Something I have decided to study for 2020 and beyond is how to showcase more of our unique Canadian agricultural products, especially those which are practical to grow in Alberta. Whether that is for a tea-style infusion or a culinary inspiration as a pairing to one of my teas. I’ve spent the last several hours scouring my books to compile a list of plants across Canada which are a good potential fit for what I want to do. The following are my results which still need to be fine tuned, but I have a goal to taste at least 10% of these in 2020.
- “Tricky Marys” mocktail soaking Juniper berries in tomato juice for a few days and mixing that with the rest of the ingredients for a bloody mary
- The inner bark (cambium) of a balsam poplar in spring or early summer eaten fresh or used to smoke fish
- Twigs and leaves of yellow or sweet birch for a tea infusion
- Rocky Mountain Maple leaves (dried) used to spice meat
- Choke cherries
- Sumac berries
- Blackberries, Raspberries, Salmonberrys, Thimbleberry,
Cloudberry (bakeapple),Five-leaved Bramble, Dewberries (Cloudberry was amazing, I would compare it to the rich flavors of gyokuro tea but slightly more medicinal with a yellow stonefruit like peach. I ordered it from Amazon for some ridiculosu price like $20 a jar?) - Peedled Raspberry shoots, Raspberry leaf tea
Red Mulberry apparently tastes amazing(Tried it as a Jam from Vietnam. It was good — I would describe the flavor as the type of dark berry note you often get from wines and cant place it so you call it like blackberry-plum)- Barberry fruit and leaves
- Oregon-Grapes as a fruit
- Common Pawpaw fruit is really good?
- Spicebush ash for meat seasoning
- Sassafras
- Currants, esp black
- Gooseberries
- Saskatoon and Serviceberries
- False-Wintergreens berries and and leaf used as tea
- Crowberries and Crowberry twigs for tea
- Buffaloberry, Soapberry
- Mayflowers in Salad
- Buckbrush tea
- Young shoots from Willows
- Hops in Risotto, Potato dishes, raw with vinaigrette, young leaves for salads
- Sweetflag (candied)
- Wild asparagus and roasted asparagus seeds
- Gingseng in general
- Wild onions in general
- Wild gingers in general
- Watercress and Yellowcress in salads and garnishes
- Shepherd’s-Purse as a salad or hotpot vegetable
- Field Pennycress seeds and leaves
- Stork’s-Bill for a parsley flavor
- Woodsorrel for a sour green used like rhubarb, prepared like saurkraut, or lemonade, or to eat the flowers
- Violets for edible candied flowers, leaves in omelettes, flowers for tea
- Fireweeds (young shoots for vegetable similar to asparagus, flowers for salads)
- Wintergreen teas
- Ground-Cherry fruits
- Brooklime and Speedwell tea
- Wild licorice rhizome
- Common sweet-clover flowers or leaves to make a vanilla-like tea
- Sweet-Vetches roots have an anise flavor
- Pomme-de-Prarie for potato like tubers
- Groundnut beans
- Hyssop leaves, shoots, flowers
- Mock-Pennyroyal leaf tea or garnish because of its mint-like nature
- Vervain leaf tea, flowers as garnish
- Golden Alexander flowers cooked in lieu of Broccoli
- Anjelica leaves, seeds, root
- Gairdner’s Yampah root fresh or dried
- Stinging Nettle shoots and leaves in lieu of spinach, cream of nettle soup, purees
- Aven root as a hot chocolate substitute
- Salsify in general
- Dandelion in general
- Sow-Thistle leaf with butter
- Elecampane leaves candied
- Sunflowers and Jerusalem Artichokes
- Feverfew flowers as a pastry flavor or tea
- Coltsfoot tea similar to anise
- Pineapple weed in the same family as chamomile with more of a pineapple scent
- Burdock in general
- Wild rice in general
- Common sweetgrass for smoking foods to give them a vanilla note, or the essential oil
- Fiddleheads in general
Looking at the list… will I taste 10%? (._. ) it seems the health food community is out to get me with inflated prices.
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