This week has been all about harvesting and preparing food from things that grow wild on our property....and there is certainly no shortage of opportunity.
Before tackling this topic however, I must admit that our jamming experiments continue. We are definitely getting better at it. In fact, we've also become experimental. This week was all about Blackberries. We not only produced a great jam from what we harvested earlier in the season, but we also created a Blackberry/Baco Noir jam that was truly delectable. Next on our list will be a couple of jelly experiments and then we can tackle "confiture de lait".
From a farming point of view, Tristan and I are still busy clearing the land. I feel we have added another 2-3 acres to plant in the Spring and it is now time to establish what we will be ordering from the commercial nurseries.
While we were tending to the land we had a visit from an old Italian hunter, Francesco. I allow Francesco to hunt on our land in return for some of his home-made Chianti or portions of his catch. I prefer to just hunt with my camera and Tristan has never had the heart to tell Francesco that he could not kill an animal (hence our tendency to vegetarianism). This did not stop Tristan however from getting his one opportunity to try a shot gun.
Although Francesco did not return with any meat, he did come back with quite a find: a large Puffball Mushroom. Although I had never eaten one of these, Francesco gave me the primer for its preparation and was kind enough to split it. He also showed us where to find these things in our forest.
Francesco also opened my eyes to another plant on the property: wild Rapini. We actually have acres of it where the corn use to grow.
This enticed Morgan, Tritan and I to prepare a small feast using these basic elements.
The Puffball Mushroom is easy to prepare. It simply needed to be cut in large (1 inch slices) and pan fried in butter (lots of it since it absorbs butter like crazy). The result is something that resembles French Toast (both in look and texture).
Likewise fresh Rapini was easy to prepare, pan fried with some olive oil and garlic. Combined with Tristan's barbecued Calamari and Scallops, our small feast was complete.
You may wonder what Puffball Mushrooms taste like. Well, although the size and texture seem all "wrong", it tastes like mushroom! A very good Mushroom. In fact, Christine who is not overly fond of mushrooms called it: "the best mushroom I've ever tasted"!
Our Wild harvest also continued with our nuts. I was concerned this week about the Hickory nuts we were collecting. Some of them were turning out bitter. I thought that perhaps I was picking bitter hickory (sometimes called "Pignut"). I had to verify the trees from which we were getting these fruits. It turns out that the trees are Shellbark Hickory and produce one of the better and more sizable nuts available. The bitter nuts were likely not sufficiently ripe (in my haste to shuck them).
The Shellbark Hickory is somewhat similar to the Shagbark Hickory and is readily identifiable by its "flaky" bark.
So after much "shucking", it was time to crack our nuts. Before doing so, we did a "flotation" test to try to determine which nuts had sufficient meat to be worthwhile. The results were extremely disappointing.
The small bowl are the nuts that sank and presumably the ones with sufficient meat to be worthwhile cracking! I actually did not let this test deter me and we decided to crack them all. I'm glad we did. With about one third of the entire batch cracked we managed to extract 2 cups of Hickory nut flesh. I must say however that these nuts are very difficult to crack (a hammer becomes a very useful tool) and getting complete nut halves is a near impossibility.
Because of their very sweet Pecan-like taste, I decided to finally create a pie with these nuts along the lines of a Pecan pie. I used the same recipe (eggs, sugar and corn syrup) for the filling. The results were excellent. Although, I overcooked the pie (and the crust was store bought), the filling resulted in something that resembled one of the best pralines I had ever tasted. I was a fan of Pecan pie before....I'm now a greater fan of Hickory nut pie.
This week we had the honour of hosting Skye Leatherdale MacDonald (Tristan's "one and only"), a very good cook herself. What Skye probably did not know is that she would become a test subject for my experiments. So after trying some Puffball Mushrooms....she also had to try my pie.
I know I could make more pie, but now I will be storing the Hickory for something rather special I have in mind: "confiture de lait".
On the nut front, we also had the opportunity to gather more Black Walnuts. I never thought that I would be harvesting things by the wheel barrow (certainly not until I had at least my apples going). We are letting these ripen until almost black. We know they will be much tougher to crack than the Hickory so we will be taking our time addressing these nuts.
Sassafras contains "Safrole" something which was determined by the FDA to be carcinogenic (after overfeeding some rats). As a result, it is banned from commercial use. However, the leaves do not contain much Safrole at all. In fact they are used as a component of file (FEE-lay) in Cajun cooking. This is a thickening base used in Gumbo and sauces.
In any case, FDA approved or not, I was determined to go a step further and Candice and I did dig up a small amount of Sassafras root. The root is a lot more pungent than the leaves. I decided to create a syrup with it, in the hope of replicating "Root Beer".
After cleaning, cutting up and boiling these small bits of root, I created a sugar syrup. The syrup is a bright reddish brown. The result mixed with normal or sparkling water is actually very good and to no one's surprise tastes like Root Beer. FDA approved or not, I would definitely be prepared to make some more (I question the health aspects of many components of modern soft drinks including Root Beer).
You may also be wondering why I took a picture of bark along with the Sassafras roots. This bark consists of pieces shed by our Shellbark hickories.
I have heard that some folks in the Southern US make Hickory syrup. They do this with the bark of Shagbark Hickory and some claim it tastes better than Maple Syrup.
As a Canadian, I had to take this on as a challenge and hoped my Shellbark Hickory could at least step up to the cause.
I cleaned and boiled the bark (for a long period of time) until the coulour of the water started to take on a golden brown tone. I then created a sugar syrup from the resulting broth.
Given how easy it is to make though (compared to its Maple counterpart), I do think this will be a regular addition to our kitchen pantry.
On the wildlife front, I have not had much chance in capturing the larger animals with my camera. Although every morning, hey always entice me with their tracks (particularly the deer and the larger coyotes).
This week however, Christine came across something truly exciting. She described it as a large white hawk.
I had to investigate and did obtain quite a few photos of this magnificent bird.
At least 2 feet tall and with a much more impressive wing span, the only identification for it would be a Mississippi Kite. These are known to be seen in Southern Ontario, although I believe they are quite a rare sight.
I close with something motivated by Francesco. Along with Puffball Mushrooms, he claims that our forest also grows a Mushroom unique to Oak trees (along their base). I'm not sure what he was referring to, but he says they are delicious. Now I can only think of three things: truffles (not likely), Chanterelle or "Hen of the Woods" ie. Maitake. I had to go on a hunt. Although I did not find the "prize", I was bewildered by the species and the amount of Mushrooms that we could find in our ancient Carolinian Forest (perhaps I will need to review my policy on Wild Mushrooms and become educated on the topic!).
The problem with reading all of this is that you get real hungry! Sounds like you are all enjoying it...look forward to a vist sometime.
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