April 6, 2011

sansai primer part 1: yomogi and tsukushi

 yomogi on the left, the mushroomy looking things are tsukushi, and the feathery stuff on the right is sugina.

We're finally getting warm days here, so it's been nice walking around gathering wild herbs, known as sansai in Japanese. It's common in Japan for people to stroll the fields and forests and forage, maybe since Japan has a more recent history of starvation. Coming here two years ago I was amazed to discover the variety and abundance of edible plants, and all the different ways to prepare them.

Yesterday I gathered some yomogi, or Japanese mugwort. According to Masa (our resident wwoofer-chef), the best time to pick it is after the cherries have blossomed. I'm a little early. But no matter, there is plenty of it already. I gathered about three handfuls worth, steamed it, chopped it fine, and incorporated it into hot mochi (glutinous rice paste) and then wrapped it them around balls of shiro-an (sweetened white adzuki bean paste). It's a nice spring sweet to eat with matcha tea. You see it all over Japan in this season. Yomogi can also be dried for tea, with a flavor maybe halfway between sage and mint.

I also gathered a little bit of tsukushi, or horsetail shoots, which are not really my favorite but they are so weird and funny looking I can't help but gather a bit. Also I don't care for it so much since it's such an annoying weed in the fields, especially in our potato patch, and no amount of plucking seems to slow its growth. If you're going to eat it, it's better to pick the shoots before they've gotten big enough to release spores, otherwise it will be somewhat bitter and on the dry side. I boiled it in a little water, drained it, and tossed it with a little shoyu and mirin. I can't say much for its flavor, but it does have an interesting texture and it makes for a unique side dish.

Actually, yomogi and sugina (the leaf portion of tsukushi which emerges soon after) make up half of one of my favorite tea combinations. My friend at the coffee shop in town makes her own mix-- it's equal parts roasted kuromame or black soybeans, dokudami or houttuynia, yomogi, and sugina. I bought a bag for myself, and liked it so much I bought a few more for friends and family, only to find out later from the proprietress that its main use is as a medicinal tea to cure constipation... she must think I'm pretty stopped up!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, i never knew tsukushi could be edible!!! i don't see them in germany (probably because i live in the city, poor me.....), but when i was kid and was still living in small town in Lithuania, i've seen plenty of them! Next time i'm in Lithuania I'll try gathering them if it's the right time.. (probably not, and probably i won't be in Lithuania any time soon, but i like to keep the possibility there :D)

    i've been thinking of trying my luck in Germany for a while now, because we do have some forests and open areas around the city i live in, but i'm a bit worried i would poison myself, since i don't really know what's edible and what's not. Any advices?

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  2. speaking of dandelion... it's what we subsisted on last April. Dandelion salad, brown rice and deer meat. mmm mmm.

    advice: find someone who knows plants and tag along with them, or if you can't find anyone, get a book, although that is potentially a bit sketchy.

    or you can try the aidan method, which is try out a little bit and if it tastes like poison, spit it out, and if it tastes good, eat it. last year he discovered a leaf that tastes like strawberry-kiwi that way.

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