Not-quite-spring snacks

For a recent forage walk on a colder-than-forecast afternoon I made some canapés to accompany small glasses of chilled PandemicVermouth, infused and blended in April 2020. 

On the right are buttery salmon and field garlic (Allium vineale) tarts, with a savory custard filling. To serve them I added more slivers of salmon and extra, snipped field garlic. In the rear? Fir sugar shortbread cookies. Bottom left are toasted rounds of field garlic cheese bread. 

I topped those toasted rounds with garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) pesto and pickled chanterelles, from an epic mushroom hunt in the woods upstate two summers ago. The chanterelles - incredibly - still have that magical apricot aroma that traveled back with us that day.

And there were eggs, not quite deviled. Cooked in boiling water for eight minutes before being peeled and covered in miso, overnight (chilled). The miso flavors them but also draws out some moisture, so the texture becomes firmer. Onto their yolks I dripped some powerful, bright green ramp leaf oil, Aleppo pepper, and the peppery leaves of bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), a maligned but exquisitely pretty edible green in the Brassica family - like tiny watercress. 

Socially distanced walks and picnics are a challenge but everyone is well-trained, by now, and very considerate. (At least, the people who sign up, are!) There will be more, and it feels good to be creating wild food treats, again.

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Forage, Harvest, Feast - A Wild-Inspired Cuisine