Queen Anne's Lace

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We begin this week's blog with our latest foraging experiment:  Queen Anne's Lace (often referred to as wild carrot and very often considered a weed).

The idea for this came from Hannah one of our summer student field workers and now an avid forager. She loves the look of the flower blooms and had a cute story about this special flower. The small blooms are arranged in a parasol like structure and resemble lace. They surround a small reddish purple bloom in the centre. So the story is that Queen Anne was adept at making lace. However when completing this one, she pricked her finger and the centre bloom is a drop of her blood.

In fact this little story is important to note. It is highly recommended that you do not experiment with this plant unless you can definitely ascertain the difference between it and poison Hemlock. One of these key differences is this little "drop of blood" or colourful centre bloom. The other is the smell. Queen Anne's lace has a pleasant smell reminiscent of carrots while Hemlock is offensive.

Queen Anne's Lace and its distinctive centre blossom

The roots of the young plant can be used as a vegetable almost like a carrot, although more fibrous. However this week's experiment deals with the blooms themselves. Our objective was to make a Queen Anne's Lace jelly.

To start, we simply picked the blooms. Then the hardest part came up. These flowers are attractive to all sorts of insects. So one bloom at a time, we picked off ants, an interesting species of white spiders (well camouflaged), and some very tiny scarabs. We did not want to wash the blooms in the fear we would lose the essence of the flower for the next step.

In a ratio of one to one, we steeped the flowers in boiled water. Having waited some thirty minutes, we then filtered our "tea". The result was a very aromatic and floral brew with a greenish tinge.

To this we added sugar (3/4 of the solution by volume) and a tablespoon of lemon juice for each cup of liquid. We then set the jell using Apple pectin. This took quite a while (more than our standard jellies), but eventually it set.

The result is an intriguing jelly. It reminds Chef of quince. It reminds Tristan of Lychee. To me, it has more of a floral taste with just a hint of carrot. Either way, it is very pleasant so we decided to package it and add it to our offering in the store. In fact, we've decided to start a line of "Wild Edibles" for those "foodies" looking for a new taste experience. We have already been picking and processing wild Grapes, wild Blackberries and wild Black Raspberries, but we know we can seriously extend our line of preserves and cordials.

A new wild edible: Queen Anne's Lace Jelly

This brings me to our land clearing activities. In the process of clearing the edges of our stream, we have already discovered Butternut trees (or White Walnut). This week, we found Pin Cherry, Elderberry, and High Bush Cranberries. Basically, we have lots to work from....even rose hip from the pesky Prairie Rose (the wild thorn bush we continue to battle).

High Bush Cranberry freed from the Prairie Rose

Although the elderberries were already ravaged by birds, a good friend (Carol) provided us some from a huge bush that has overtaken the side of her barn. Now to decide what to do with these. We settled on a jelly and a cordial. We use the English definition of a cordial here. It is a light syrup made with fruit or flowers. In fact, we have been testing our own cordials in the Tea Room as part of our home made ice tea blends and this has met great success.

To accomplish this, it was time to try our new steam juicer. The process proved efficient and clean. Although getting juice from small wild Elderberries is like "squeezing blood from a stone", over time we did manage to get a sufficient amount to create both a jelly and a cordial...both of which we have now added to our Wild Edible line. Next Spring, we intend to use the Elderberry blooms (something quite popular in Switzerland).

Our first Elderberry cordial

On the farming front, while we wait for our next crop (Blackberries), we continue to clear land. In some places, the combination of Virginia Creeper, wild Grape and the invasive wild Prairie Rose continue to provide a deadly environment for major trees. However we are progressing more rapidly as our processes get refined (particularly in our use of the tractor).

Mature Ash trees threatened by Prairie Rose and massive wild Grapes

This week we've progressed so far along the creek that we discovered an old "bridge". Made of three large slabs of concrete (one of which has collapsed) and supported by stones, we now intend to clean it up and bring it back to its original purpose.

An old bridge we now intend to bring back to life

On the restaurant front, Chef has been making his own experiments. Over the past few weeks, he has been working on a duck prosciutto. This week it was time to sample....and it's great. Hopefully it will become a welcomed addition to our charcuterie plate.

Chef's home made Duck prosciutto (really good!)

We have also announced our first Wine Maker's event for August 23rd. With the help of Henry of Pelham, Chef will be preparing an evening meal paired with their wines. Dinner will be preceded by a wine tasting with Henry of Pelham staff to guide our guests. Hopefully this will prove successful since we would like to make this an annual event.

I close this week with the vegetable garden. It has proven to be bountiful (to the point where Chef does not want to see another pickling cucumber). However, there is one thing that really brings a smile to our faces. Our tomatoes are now ripening. We can hardly wait to harvest them and start our canning.

Our Italian canning tomatoes are ripening :)