I've been waiting for a long time for a cookbook like this one. As a little girl, I remember picking raspberries and blackberries at my parent's house in the country. I always wondered what else we could forage. My parents, keeping safety in mind, told me "If you don't know what it is, don't eat it", which is a good piece of advise.
As an adult, I've perused the wild mushroom and herb guides, toying with the idea of daring to sample a foreign food from the woods, yet I had secretly thought myself too cautious a person to actually try foraging. Connie Green, through her writings in The Wild Table, has helped calm my anxiety and inspired me to grab a couple of field guides and start cooking free edible delicacies!
In The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and Recipes, Connie introduces us to the world of edible legumes, berries, and herbs while sharing with us her experiences and memories. She also shares her methods for successful foraging and advises us to purchase at least two field guides in order to positively identify the wild goodies we might find.
The great thing about this book is that it serves as an introductory field guide for edible findings, and also as a fantastic recipe book to show us how to use our newly foraged foods. According to Connie, the puffball mushroom, which I played with as a kid and was told to stay away from by my cautious mom and dad, make great french fries! Very cool.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves to cook new things, and for anyone who appreciates nature and all of it's bounties.
-Elaine Russo, TopCookbooks.com
Description:
A captivating cookbook by a renowned
forager of wild edibles-with more than one
hundred sumptuous recipes and full-color
photographs.
In the last decade, the celebration of
organic foods, farmer's markets, and
artisanal producers has dovetailed with a
renewed passion for wild delicacies. On the
forefront of this movement is longtime
"huntress" Connie Green, who sells her
gathered goods across the country and to
Napa Valley's finest chefs including Thomas
Keller and Michael Mina.
Taking readers into the woods and on the
roadside, The Wild Table features
more than forty wild mushrooms, plants, and
berries- from prize morels and chanterelles
to fennel, ramps, winter greens,
huckleberries, and more. Grouped by season
(including Indian Summer), the delectable
recipes-from Hedgehog Mushroom and
Carmelized Onion Tart and Bacon-Wrapped Duck
Stuffed Morels, to homemade Mulberry Ice
Cream- provide step-by-step cooking
techniques, explain how to find and prepare
each ingredient, and feature several
signature dishes from noted chefs. Each
section also features enchanting essays
capturing the essence of each ingredient,
along with stories of foraging in the
natural world.
The Wild Table is an invitation to
the romantic, mysterious, and delicious
world of exotic foraged food. With gorgeous
photography throughout, this book will
appeal to any serious gatherer, but it will
also transport the armchair forager and
bring to life the abundant flavors around
us.
---------------------------------
Free Recipe for Rose Hip Vinegar (makes 1 1/2 cups):
1/2 pound fresh
rose hips, cleaned
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 cups white wine vinegar
Place the rose hips in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse until very finely chopped.
Place the rose hips, 2 tablespoons water,
and the sugar in a small saucepan over
medium heat. Heat, stirring to
dissolve the sugar, just until the mixture
comes to a boil. Remove from the heat and
cool to room temperature.
Combine the rose hip mixture and the vinegar in a nonreactive bowl.
Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 4 to
7 days in a cool, dark place.
Strain the rose hip mixture through a jelly bag for 4 to 6 hours,
discarding any sediment remaining in the
bag.
Store the vinegar in a clean glass container with a lid in a cool,
dark place. It will keep up to 2
years.
Courtesy of
The Wild Table: Seasonal Foraged Food and
Recipes
----------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents:
Foreword by Thomas Keller
Introduction
Foraging Fundamentals and etiquette
Spring
Morels
Ramps
Fiddleheads [Ostrich and Lady]
Spruce and douglas fir tips
Stinging Nettles
Wild Spring Salad Greens
Elderflowers [Elder Blossoms, Elder Blow]
Summer
Lobster Mushrooms
Meadow Mushrooms and Fairy Rings
Gray Morels
Wild Fennel
Nopales [Prickly Pear Cactus Pads]
Sea Beans [Glasswort, Samphire, Pickleweed]
Wild Summer Berries
Indian Summer
Chanterelles
Puffballs
Cuitlacoche [(Huitlacoche) Corn Smut]
Blewits
Rose Hips
Huckleberries
Autumn
Porcini [King Bolete, Cepe]
Maitake, or Hen of the woods
Matsutake
Cauliflower Mushrooms
Juniper Berries
Elderberries
Candy Cap Mushrooms
Black Walnuts
Winter
Black Trumpets [Horns of Plenty and Trumpets
of Death]
Hedgehog Mushrooms
Yellow Feet [Winter Chanterelles, Funnel
Chanterelles]
Dandelions and Curly Dock Weed
Persimmons
Tunas, or Prickly Pear Fruit
Wild Pantry
Wild Calendar
Acknowledgements
Guidebooks and Sources
Index of vegetarian recipes
Index of general recipes
Index
