Marge likes to tell the story of an episode from our first year of marriage. (Of course those early years are the ones in which you learn lots of things about your spouse you never knew!). As she tells it, she was coming home from work and walking up the stairwell to our apartment and detected the distinct odor of root beer. It got stronger as she approached our door. When she opened it, she was accosted both by the overwhelming smell of root beer and a steamy kitchen where a large pot containing tree roots was simmering on the stove. For some reason she felt she needed an explanation (something she has needed less and less in subsequent years—settling instead for the rolling of her eyes or the slow shaking of her head). There was that “what have I gotten myself into” trepidation in her eyes.
“Sassafras tea, Babes!
Would you like to try it?”
Not particularly comfortable with foraged wild plants, Marge offered a quick “No, thank you”—an answer I have frequently heard to such offers over the past 42 years. But there are a few things she has enjoyed, like battered and deep fried red clover-head or milkweed blossom fritters, potato and wild leek soup, puffball mushroom tempura, and boiled and salted day lily buds.
While there are indeed a number of good foods in the wild, there are many more plants that are inedible but provide wonderful fragrances. To me the most de
lightful perfume of the woods is balsam fir pitch. Young balsam fir trees have little blisters on their bark that are filled with clear pitch. As a camp counselor in Northern Ontario as a teenager, I would frequently pop a few of the blisters and collect the pitch on a small stick so my charges could smell it—and “accidentally” get some stuck on their noses. (Can’t help it; my dad was a tease).
My walks in the wild almost always provide me with olfactory delights: wintergreen from both the wintergreen berry and a fresh broken twig from a yellow birch, mint from peppermint, spearmint, and catnip, and root beer from sassafras roots. Then th
ere are pleasant odors from plants that are not typically used for culinary purposes: crushed juniper needles (though juniper berries are used to flavor gin), pine needles and pitch warmed by the sun, wild bergamot, and then all the blossoms in the spring: apple, crabapple, hawthorn, choke cherry (very pungent), and the elusive but awesome fragrance wafting through the woods from a patch of wild violets.
Almost all regions have their unique outdoor fragrances. The one that says “desert” to me is the foliage of the creosote bush common to the Mojave Desert biome of Southern California and parts of Arizona. If you have stood near a telephone or power pole on a hot summer day, you would likely have been accosted by a strong tarry odor—a different sort of creosote preservative that makes the bottom of the poles sticky and blackish.
Even though I would not classify the creosote odor as “fragrant,” it does evoke memories of several wonderful jaunts to the desert with my boys when they were younger. And it’s for that reason that I keep a pomander full of creosote blossoms and foliage in my drawer. Every once in a while I will pull it out, give it a sniff, and let myself be transported back to those pleasant times. Apparently because of the short route from the nose to the brain and because of the importance of smell to survival, odors bring back memories quicker than any of our senses.
If you have not learned the fragrances of your nearby wild areas, why not determine this spring and summer to take a few olfactory adventures outdoors. It’s just one more way for you to become a bit more intimate with God’s great and good creation.
See you outdoors!
Dean
March 31st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
I have to admit, you are one up on me on this one! I enjoy the smells of the forest, etc. but my wife would have had a much different reaction had I been boiling bark on “her” stove! She does let me cook occasionally, but one episode like yours, and my culinary days are over.
I’m into tree identification, tracking animals, camping, hiking, trout fishing (which will after some “luck” bring out the frying pan. I heard a real good definition to “catch and release”. You catch the trout, and release to the grease! Well, mostly, I do let the fish go, but occasionally, “yummy”.
But I have not tried many of the edible wild plants. Just never felt confident enough and besides, there is usually a grocery store close by.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Scaredy cat!
Actually most of the wild edibles are what you call “survival foods.” I’ve tried many of them (after very careful identification) and concluded that they might do in a mighty tight pinch. Most are barely palatable. But the wild leeks are good as are the other outdoor goodies I mentioned in the post. We both love the puffball slices dipped in eggs and milk, coated with bread crumbs with a bit of garlic and then pan fried in butter. There are quite a few roadside spreads of day lilies around us, and if you pick the buds a couple days before they bloom and boil them just until they are hot, they are a lot like sweet green beans. The whole violet plant is edible as well, but just picking the flower heads and putting them in your salads provides a unique flavor. You can also put in fresh garlic mustard, an invasive plant that is found all over our area in late spring. I understand that garlic mustard was brought over in the 1800s by immigrants from Europe who used it as a pot herb in their home country. I once had a spicy salad herb in Jordan that they called “rocket.” I realized that it was just plain wild mustard. And in Lebanon, our film crew had a salad with a wonderful succulent in it. It was nothing more than the purslane that I dig out of my lawn every summer. Since then I have at times saved some of these “weeds” and tossed them in my salad.
Have yet to get sick from any of my wild culinary escapades (knocking very hard on wood!).
March 31st, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I’ll leave the wild edibles to you. Maybe if we get to the outdoors together, you can serve up some of those delicacies. I’ll bring along my outdoor dutch oven, some ground beef, veggies, and seasonings, make up a cowboy stew, and we’ll really have a feast!
March 31st, 2009 at 10:57 pm
I guess the closest my own experience might come to this is when Mother used to take the dandelion greens and cook them with whatever she put with them. I still remember the taste of those greens rather well, perhaps with miracle whip and bacon and some eggs cut with it.
But interesting.