Happy October, food & foraging friends!
I know fall has a lot of fans, but I personally get down knowing the long stretch of dark, cold months ahead, with much plant, fungi and animal life in hibernation. Give me spring with all its promise of lengthening days and germinating seeds.
That’s all the more reason why I end up channeling my inner squirrel this time of year, by squirreling away every last bit of the forest and garden I can. Being a minimalist forager with a small sparse kitchen, I used to be biased against “preservation,” associating it with canning and other techniques requiring more equipment and scientific precision than I was willing to put to it.
Since then, I’ve discovered countless easy, low-cost and low-tech ways to capture the flavors of the fleeting season. Vinegars, tinctures, seasoning salts, pickles, wines, syrups, pestos and teas can all be done with nothing more than a stovetop and a few simple ingredients.
Fall herbs: So many versatile ways to use end of season herbs… I’ve been doing herb pestos on heavy rotation with a mix of arugula, mint, rosemary, sage and parsley, with walnuts and home preserved lemon (which is as simple as throwing spent lemons in salt in the fridge for a month or two). I also like to dry fresh oregano just using the pilot light in my oven — oregano keeps its flavor remarkably well compared to some other herbs.
Fall fruits: I recently got my mitts on some sour-skinned Damson plums that made a lovely infused vinegar, along with some wild mugwort. This is as simple as macerating the fruit, letting it steep in vinegar and straining after a few weeks. Cores from fall apples, which went deliciously in an apple onion cheddar cornbread, got fermented into an apple core vinegar (as easy as water, apple cores and a little sugar). The strained fruit from the vinegar got blended into a salad dressing with leftover herb stems — zero waste dressing on my fall lettuce and arugula! Fall berries like hawthorn can also be foraged for boozy treats – I’ve made delicious infused liqueurs and wines from this oft overlooked heart-happy fall berry that can be harvested late into the season.
Fall squashes and root veggies: It’s definitely soup season, and while many cooks like to batch cook soups to freeze, I don’t like the textures of chunky soups when thawed. Blended soups from fall veggies like butternut squash and carrot, on the other hand, keep well frozen to have later in the season to ward off the chill.
But the most exciting preservation method I’ve discovered this season – making butternut squash miso from koji! This fascinating fungal mold needs to be a whole newsletter topic but in short, its enzymatic action is responsible for such umami flavors as tamari and sake. Indeed, I’ve discovered that tamari is a by-product of miso and within a week had a teaspoon of delicious salty sauce pooled on the top. I’ll let you know in a few months how it turns out!
Fall mushrooms: There’s a workshop for that (unfortunately sold out)! November 12 Julian Fortu and I will be holding a hands-on workshop at fungi-forward Eastern European restaurant sPACYcLOUd that will cover all the ways mushrooms can be preserved, from fermentation to jerky. Reach out if you’d be interested in a later reprise of the workshop.
In Memory of George G. Thompson III, 1951-2022
I’ve enjoyed doing this newsletter so much over the past year, not just to share my passions, but to do so in a more personal way than I’m able to do through my magazine food column.
As such, I want to dedicate this edition of The Wild Life to my father, George G. Thompson III, who died yesterday on the eve of his favorite holiday, Halloween. Daddy-o, as he called himself, shared my joie de vivre and love of nature (see photo above of us on an early life backpacking trip). He was also immensely proud of me (even if he sometimes raised an eyebrow at my strange food choices), and I feel proud to carry on his legacy.
After hitting send on this, here on his late life home of Marco Island, Florida, I’m going out to have one of his favorite meals: grouper piccata, and raise a glass of his favorite beverage, Coors Light, to his memory. Cheers to you and yours!
Wildly yours,
April