Sweet Things
Mint ice cream is pretty common, but usually it's made with mint extract. But if you make your ice cream by infusing the mint leaves into the cream overnight, you get a much stronger, more herby mint flavor you will not forget.
Foraging
Paw paws, the Hoosier banana, custard apple or Indiana banana. America's largest native fruit, is indeed a little bit like a banana -- and it makes a great ice cream.
Recipe
It's nut season all over the country, and one of my favorites is the butternut, a relative of the black walnut. These cookies are by far my favorite way to eat them -- and yes, they are wonderful with black walnuts, too.
Sweet Things
Elderberries are in season here in California, and one of my favorite ways to enjoy them during our hot summers is in ice cream. Here's how to make it.
Sweet Things
I don't eat a lot of sweet things, but I do have a soft spot for cookies. These I call "Bacchus Biscuits," and they're my take on a Greek fennel seed cookie. It's like a shortbread cookie, not too sweet, with toasted fennel seeds in it. They last a while and are great as a quick snack.
Appetizers and Snacks
If you want to know what I am munching as I hit the road for a very long book tour, it's these cookies. Acorn flour makes a damn good shortbread because shortbread doesn't really need gluten to be good. These are nutty and sweet, with a hint of vanilla and maple.
Sweet Things
Gooseberries are among the tartest, most aromatic of all our berries. No matter what variety you find, grow or buy, you can make a pretty sorbet from the juice of the berries. Perfect for a hot summer dessert.
Foraging
Cranberry sauce has been part of the American holiday tradition for more than two centuries. It is a perfect accompaniment to roast turkey or venison, pork, wild boar or bear. And while this is a pretty classic recipe, it is made with real wild cranberries from New England.
Sweet Things
Snowball cookies were my favorite Christmas cookie when I was growing up. My mum made them with regular walnuts, but my rendition of this classic cookie uses wild black walnuts, plus a little orange liqueur.
Sweet Things
Wintergreen ice cream. Why not? I love regular mint ice cream, and after my friend Nate and I foraged for a bunch of wintergreen berries on Cape Ann in Massachusetts a couple weeks ago, I reckoned this would be a cool way to use them... no pun intended.
Recipe
A surprisingly wonderful ice cream from a surprisingly wonderful wild plant. Wild ginger grows on the forest floors of much of the United States, and, when eaten in moderation, is different - yet just as good - as the ginger you buy in the store.
Sweet Things
Pine nuts from America's Great Basin are among the best in the world. Combine them with some desert wildflower honey I bought in Arizona and you have one spectacular ice cream.
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