The Fruits and Flowers of Winter

The Fruits and Flowers of Winter

Around now, winter is wearing out its welcome. We long for the languid days of summer and the fresh breezes of spring. We may even flock to the florist's to cheer ourselves with flowers imported from tropical climes. 

But wait! Before you do that, explore some local sources of fragrant blooms, aromatic spices, and citrusy scents. 

Preserved Citrus

Dried or pickled oranges and lemons preserve the taste of summer as well as its nutrition. They are full of Vitamin C which is just what you need to ward off winter chills and sniffles. 

Preserved lemons are fun to cook with. Stuff a chicken, squash, or pumpkin with a preserved lemon for a bright but mellow taste. Preserving is easy: just fill a sterile jar with small whole lemons, lemon quarters, or strips of lemon peel and pour over a mixture of hot, salty lemon juice brine. Some people add bay leaves, star anise, or cloves, but this is entirely optional. Seal the jars and let mellow and cure for up to 60 days, shaking occasionally. With preserved lemons, you eat the peel, which becomes soft and chewy as it brines. Wash off excess salt before using your preserved lemons. 

I love the posts of David Lebovitz, who lives, dines, and writes from France. They're now growing citrus in-country! He celebrates that with a divine recipe for Grapefruit-Vermouth Jam Marmalade. It's grapefruit season in California, Arizona and Florida, so enjoy without guilt! Photo by learntopreserve.

Flower Power

Remember those hibiscus blossoms you gathered last summer? They're just waiting for you right now to make a fragrant tea. This works for the blossoms of chickweed, borage, viola, and many other plants. The chive blossoms, popped into rice vinegar, transform it into a rosy nectar. 

Here's a fun use for dried, pressed flowers: tea cookies! What better way to evoke summer than these sweet morsels.

Very Very Berry

Because of climate change, farmers are sending berry crops to market earlier and later in the season. But in Japan, things have gone too far, with farmers using fuel-burning greenhouses to produce strawberries for the Christmas holidays. They are starting to rethink this as data appear that show even transporting fruit from more tropical places beats growing local outside of the natural season. Learn more in this New York Times article. 

It won't be long until fresh berries start showing up in markets. If you'd like to try a traditional Indigenous recipe, here's one for Sweet Berry Wild Rice from Elena Terry (Ho-Chunk). It features Native ingredients like squash, maple syrup and wild rice in addition to blueberries, strawberries and cranberries, which can be fresh, dried or frozen. 

If you have chokecherries dried or in your freezer, take a tip from Wild Food Girl: "chokecherries (Prunus virginiana) lose their astringency when dried—astringency being that mouth-puckering sensation, sometimes confused with bitterness, that feels like the water is being sucked out of your mouth. After reading some accounts of indigenous peoples reconstituting dried chokecherries and enjoying them like fresh fruit, I soaked some in water. A few hours was not enough; it took 12 to 18 hours to get a desirable result. But at that point, the flesh comes off the stone very easily, making them an enjoyable snack.”

Fruits That Last

Some fruits are still abundant in winter. Apples and pears keep well--I'm making bulgogi sauce with ripe pears. The pear pulp is a tendering agent when marinating the beef for Korean bulgogi. Yum! 

I scored some excellent tomatillos at the grocery store. Many people don't understand the staying power of these wonderful fruits, the love child of a tomato and a citrus. I'm planning to make a fresh salsa with the tomatillos, cilantro, jalapeno chilies, and assorted spices. Olé!