Ingredients May Saskatoon 2016

This is where my menu inspiration comes from, mapping the seasons and ingredients of out time and place.

Elm seeds, they are everywhere and they are a pest, they spread saplings like weeds when they drop. Luckily they are edible and one of the first fresh ingredients of spring. They have a mild sweet flavour raw and can be tempura battered.

Dandelions, bitter and sweet and when fried they are the texture of tiny bits of cod. They are plentiful and healthful.

Wild violets, they are sweet and early to grow.

Caragana Flowers, they are Saskatoon’s earliest sweet pea.

Fruit blossoms for candying, they only last a few days when they bloom but candy them and they will last the year. There are cherry blossoms, Russian almond, apple blossoms and many more.

Lovage is another first to pop up and you best start using it as it will take over, this year I am going to try and use it as a replacement for some celery uses.

Rhubarb, Wood sorrel, Spring onions and chives. Raspberry leaf, young tender leaves we dry for our teas. Yarrow, young leaves eat fresh. Mint.

With the early hot streak, this was all I had time to document, I feel there is a lot left undiscovered.