Sweetfern Flavor Newsletter
Newsletters come Mondays now! This week: an under-appreciated dried herb and a guest recipe from Biagio DiSalvo
The Recipe
For the first time on TWG, we have a guest recipe writer! Biagio DiSalvo is a New England forager whose wild recipes and videos have been making waves on instagram (you may have spotted his videos on wildfoodlove or foraged market). This week’s sweetfern recipe is an uncomplicated and herby snack that he’s created with TWG readers in mind: it’s quick, has a huge flavor payoff, and calls for just one wild ingredient. These tasty nuts stand on their own, but you can also crush these over a salad, dress up a cheese board, or use them in the crust for a flaky fish.
Make Sweetfern Spiced Nuts.
Sweetfern
Similar to last week’s ingredient (Juniper Berries), "Sweetfern” is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not a fern, and some people wouldn’t even describe it’s flavor as sweet. It’s technically a shrub related to to some bayberries, which may clue you into its beautiful aroma. When compared to common American spices, Sweetfern’s scent is probably closest to a fresh bay leaf. It reminds me of the sweet green fragrance of goldenrod leaves, and has an herby quality reminiscent of fruity spices (like mace or spicebush). Becca Miller has described the aroma as smelling “vaguely like snickerdoodle cookies, warm from the oven, but with some fresh greenery and a bit of citrus mixed in.” That’s not quite my experience, but I do think her description makes sense; sweetfern is somehow sweet, somehow green and spicy, and altogether difficult to describe.
The shrub has multiple edible parts, and some foragers like Alan Bergo and Marie Viljoen write that they prefer the plant’s seeds and catkins for having a more concentrated flavor than the leaves. The leaves, in my experience, are much more common to find for purchase, and are available to sustainably harvest for a much longer season. The aroma of the leaves is more present than the actual taste on your tongue, which is less intense when the leaves have been dried. Even so, I still find the fragrance of the dried leaves to be a foundation in my foraged pantry. I use them similarly to dried rosemary, bay leaves, mace, sage, and thyme.
As is true for many foragers, sweetfern is in my top wild herbal teas (along with goldenrod), and you can riff on this classic by making Becca Miller’s Sweetfern Spiced Hot Toddy. Marie Viljoen uses sweetfern in her many beverage explorations (infused bourbons, gins, vermouths, and syrups), although I’m more inspired by how she combines the tender leaves of bayberry and sweetfern to flavor lamb meatballs in the Spring. Sweetfern also has endless application in savory cold-weather recipes, like Mallory O’Donnell’s Bouillon of the Woods and her Winter Celery Root Salad. But if you’re looking for something sweet, I recommend Alan Bergo’s Sweetfern Cookies.
Find the Flavor
Find Sweetfern
✓ Wild in the Eastern United States & Canada
✓ Dried Sweetfern from TheWhiteHartEclectic
✓ Dried Sweetfern from KnoxMountainNaturals
✓ Dried Sweetfern from YeOlFactoryAromatics
✓ Dried Sweetfern from botanicallampshades
Find Sweetfern Products
✓ Sweetfern Tonic Tea from Algonquin Tea
✓ Sweetfern Salve from plantmakeup
✓ Sweetfern Plants
References & Resources
Native American Ethnobotany Database Comptonia Entries
USDA Sweetfern Fact Sheet
Northern Woodland’s Sweetfern Article
Ellen Zacho’s Sweetfern Article
Dirt’s Sweetfern Article
Sweetfern can do something no other plant can
I want to hear from everyone - have you cooked with Sweetfern before? Any thoughts on the recipe? What ingredients do you want to hear about next?