Elderberry syrup is an old standby for the herbal apothecary. It's been prescribed for ages to help treat cold-weather maladies like cold and flu. Every year as summer is ending, Cindy whips up a batch to keep on hand as a remedy and an immune-boosting tonic. This is her own secret recipe--it's a supercharged version of classic elderberry syrup. We take a teaspoon three to five times a day if we have cold or flu symptoms and a teaspoon a day for regular maintenance. We skip a day here and there because echinacea is most effective when used intermittently.
This is a great recipe for using all of those extra chanterelles and pieces that may not be in the best condition - the dregs at the bottom of your foraging basket, the older ones that have been hanging out in the fridge, etc. They do need to be clean, though. Making chanterelle pâté is a nice way to feature the natural color and flavor of chanterelles. It's super rich, so it only takes a little. We eat it on crackers and bread and freeze what we don't use immediately.
- How to identify chanterelles
- Where to find chanterelles
- How to harvest chanterelles
- How to process & store chanterelles
- Cooking & eating chanterelles
DAY 87 - Chanterelle Occupation of Georgia - Daylight scarce. Boots encrusted. Jeans mildewed. Beard green. Fridge full. Freezer won't close. Body weary. I find myself powerless.
We're lucky to have lots of Georgia pecans - both wild and planted. Most strains of pecans you can buy now are bred to be big and storable, which means they have a lower oil content. That also means they have less flavor. Wild pecans, for the most part, are small, more tedious to get into and a lot tastier. We forage of mix of Seedlings (the wild strain) with our planted pecans.
I remember when a lot of wild food recipes were more about subsistence than enjoyment. They didn't do much to win over anyone but die-hard foragers. More and more these days we're getting to see the foodie side of wild food. I do love knowing my entire meal was growing wild only hours ago. There's something really visceral about the experience and it's good to know I can find food if I have to. But it's not always that practical. I also like the everyday accessibility of incorporating wild edibles in my domesticated meals. And I like it all to taste good.
My first experience with eating wisteria and redbud flowers was at a wild food potluck years ago. I had recently read you could eat both but hadn't tried. The mild sweet of wisteria, the acidic sour of redbud and the complementary beauty of both sounded perfect for a salad.
So I spent an afternoon foraging the flowers and a few greens around an old abandoned home site. My salad was a big hit with the kids...especially the little girls. They loved picking out the flowers one by one to eat them.
We've been wanting to make this for a while. Since we do our best not to eat factory-farmed meat, it's been a long time since we've eaten anything but tempeh in our Reubens. But I will say it's hard to beat a tempeh Reuben. We've also been trying to stay away from the nitrates in cured meat. One week they'll kill you. The next they're perfectly harmless. Who knows?
Bear grease is a wonderful thing. Anyone who knows me knows my enthusiasm for evangelizing this all natural, all free product. In Camp Cookery, Horace Kephart says, "All of the caul fat [of a bear] should be saved for rendering into bear's oil, which is much better and wholesomer than lard." Made right, it has almost no flavor.