrens, mini-berry rake in hand, scanning the ground for flushes of blueberries, the…
Highbush Cranberry Vodka
Highbush cranberry vodka is a love letter to my foraging friends living and from Eastern Europe. In Russia (and likely other areas) Highbush cranberries are known as Kalinka, and, at least from my experience, if you ask someone from Eastern Europe the what the best thing to do with highbush cranberries are, they’re probably going…
Tepary Beans de la Olla with Sweetfern
Tepary Beans de la Olla with Sweetfern is my take on one of the most classic recipe for beans I know of. Frijoles de la Olla basically means “beans of the pot”, and is a famous, simple Mexican staple. Traditionally, as I understand it, the pot is important, and should be either a clay or…
Sweetfern Shortbread Cookies
Sweetfern is a great wild herb to know, and I love it’s delicately resinous, spicy aroma, but cooking with the leaves, as most people will be familiar with, can be tricky. Instead of the leaves, I typically harvest the seeds or nutlets of the plant as they keep a stronger flavor, and are generally more…
How to Taste a Landscape
The jack pine barrens are one of the most beautiful, unique landscapes I know. There’s gently rolling hills as far as you can see, with dips of kettles, those spots where glaciers paused, making depressions in the Earth. The green hills are dotted here and there with the scorched black skeletons of old jack pines–a…
Wild Blueberry Sauce with Sweetfern
Blueberries, as delicious as they are, always seem to disappoint me when I see them in sauce form. You know the sauce I’m talking about, the thick, gloppy, sauce so sweet it will make your teeth fall out of your head stuff that comes from a can. Sure, people like it, but they like the…