Gardening in a small space sometimes leaves me feeling enviousness for the the expansive veggie gardens and fruit orchards that I seem to see on interminable magazine pages and websites . My raw home does n’t have much elbow room for a backyard garden and not a lick of room for one in the front . I have to pick and choose what I want to originate very carefully , be it things I love that are hard to find at the market place , or veggie that just taste a whole draw best when picked fresh . I was just thinking about this today as I get ready tostart my vegetable seedsand then I read an article in Martha Stewart Living ’s March 2013 event about professional forager , Tama Matsuoka Wong . Fascinating !
I ’ve often been interested in forage , and have certainly gone on my bonnie part of mushroom hunts , but this is a great way to augment my special garden output . I love that Tama not only collects a variety of waste edible for restaurants , but also teach school children this skill . Tama has a new Holy Writ out , Foraged Flavor : Finding mythological Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer ’s Market(Clarkson Potter , 2012 ) , that I ’ll be rushing to plunk up . Particularly when I can see the range of pabulum she describes .
This “ gloss of greens ” is described in the clause as “ flavor that range from sweet to zesty , tart to nutty , all found in the underwood of a New Jersey meadow . ” I know many of these “ weeds ” well as they grow around my garden and usually just end up in the compost bin . Clockwise from top : garlic mustard , wild garlic , lavender bergamot , chickweed , mugwort , cardamine , Sir Henry Joseph Wood dock , dead nettle , garlic pennycress . pith : blowball ( top ) , henbit ( bottom ) .
Photo: colinclarkphoto.com
I ’m also quite intrigued by the wild greens ravioli and mugwort soup recipe that were divvy up . The Ravioli in particular has got my chopper tearing , but before I head for the hills off to scrounge for factor , I ’ll share the recipe here : Wild Herb Ravioli
For the mugwort soup recipe and to read more about Tama and her fascinating earthly concern as a professional forager , break up up the later issue of Martha Stewart Living . All exposure from Foraged Flavor byColin Clarkand were reprinted with permission from Martha Stewart Living .
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