By Anna Thomas Bates

“Eat your greens!” Parents and nutritionists have been ordering us around for years. Green, leafy vegetables are powerhouses of nutrition, but they have a less than stellar reputation in the taste department.

There are those who have ‘texture issues,’ and crunching on a raw leaf or slurping soft, wilted greens is unappealing. Then there are ‘supertasters,’ who are said to have many, many times the taste buds of us regular folk; the bitter overtone of some greens may be too much for them.

But for the rest of us, bring it on! And maybe with some beautiful cooking, we can entice a few of the above to join us.

Whether you grow greens (and now is the time) or purchase them at a farmers market or grocery store, in season leafy greens are a good buy. You are getting a lot of nutritional bang for your buck.

There are cool, crisp lettuces, exotic Asian greens (think tatsoi), savory spinach, and my all-time favorite: kale.

All of these green goddesses prefer to be grown in cool weather and don’t mind a bit of shade once the temperatures start to soar. Spread some seed in your garden right now, and you will be eating greens in 45 to 60 days. Seed Savers Exchange has some amazing heirloom varieties.

One of my favorite characteristic of greens in the garden is that most of are ‘cut and come again’, meaning you can trim off leaves several times and they will continue to grow. You can replant in late summer for a fall harvest, too.

There are a myriad of ways to enjoy greens, but here are some ideas for my top pick of kale:

• Sauté chopped greens with olive oil, garlic, and a dash of crushed red pepper. When tender, drizzle in some vinegar and enjoy.
• Pick or purchase young leaves. Make your favorite citrus vinaigrette and dress chopped kale for a raw salad. Let sit for at least an hour—the dressing will tenderize the raw kale.
• Chop very fine and add to any complimentary soup or pasta near the end of its cooking time. Cook until bright green and enjoy the extra nutritional punch. Bonus, if chopped finely, people who don’t normally like the texture (or very young children who don’t have all of their chompers) may enjoy it more.
• Wash leaves and cut out ribs. Cut leaves into large chunks. Toss with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and lay on a lined baking sheet. Bake at 275 degrees for 15-25 minutes, until dry and crisp. Kale chips! (These sell for an outrageous amount at your natural food store.) They are typically a big hit with kids. I also like them crumbled up on omelets or pasta dishes.
• If you have a high-powered blender, a few leaves of kale make a fantastic addition to a smoothie. I especially like kale with banana, kiwi, lemon juice and orange juice.
• Kale is delicious mixed into your favorite whole grain or bean dish. Greens and beans are great friends (and make for one of the most economical healthy dishes ever.)

So eat your greens—with so many varieties and ways to use them, there’s no reason not to.

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Jamie Lamonde

With this year’s oddly early spring comes an earlier-than-usual ramp season—one that is no less abundant but racing by. After talking to local ramp lover, Bjorn Bergman, I was inspired to make use of these potent forest floor delicacies. So for a gathering we held at our house recently, I decided to make ramp dip. I had never done this before and after doing a little research, I concocted a recipe that is quick and easy—and full of ramp goodness. The dip was well received and evidenced only by the swirl marks of dip left behind by chips that couldn’t quite lick the bowl clean.

Check out my recipe for Creamy Ramp Dip and learn more about ramps by reading Bjorn’s articles “Ramps, part 1: Wild Delicacies Under the Forest Floor” and "Ramps, part 2: Sustainable Ramp Harvesting." Be sure to try his recipes for Bacon & Ramp Skillet Cornbread and Wisconsin Ramp Pesto as well.

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Eugenia Bone

Editor’s Note: Eugenia Bone is the author of Mycophilia: Revelations From the Weird World of Mushrooms, which explores the biology and culture of mycology and mycologists. If you've never eaten morels before, Eugenia cautions, “Keep in mind that all raw mushrooms are indigestible and some edible mushrooms are poisonous when eaten raw. Raw morels are poisonous, but cooked they are one of the most delicious foods on the planet.” Please cook all mushrooms thoroughly before eating. Edible Madison thanks Eugenia for her wonderful seasonal Edible Nation contribution, which includes this article as well as “Morel Mania” and a “Chicken with Sherry and Morels” recipe.

Drying Morels
If you should be so lucky as to have more morels than you can eat fresh within a few days of picking, then drying is a good preservation method. Morels must be dried until less than ten percent moisture remains to ensure no microorganism can grow. That’s crisp enough to be easily broken.

If you need to keep the morels in the fridge for a day or two before drying, place them in a loosely closed paper bag in the fridge. The key to staving off spoilage is to keep them cool and dry, with a little ventilation.

There are three techniques: drying in a food dryer, air drying, and oven drying. To prepare the morels for drying, soak the morels in salted water, agitating them occasionally, for a few minutes to loosen any grit that may be captured in the folds of the cap. Do not allow them to soak for long as morels absorb water and will be harder to dry. Allow to drain thoroughly. Split large mushrooms (over 2 ½ inches tall) in half, longitudinally. Do not put the morels in the fridge after they have been washed.

To dry in a food dryer, place the clean morels in the dryer and set at 110 degrees for 8 to 10 hours. To air dry, thread a poultry needle with light culinary twine or dental floss and string clean morels longitudinally. Hang the strings in a dry, ventilated place for about 36 hours.

To dry in an oven, thread each mushroom through the stem with a needle threaded with about 6 inches of dental floss. Tie the mushrooms to a rack in your oven so they hang caps down and are well separated: adjust your oven racks to accommodate two layers of hanging morels, if you have that many. Remove any unused racks. Set the oven at the lowest temperature you can and leave the door partially open. If your oven is too hot (over 140 degrees), you may end up cooking the mushrooms, rather than simply removing all moisture from them. Many ovens cannot be set below 200 degrees, so set the oven to “warm” and leave the oven door partially open. Set the oven to the convection bake feature if you have one, as this will keep the air rotating. The mushrooms will dry in 8 to 10 hours, depending on their size. Properly dried morels should be brittle and broken easily.

Pack dried morels in freezer jars (a gallon of fresh morels will produce a quart of dried) and freeze for up to a year. You can also store them at room temperature in an airtight container but there will be some flavor loss over time. If your morels are not 90 percent moisture-free—if they feel leathery, for example—it’s okay, but then you must freeze them (process on next page).

To rehydrate morels, place them in a bowl of cool water, with a ratio of about 1 part morels to 3 parts water. To keep the morels submerged, fill a baggie with water and place it on top of the morels. After 10 to 20 minutes, they will be soft and return to their fresh shape, ready to cook. The water will be very flavorful. Strain it and use when cooking the morels.

Freezing Morels
For best results, be sure your freezer is cold. Zero degrees will hold the mushrooms for the full time period. If your freezer is warmer, use the foods sooner. Never freeze mushrooms raw as they may develop an off flavor, which you will notice when you cook them. This recipe calls for sautéing the morels in butter before freezing, but you can also boil them whole for about 5 minutes, then freeze as described below.

1 lb. morels, cut in half if small, in rounds if large
2 tablespoons butter

Soak the morels in salted water, agitating them occasionally, for about a few minutes to loosen any grit that may be captured in the folds of the cap.

Melt the butter in a large non-stick skillet over a medium heat. In batches, add the mushrooms, turn the heat down to medium low, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms release their liquid.

To preserve, it is best for the mushrooms to be frozen in their liquid, which protects the tissue of the mushrooms, the same way sugar syrup protects pit fruit when you freeze it.

Dump the mushrooms and their liquid into a bowl, allow to cool, then pack the mushrooms and liquid equally into 2 freezer baggies (about 1 to 2 cups per baggie depending on how much water was in the mushrooms in the first place). Push the air out of the baggies, seal and freeze.

To defrost, place the mushrooms in the refrigerator. They will be ready to cook in about 1 hour. If they are still frosty when you are ready to cook them, it’s okay. You can dump the frozen mushrooms directly into stews and soups.

Precooked frozen mushrooms hold beautifully in the freezer for 9 months to a year.

Canning Morels
I am bending the USDA rules here. Their canned mushroom technique is for white buttons only. I think the reason why they recommend you not can wild mushrooms is because of the risk of mistakenly canning poisonous or otherwise inedible mushrooms. No food safety lab has tested them yet, maybe because they can’t be tested due to variables arising from the fact that they are wild. Since I know exactly what kind of mushrooms I’ve picked, and used very fresh, fine mushrooms that were relative in size to the recommended white button (or smaller), I am confident this recipe is good. But note if you use it for canning morels: they must be equivalent in size to a small or medium white button and they must be pristinely fresh and clean.

1 lb. morel mushrooms
1 teaspoon salt per jar (optional)

Soak the morels in salted water, agitating them occasionally, for about 5 minutes to loosen any grit that may be captured in the folds of the cap.

Place the morels in a pot of boiling water and boil gently for 5 minutes.

Have ready two clean pint jars and band, with new lids that have been simmered in hot water to soften the rubberized flange.

Drain the morels and pack them into clean pint jars. Add salt if you like (the salt is not necessary for safe canning—only for flavor). Cover the morels with boiling water (you can reuse the water you boiled the morels in but there may be some grit in it). Place the lids and screw on the bands fingertip tight.

Process the jars in your pressure canner as per the instructions of your individual canner at 10 pounds of pressure for 45 minutes.

Allow the pressure to come down, and open the lid of the canner away from you to avoid getting hot steam on your face. Remove the jars—they will still be boiling. It’s okay. Let the jars cool on a rack for about 6 hours.

When cool, check the seals and store in a cool dark place. Refrigerate after opening.

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Bjorn Bergman

Editor’s Note: Read part one to this series on ramps, "Wild Delicacies Under the Forest Floor," by Bjorn Bergman to learn more about this unique wild edible.

Ramps—that wild vegetable tasting of a mix of onions, garlic and leeks—have to be my favorite springtime food. If you have the opportunity to harvest ramps from the wild, please ensure that you are collecting them in a sustainable manner so that they’re available for years to come.

Know the laws and get permission: In Wisconsin, it is illegal to dig ramps on state-owned lands unless you get permission through a general use permit from the property manager. Learn more by calling the Wisconsin DNR at 1-888-936-7463. When harvesting on private land, get permission to do so from the land owner.

Harvest in a sustainable manner: While many argue over what constitutes a healthy ramp population in a forest patch, I think it is best to harvest conservatively. Studies show that only 5 to 10 percent of the ramps in a patch should be harvested each year to ensure their future survival. When I harvest ramps from my friend's patch, I do the following:

1. Harvest only the largest ramps in a clump (ramps grow in clumps of 5 to 10). This assures that the smaller plants are left to mature and go to seed.
2. If there are a number of large ramps in a clump, take—at most—only half the plants. By leaving some older ramps, it guarantees that the clump will recover.
3. When harvesting, keep moving around the patch. This assures that you won’t accidentally harvest too many ramps from one location.

Taking these precautions guarantees that harvesting is done in a sustainable manner.

Use a neighboring-ramp-conscious technique: If digging bulbs, use a soil fork or a small hand trowel and a knife to dig them rather than a large shovel. Shovels disrupt the root system of neighboring ramps and other plants much more than a soil fork or hand trowel and knife will. To dig ramps, loosen the soil with the soil fork or hand trowel and use the knife to cut the ramp roots beneath the bulb. Once you sever the roots, the ramps should pull out. In the place where you dug the ramp, cover the bare soil with leaves. This will reduce the susceptibility of the site to invasion from unwanted species.

When in doubt, harvest only the leaves: Alternatively, you can harvest only the super tasty ramp greens. This practice doesn't kill the ramp or cause soil disruption. If you choose to harvest only the leaves, harvest only one leaf from plants with two or more leaves.

After your harvest, try these delicious ramp recipes by Bjorn Bergman:

Wisconsin Ramp Pesto

Bacon and Ramp Skillet Cornbread

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Anna Thomas Bates, www.TallgrassKitchen.com

Spring is bright and pungent with sharp wild ramps, bitter dandelion greens, grassy asparagus and peppery watercress. Lots of green goodness—I am so grateful to be eating something other than root vegetables.

But as the weather warms and I break out the shorts and iced tea pitcher, my thoughts begin to wander to summer’s sweet bounty—plump, scarlet strawberries, mouth-puckering tart cherries, and ripe, luscious peaches…the fruits of summer.

All this verdant green is fresh and welcome, but I quickly become impatient for the plants and trees to get sexy and produce some fruit. Luckily, there is one rosy, tart harbinger of juicier things to come that can get me through: rhubarb.

In Chez Panisse Fruit, Alice Waters says rhubarb is “the vegetable bridge between the tree fruits of winter and summer.” Technically, rhubarb is not a fruit, but a simple leaf stalk. But what a leaf stalk it is! Ranging from deep carmine to light green with blush at the edges, rhubarb is fondly referred to as the pie plant, so named for its most famous destination.

You’ll find rhubarb at farmers markets, perhaps in the yard of a neighbor who’s lived in her house for a long time, and maybe at the grocery store. If you like it, I encourage you to plant your own. Rhubarb is a perennial, meaning it comes back every year. In Wisconsin, it’s one of the first edible things to poke out of the ground. Scarlet knobs push through the chilled earth, eventually unfurling large elephant ear leaves.

It likes sun and well-drained soil and is planted from a crown that can be purchased at your local greenhouse. Put it on the edge of your garden, or even in a perennial border—it’s rather pretty. It takes about two years before you can begin harvesting, but after that, you will be the proud owner of a rhubarb plant, your very own “vegetable bridge,” that will bring you some tart sweetness when you need it most.

As mentioned before, rhubarb is famous for accompanying strawberries in a pie shell, but that’s not its only gift. Bake it into crisps, cobblers, compotes, chutneys, jam, sauce, and so much more. I use it in muffins and quick breads and even throw it into smoothies. It freezes beautifully.

Try this recipe for a quick rhubarb syrup. Use it to flavor yogurt, smoothies, seltzer, or cocktails. It will add a sweet-tart, lightly vegetal flavor and beautiful color. If you boil it until thick, you can use it on pancakes, waffles, or drizzle it over ice cream. Enjoy!

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Bjorn Bergman

Spring! Ode to Spring! I am singing right now because it is my favorite time of the year to cook with local foods. After going through such a long stretch of winter making soups and roasted veggies with root vegetable after root vegetable, my palate is longing for the first fresh morsel of spring. Specifically it longs for the oniony and garlicky goodness of locally harvested wild ramps.

Ramps (Allium tricoccum), also known as a spring onions, wild leeks and wild garlic, are a wild perennial native to eastern North America. They have a bright white onion-like bulb found beneath the soil that leads to a stunning burgundy stem topped by one, two or three broad, lance-shaped leaves. The entire plant is edible and has a delightfully unique aroma that is best described as a mix of its closest relatives, garlic, onions and leeks, also in the Allium family. As a food, they are extremely versatile and delicious. The blubs can be used in place of any edible Allium, and the leaves can be used like any fresh green. Use your imagination; they will be delicious any way you prepare them.

I was introduced to this springtime perennial ephemeral in early 2009 while working in a friend’s maple forest near Cashton, Wis. I dug them up, brought them home, lightly sautéed the bulbs and stems in butter and added them with the greens to a pizza. One taste and I fell in love.

I have always been fascinated by wild foods, but ramps blow my mind. They encapsulate so many things that I love to eat: garlic, onions and fresh greens. And they grow on their own in the forest, no need to coax and coddle along. They just grow.

While they do grow on their own in the wild, they are a finicky species. In order to flourish, they need rich fertile soil, plenty of moisture, and shade from the harsh rays of sun for much of the year. Lucky for us, Southwestern Wisconsin is well-endowed with rolling hills and valleys populated with lush deciduous forests that provide perfect conditions for the wild ramp.

Within our hills and valleys, they are most often found among maple trees on moisture-rich north-facing slopes beginning in mid- to late-March. At this time, temperatures rise above 32 degrees F during the day and ramps wake from their winter slumber. Their burgundy sprouts poke through the leaf litter, and soon thereafter, their wide dark green leaves unfurl. When full grown, their leaves stand about 8-12 inches above the forest floor.

Ramps remain in a harvestable form for about one month each year, so be sure to take advantage while you can. By mid- to late-May, daytime temperatures climb and the forest's leaf canopy blocks the sun's rays from the forest floor, causing the ramp leaves to yellow and die back. In June, the older plants send up a flower stalk, which matures and blooms above the leafless ramp plant. The flowers eventually mature into seeds that drop to the ground near the mother plant in late summer or early fall, beginning the process all over again. New ramps sprout from the seeds or split off of an existing underground rhizome attached to an already existing plant.

Some readers may not care about all these details—you just want to eat them! I can understand that completely, but in fact, it is more important now than ever to understand the mysterious life cycle of these plants.

Lately, ramps have been garnering quite a bit of fanfare in the media, local restaurants and natural food stores. At first, I was excited by the positive press that the garlicky-oniony wild leek was getting. What a great way to connect people to traditional and wild foods, right? Upon further examination, I became a bit concerned.

When you harvest whole ramps, it is the same as digging up an onion, carrot, beet or any other root vegetable—you are ending the plant's life cycle. When it comes to ramps, this is an even bigger concern due to how slowly they grow. Once a ramp seed hits the soil, it can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months to germinate. Once a seed germinates, it takes 5 to 7 years before it reaches a size that is large enough to harvest. Any time you eat a ramp bulb, you are ingesting a food that took 5 to 7 years to form. Imagine planting your backyard garden and waiting that long to eat anything from it.

Another growing concern is the over harvest of ramps from the wild. With their rising popularity in Quebec, the government began to notice a decline in ramp populations on public lands. Novice harvesters were going into a public patches and removing all the ramps, which leaves no chance to for them to repopulate. Overharvesting became such an issue that in 1995 the government banned anyone from harvesting ramps for commercial sales on public lands. Today this law still stands, although individuals can harvest small amounts of ramps for personal consumption.

Back home in Wisconsin, there have yet to be reports of overharvesting on public land despite their rising stardom. This is largely due to our DNR's strict and appropriate laws protecting native species from harvest on all state-owned land. On these lands, it is illegal to harvest any part of the ramp unless you get permission from the manager of that state property through a general use permit. For this reason, any Wisconsin ramps seen on a restaurant menu or in a grocery store produce case will have been harvested from private land.

As a conscious ramp eater partaking in this wonderful wild edible, it is up to you to make sure it comes from a sustainable source. Ask the restaurant waiter or grocery store’s produce manager about the origins of the ramps before you purchase them. If your questions cannot be answered, sometimes it is best to abstain. Knowing where your ramps come from and ensuring that they are harvested in a sustainable manner assures that this springtime delicacy will be available for years to come in our state.

Now, go out and enjoy responsibly harvested ramps! Tis the season!

There are tons of sources of sustainably harvested ramps in Southwestern Wisconsin. Here are some trusted local sources that I know of:

• Harmony Valley Farm, Viroqua
• Trusted Earth Farm and Forage, Egg Harbor (they harvest from a patch in Lone Rock)
• B&E's Trees, Newry

Check out these delicious ramp recipes by Bjorn Bergman:

Wisconsin Ramp Pesto

Bacon and Ramp Skillet Cornbread

Jump to part two of Bjorn's series on ramps, "Sustainable Ramp Harvesting."

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Eugenia Bone

I have traveled all over the country in order to pick morel mushrooms. If I ever did the math, I would probably find out I was paying a lot more by hunting them than if I just bought them from a store. But then I’d miss out on the profound pleasures of the quiet hunt and the lusty pleasure of a stocked pantry. 

Morels, which are the fruiting bodies of various species of fungi in the Morchella genus, are native to temperate forests—forests that endure a winter snow—across the northern hemisphere (though introduced morels grow in the southern hemisphere as well). They flush in the spring under dead trees, dying trees, and living trees. But people have found them growing in the weirdest places, like landscaping woodchips, fireplaces, even in cracks in a sheetrock wall. If you ask a mycologist where morels grow, he’ll tell you, “Wherever they want.”

My first morel hunt was with the New York Mycological Society, my local mushroom club. The club hunts an abandoned apple orchard that looks like one gigantic tick-infested bramble patch. Lots of people turn out for the foray, so not only is it arduous to find the morels, but there is a lot of competition, too. Indeed, after hours of crawling under the thickets and poison ivy to check the base of the decaying trees, I finally spotted one large brown morel. And then I saw her. Apple cheeked and undaunted by the prickers, her gray bun pulled askew by snapping branches crawled an elderly lady from the opposite direction toward the very morel I’d spotted. I deferred to her, of course, as if the mushroom between us were a seat on the bus.

I was definitely bummed out to be going home empty handed. And adding insult to injury, that very woman who had picked my only morel was taking a little open-mouthed snooze in the back seat of my car, her basket of morels hugged tight in her arms, while I coped with the traffic over the George Washington Bridge. It was clear that I needed an environment that offered a bigger payload, and so in the ensuing years I hunted morels in the Midwest, in the Sierra Nevadas, and on a forest fire burn in Montana. Each spot was beautiful and dramatic in its own way, and each yielded a bounty of morels.

I attended the Illinois State Morel Mushroom Hunting Championship hunt, which took place in a dying elm forest near the windy city of Henry, a small central Illinois town on the Illinois River. I hooked up with Al Nighsonger, a biker type fellow with all the trimmings: leather jacket, jackboots, a long grey ponytail, and his wife, Dee, a former Iraq war Air Force gunner in a soldier’s cap. Al led me along, a sixteen-ounce can of Busch beer in one hand, smoking cigarettes the whole time, pointing with his lit butt at one tree or another. In the Midwest morels may be found in abundance under dying elm trees. And due to Dutch elm disease, a fungal blight, there are a lot of dying elms.

“You’ll find morels under that there elm,” he said, pointing at a dense thicket. While Al sat on a stump, I crawled under, my clothes and hair tugged and ripped as I pushed through. The undergrowth was so thick I couldn’t see where I was going. I could only look over my shoulder at Al, who gestured for me to keep going, keep going, with a wave of his hand, and I obeyed, crawling like an infantryman through the nettles and briers. Using this technique, Al and I found about 35 hard won morels—not nearly enough to win the championship, but enough for dinner.

An auction followed the hunt, and at one point a shaggy pale-eyed dude from Los Angeles told me he always finds morels after he’s done a good deed, and he thought it was due to divine intervention. I’d heard stuff like this before. Hunters who stumble upon a great patch of mushrooms will wear the same clothes again, thinking they bring them luck. Some hunters carry a small basket so as not to alert the mushrooms. “Never say the M word in the woods,” they’ll warn, and never pick the first morel you see, because they send a signal underground to the other morels and then they’ll all go into hiding. There is certainly a feeling of inevitability when you do find them—almost like it is your destiny to find that mushroom. After all, many fungi live underground. They are by their very nature mysterious. But on the other hand, the championship winner was a PhD in mycology, so obviously he enjoyed an edge based not on superstition, luck, outwitting the mushroom spirits, or by agreement with God, but because he’d taken a lot of biology courses.

Later, Al and Dee also took me to their spot “where no one else ever goes,” a military installation near the Peoria airport. Dee showed her pass and, after yucking it up for a few minutes with the baby-faced boys holding automatic rifles, drove us to a beautiful moist forest deep within the base. What they’d said was true. We had the woods to ourselves. However, the forest was at the end of a firing range, and practice was going on. Guns popped and crackled and bullets whizzed overhead periodically, buzzing through the high branches, nipping off twigs. I hunted with my shoulders bunched around my ears, trying to make my head a smaller target. “Oh, that’s just the police practicing,” said Dee, utterly unperturbed. “Now if it were machine gunners, I’d say walk low.”

I heard there were even more morels to be found in California, on a late-May Wild About Mushrooms foray in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. David Campbell, a well-known California-based mushroom hunter, conducts the hunt from a campground in the Crystal Basin area. I found some morels under live pines, but most were growing in debased places: around the outhouses, next to fire pits, and under picnic tables, and though David explained to me that morels like “disturbed earth,” it seemed to me that they simply preferred to be around people.

Over the course of the weekend, which also included some excellent meals (scrambled eggs with morels that tasted all the better because we were eating outside and the air was chewy with smoke fire and the morels had been picked moments before, smoked pork loin stuffed with sausage and morels with a sauce of morels and caramelized onion washed down with copious amounts of Northern California wine), I found about 7 pounds of morels.

I had hunted under dying and living trees, under apple, elm, and fir. But for the real morel payload, you’ve got to hunt a fire. If there has been a forest fire in a national park during the summer and the following spring is wet, then morels may bloom in vast quantities—thousands per acre—amidst the wreckage of the incinerated trees. Commercial pickers descend on these burn sites by the hundreds and the Forest Service has to set up campsites and permits to accommodate them. Why morels are so prolific after a forest fire is a matter of dispute: maybe the morels flush as a result of the destruction of their host trees. Whatever it is, burn morels tend to come up only for a year, whereas morels that grow in non-burned areas will come up for many years.

I went to hunt fire-ravaged woodlands in Montana’s Flathead National Forest with my friend, the photographer Andrew Geiger. We camped with the gritty circuit pickers, 1,000 or so transient people, primarily Southeast Asians, who pick mushrooms 6 to 10 months of the year, following the flush of matsutake, porcini, and chanterelles, and morels around the northwest quarter of the country. A circuit picker probably collects the wild mushrooms you buy in a store or restaurant.

Burn morels prefer to grow in areas littered with dead conifer needles, along the path of tree roots, and in shady dips and boles in the earth. But walking around in those blackened woods, it was hard to pull my eyes away from the long view: the destruction stretched as far as I could see. When I finally did cast my eyes down I had to freeze: all around my boots—and probably even under them—hundreds of morels poked their brainy caps up through the ashy pine needles.

After just one hour, we had collected about 10 pounds of morels. All along the road back to camp, we saw the tents of the morel buyers, independent contractors who work for wild mushroom distribution companies. It is not uncommon for buyers to purchase tens of thousands of dollars worth of mushrooms a day. There is no real accounting of the wild mushroom harvest, either in volume or in dollars, but the forest ecologist David Pilz estimated the commercial morel harvest in Oregon and Washington in 2005, half of which was shipped overseas, was over 770,000 pounds. At today’s retail prices, that’s over $300 million. Indeed, wild mushroom transactions may be the largest legal cash-based commerce in the USA.

Morels have been successfully grown, although I’ve heard they don’t taste like much. Likewise plenty of connoisseurs think burn morels aren’t as tasty as natural morels. It may be because cultivated and burn morels lack the complex stew of microbial symbionts found in natural, non-traumatized ecosystems. I don’t know. Personally, I’d never turn down a morel; even if grew in a fireplace.

We hope you enjoy these morel recipes and tips by Eugenia Bone. 

Chicken with Sherry and Morels 

DIY: Preserving Morels

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Anna Thomas Bates

With the likelihood of a recall election approaching and the 2012 presidential election not far behind, voting is on the forefront of many minds. No matter what your political persuasion, I want to convince you of an alternative candidate that deserves careful consideration, something that you vote for on a monthly, weekly and daily basis: your food and how it is produced.

I’m an advocate of buying locally and organic whenever possible. That said, my family is on a tight budget, and sometimes it is challenging. Putting chemical-free, super-fresh, whole foods on my family’s table is a priority, but we have had to make changes that allow us to do this more often.

Basically, my approach is to grow and preserve as much of my own food as possible, eat meat less often, and purchase fewer processed foods.

Hormone-free, chemical-free, and antibiotic-free fare is my choice and my vote, and the more votes these foods and conscientious producers get, the more affordable and available they will become.

But now I turn to what I consider an indulgence, but a worthwhile one: locally-sourced and -produced value-added products. The official definition of this may sound contradictory to my previous statements, but stay with me: a value-added product is an agricultural product that has increased in value due to processing.

I’m not talking about items with indecipherable ingredients. I’m talking about products that are produced by local artisans who care about the quality of their products. Think specialty cheeses, preserves and pickles.

While my budget doesn’t always allow me to make these amazing goods a part of my daily habit, I like to support these hard-working entrepreneurs. Over the holidays, a friend showed me a great way to do this.

Instead of giving away cookies or bottles of wine for holiday gifts, she and her husband put together a goodie basket of their very favorite local products. They included information about each producer, and why they enjoyed them so much.

Here’s what was included:

Stella’s Bakery, bakery white bread

Hook’s 5 year cheddar

Gentle Breeze spun honey

Murphy’s Farm fresh salsa

Gail Ambrosius chocolates

Brilliant! They supported local artisans and introduced their friends to some delicious foods, using dollars they would have otherwise used to purchase gifts. If you are not able to make these wonderful foods a part of your life every day, you can still spoil your friends, and perhaps they will return the favor.

Here are some additional ideas, but there are many, many wonderful small companies that I’m not mentioning here. Check out your local farmers market and local natural foods store for more.

New mom gift:
Hidden Springs Creamery Lavendar and Honey Driftless soft cheese

Yumbutter’s Dark Chocolate Delishe

Potter’s Crackers Hazelnut Grahams

Get well gift:
Powerkraut’s Kim Chi

Tomato Moutain’s Roasted Tomato Soup with Shallots

Madison Sourdough’s Rustic Baguette

Host/Hostess gift
Old Sugar Distillery’s Honey Liqueur

Friend’s birthday:
Quince and Apple’s Pear with Honey and Ginger preserves

Uplands Cheese Pleasant Ridge Reserve

DB Infusion Chocolate’s Infusion Bar #6

What are some of your favorite local producers that are gift-worthy? Please share in the comments!( Note: These are products I’ve tried and enjoyed. No one requested or paid to be mentioned here.)

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Jessica Luhning

This article is an accompaniment to Jessica’s “Edible Journey: Authentic Bayfield Peninsula” published in the Spring 2012 print edition of Edible Madison.

Sometimes a place grabs your attention so much that making the extra effort to stop there on your journey seems well worth the effort—or in this case, no effort since we were already nearby. White Winter Winery in Iron River, a beautiful 50 minute drive southwest of Bayfield, is Wisconsin’s largest commercial maker of the fruit and honey wine known as mead.

Jon Hamilton and his wife Kim have owned and managed White Winter Winery since 1996. Jon hails from a long lineage of migratory beekeepers and as an adult was drawn to beekeeping, home brewing and mead making. When Jon and his wife relocated to Iron River from Kenosha, his hobby became more serious. He soon found himself with 600 pounds of honey that needed an outlet—quickly. In November of 1996, White Winter Winery released their first product to a growing population of mead enthusiasts.

“Mead is a true expression of the land. Here in Wisconsin, our climate and soils produce outstanding fruit and honey. Growing grapes here that yield the higher quality wines of the west coast and overseas is more of a struggle, but we can make mead—great mead,” says Jon. I have always been curious about mead, and Jon’s words resonated with me. After spending the afternoon with Jon and Kim, I have found a new appreciation for mead as a delicious and truly local expression of our region.

The history of mead is quite fascinating, too. Mead is the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage made with three simple ingredients—honey, water and yeast. Some recipes call for the addition of spices and fruit, creating what is known as a “melomel.” The most common fruits used are cherries, blueberries, blackberries, grapes, strawberries, raspberries and currants. Mead was a common folk drink, but it was also considered the nectar of the gods on Mt. Olympus and the favored drink of poets, lovers and kings. Mead was consumed to seal verbal pacts in medieval times. And ever wonder where the term “Honeymoon” originated? This celebrated post-nuptial tradition comes from the ancient ritual of giving the newlywed couple a “moon’s” supply of “honey” in the form of mead to ensure a fruitful union—and the sweeter the mead the more “fruitful” the union.

Over 95 percent of the raw ingredients in White Winter Winery’s mead are sourced within 150 miles of the cellar. Their honey is from the Cable-Mason area of northern Wisconsin as well as New Auburn and Chippewa Falls. Jon relies on larger beekeepers because his demand for honey can vary from 10,000 to 25,000 pounds annually, depending on production.

The fruit used in White Winter Winery’s mead is grown on the Bayfield Peninsula and near Ashland. The Blueberry Mead (one of my personal favorites) is made with blueberries from Highland Valley Farm of Bayfield. Blue Vista Farm of Bayfield supplies the raspberries used in the full-bodied, semi-sweet Raspberry Mead, which is a perfect companion to dark chocolate. The strawberries in the fruity, not-too-sweet Strawberry Mead are grown by John Markus near Ashland.

Many people who are unfamiliar with mead assume that it’s a very sweet drink, but this is not necessarily the case. The flavor of mead, like any other wine, is determined by a variety of factors, from the quality of the ingredients to the amount of residual honey available after fermentation. A traditional sweet mead carries more sweetness on the palate due to higher concentrations of honey. The less sweet Black Mead and Cyser are earthier and pair nicely with sharp cheeses, pork and spicy foods. The Cyser (old English for cider) is another personal favorite of mine and a 2011 Best of Class Honey Wine at the Indy International Wine Competition. The cider used in the Cyser is sourced from Erickson’s Orchard of Bayfield. Because of the natural preservative qualities of honey, mead can be aged for five years or more as compared with a typical fruit wine, which is usually consumed within one year of making. And be sure to try the aged Black Harbor Mead, a blend of honey and black currents aged in French oak for four years, producing a subtly sweet and sexy wine.

White Winter Winery is the first Wisconsin winery to achieve Travel Green Certification. The Hamiltons incorporate sustainability principles into their business plan by incorporating energy efficiency measures, reducing their waste stream, using local and regional products, and building partnerships with local growers and food producers.

If you are looking for a unique local beverage to serve at your next gathering, I strongly urge you to celebrate in the tradition of mead. There is a renaissance of mead as curiosity grows for this ancient and expressive fruit and honey wine.

You can purchase White Winter Winery mead online at their website or from a number of retailers in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois. Check their website for a complete list of outlets.

White Winter Winery
Owners: Jon and Kim Hamilton
68323 Lea Street, Iron River, WI 54847
800-697-2006
goodmead@cheqnet.net / whitewinter.com

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »

By Anna Thomas Bates

July in Wisconsin. The sun is heavy on my shoulders. My skin is hot and humid underneath my long-sleeved shirt and netted helmet. The backyard smells lush and yeasty. The low hum of 80,000 pairs of wings fills my ears as I stuff pine needles and sumac berries into my smoker. I hold a match to my kindling, it lights. Cool, white smoke pours out of the spout.

My hands move from muscle memory. Carefully, slowly lift a corner of the hive lid, slide the smoker nozzle in, puff puff. Pause. Lift again, puff puff. Peel off the top board, sticky with mustard-colored propolis. Puff Puff.

Hardly noticing the missing roof, my girls are industrious. Moving, circling—busy. The idiom is based in truth. Tending, feeding, capping, cleaning; those at home are hard at work. Puff, puff. Carefully, slowly, lift out a frame. A quick, hard rap releases the bees in a curtain back towards the hive. I hold it up to the sun, looking for eggs.

Sunlight backlights the golden comb. I can see tiny grains of “rice” nestled in cells at the bottom of the frame, capped honey lining the top. Perfect. The precision and symmetry is a miracle. I look down, the girls are starting to notice I’m around, lining up at the top of the frame, watching. Puff, puff—they dive back down into the depths of the warm, boisterous hive.

I am a beekeeper, a charmer of small insects. It’s the easiest job in the world, and the rewards are significant. The smoke and vibration of wings lend to a meditative state, and at the end of the season—honey. You may take what the bees don’t need to survive the winter, and as assiduous as they are, they almost always make extra. I was prized 50 pounds my first season, 75 my second.

Gallons of uber-local (all pollen from a five mile radius of your home), raw, complex natural sweetener for your toast, tea, marinades, and holiday gifts.

Intrigued? Check your local ordinances. Many urban and suburban areas allow hives with few restrictions. Look for county beekeeping groups, such as the Dane County Beekeepers Association, for questions, meetings and workshops.

Try Anna’s Honey Meyer Lemon Curd recipe for a taste of the springtime-to-come!

View the article on ediblemadison.com »

Browse more articles »