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DIGESTED DIGEST WORDS Cúán Greene PRESERVATION NA
TION In his weekly newsletter chef Cúán Greene expounds upon topics relevant to food culture, sharing insights, positing questions and meeting people who are adding to the collective pot. Each month, we share a selection of edited highlights from previous posts. Over the last couple of weeks, I have confessedly gone a little crazy storing ingredients in alcohol. I get a bit anxious when I begin to see produce dissipating. It comes with the passing of the summer solstice; an inevitable and unavoidable annual occurrence. The woolly elderflowers begin to seed. Coriander and parsley bolt, and the rose hips take their annual turn. And although this loss of flora brings a berry that too can be preserved, for those eager enough to bottle up the summer sun, there exists a solution. It’s called alcohol. It’s no coincidence that the practice of storing fruit in alcohol exists in almost every culture. It’s an extremely efficient way of preserving large gluts of fresh produce. While I have shared many articles on preservation methods - canning, pickling and fermentation - preserving fruit in alcohol is without a doubt the easiest and most satisfying. You are not only left with a deliciously flavoured alcohol for your labour, but a boozy fruit too. In Ireland, we have traditions of preserving sloe berries in gin. However, I feel that sloe berries are under-appreciated or perhaps misunderstood. In their raw state, sloes taste bitter, tannic and acidic, but with a couple of months of maceration submerged in a solvent like alcohol, they undergo a remarkable and transformative effect. The alcohol extracts the aromatic compounds in the fruit and skins, producing a godly flavour with wonderful maturing qualities. I often hear journalists state that foraging and preservation is a trend, almost as if it’s 34 not something that will stick around…I must admit, the ignorance of the remark amuses me. There are countless reasons why cooking with wild food is so evocative. Preservation and fermentation are processes which offer fantastic and often surprising outcomes of flavour. This year, I had the good fortune of moving into a house with a fruiting cherry tree in the front garden. That said, I had little hope of actually harvesting cherries this year, based on the past year’s failures…I had located wild cherry trees throughout the city, with ambitions of gathering a large glut, preserving for the winter and later adorning desserts and puds in more frugal seasons, only to be left empty handed at the time of harvest. I kept my eye on their maturation, almost religiously cycling by their whereabouts in an effort to perfectly select the fruit at its best. While most trees are sporadically dotted throughout the neighbourhoods, there is a particular public garden not far from me, sheltered by wild cherry trees. Last June, on one of my routine investigations, I had identified that the cherries were almost ready to be picked - perhaps a week out from perfection. At this time, the park was full of people, presumably locals. What amazed me was that no one was paying any attention to the wild cherries dangling above their heads. How unappreciative of them, I thought. Alas, I decided that I would return in a week, when the berries were at their peak. Armed with buckets and bags and a small step ladder, I ditched the bike and took my car. After all, I had an afternoon’s work ahead of me. As I turned the corner to the park’s entrance, I was stunned. The trees nearest to me hadn’t a berry to speak of. I did a loop of the garden and to my disbelief, each tree had been completely stripped of its fruit. I immediately began to think of the locals who paid little attention to my excitement the previous week. Perhaps this was part of their plan: a communal harvest of which I had no part in. At that moment I felt I was being watched through the peaking windows of the surrounding houses, no doubt their kitchen tables decorated with a freshly baked cherry pie. I drove home that afternoon disheartened. Eager to soften my disappointment, I chose to pass the handful of trees dotted throughout the neighbourhood, in the hope they may have escaped the manic harvest of these self-serving cherry fanatics. As I approached one of said trees, it dawned on me what the true root cause was. The tree was undergoing an onslaught and the neighbours were not at fault. It appeared my foraging capabilities were no match for the instinctive scavenging prowess of the magpies, who were ravaging the tree of its precious fruit. As spring gave way to summer, this year, I watched my berries grow through the kitchen window: miniature green seeds developing into coupled berries, later attaining a red blush. As the weeks continued and June approached, the berries turned a light red and my negativity soon turned to hope. Perched or almost hidden against a south facing wall, perhaps the birds didn’t know about this tree. Maybe this was the year I would enjoy the fruits of my labour. Resigned to the