Oregon Grape Sauce on cream cheese-smeared Ritz crackers
Sometimes I'm an urban forager!
I'm lucky enough to live on the edge of town and have access to forest trails a block from my condo for my daily walk.
During various seasons I find wild herbs and edibles, and now as summer is half over I decided to harvest some Oregon grape berries and experiment with them.
These plants are native to many Northwestern states and are also a popular landscape plant bearing bright yellow, fragrant flowers in Spring. They come in both a tall shrub version (Mahonia aquifolium) and a smaller prostrate type (Mahonia nervosa). Both grow abundantly near where I live in Northern Idaho.
Their bright yellow roots have antibiotic properties due to their berberine content. Roots are easiest gathered from the smaller, prostrate variety.
Their leaves look like holly and are just as prickly!
Holly-like leaves turn burgundy in the fall but don't fall off. New growth leaves are red.
I know the berries are edible but have never gathered them. So, I decided to experiment with them as they're now ripe and grow in numerous places along the forest trails where I walk.
On today's walk I noticed that the lush grasses from copious Spring rains are just beginning to droop and turn yellow as summer heads towards Autumn.
So let's walk on up the path and around the corner. I know there's some Oregon grape up ahead!
This medium-size bush has some ripe berries! Some bushes grow up to eight feet tall.
Using a small pair of pruners I carry when I walk so I can gather whatever is ripe and useful, and being careful of the thorny leaves, I harvested a few bunches off of several plants. I'm careful not to harvest everything off of a single bush, but take several bunches before moving on to the next one...good forager stewardship benefits the plants, the animals, and people, too!
My research indicated that after the first frost some of the natural tartness is mitigated and natural sugars are more abundant, but they're edible all season long after they ripen in late June.
Did I say "edible"? Did I mention "tartness" and "natural sugars"?
It must be noted that while the berries may be eaten fresh off the bush - birds and animals do - for humans the berries are usually way too tart! Therefore, sugar or honey is added to the berries before they're made into sauce, jelly, or wine because to be palatable to us bi-peds they need to/must be sweetened!
I gathered about a cup of berries - just enough to experiment with - and plucked them from their stems. Notice that they have a grayish bloom - similar to that found on grapes and some varieties of wild elderberries.
One cup of rinsed berries with 1/2-cup of sugar added.
After a few minutes of simmering the berries are beginning to soften, burst, and release their juice and seeds.
Next I separated the juice from the seeds and mashed everything with a wooden spoon to extract all the juice and some pulp.
The strained juice and a bit of the pulp that came through the strainer is heated to a low boil. The berries are said to contain their own pectin so in the future I'll try cooking them down sufficiently to form a jelly. Today, I simply wanted a thick sauce.
I ended up with a smooth, glossy, slightly-thickened sauce. The pulp seemed to have emulsified into the sauce.
I dipped a spoon into the sauce and lightly licked it. Wow! The sauce was very "berryishly" tasty!
There was only about two tablespoons of sauce so I decided to spread some herbed cream cheese onto some Ritz crackers and top the cheese with the sauce. Yummy!!! So yummy I ate the remaining sauce straight up with a spoon!
I'll experiment again by gathering more berries for making a few small jars of jelly in the near future, then again after the first frost, to see if there's a noticeable difference in taste and sweetness.
Perhaps at a future time I'll also experiment with making a honey mead or some wine! The berries are rich in Vitamin C.
Most of the berberine and medicinal qualities of the plants are found in the roots and bark from which tea and tincture may be made.
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Notes:
As with most wild plants, use moderately, consuming only a small amount to see if there are any allergic or other reactions.
Herbalists recommend no more than three cups of root tea per day - boil one to one-and-a-half teaspoons of chopped roots in one cup of water for 15 minutes, cool and strain.
Root cream is used topically to treat moderate psoriasis and is commercially available.
Oregon grape - Mahonia Aquifolium is sometimes listed as Berberis aquifolium.
The roots of Oregon Grape are often substituted for Goldenseal - a now very endangered species.
Oregon grape roots - in tea and tincture forms - may be used for other ailments such as fever, jaundice, diarrhea (from E. coli), infections - throat, urinary tract, intestinal; and arthritis, as well.
Babies and pregnant women should not be given or use Oregon grape in any form.
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