J blueI just made mint chocolate chip cookies using yerba santa (piper auritum) and apple mint and they taste like toothpaste flavored cookies. Literally swallowing down toothpaste, tingly cold sensation and all. 😩😭😭😭
Bob Tregilus@jblue Yikes, and at first they sounded great!
@elaterite I thought they’d be awesome bc the yerba santa tastes like sasparilla 😭
@jblue Hm, as I recall, the few times I've drank sarsaparilla tea, it was woody tasting with a hint of licorice.
@elaterite it was probably made from real sasparilla root from the sasparilla tree native to southeast North America. This is an herb from Mexico that tastes kinda like sasparilla and is also minty.
@jblue Yes, I used it for medicinal reasons. Too bad your cookies didn't turnout. But making a good mint chocolate chip cookie is certainly a project worth pursuing! 😋
delve ✨@jblue What is sarsaparilla tree? The only sarsaparilla I'm familiar with are the smilax species, which are all woody vines or herbs. Never heard of a sarsaparilla tree.
@jblue Ohh, of course! Love sassafras. It was blooming on the local bike trail recently. Such an awesome tree.
I've made tea from the roots, but one day I really need to make some root beer with it.
@jblue Btw, do you have any experience with smilax roots? I've experimented with them. I found that they are pretty good if you dry and age them. I made a spiced cider drink a couple years ago with smilax roots, spicebush berries, mountainmint, and maybe a couple other ingredients. It was really good. The smilax adds a real depth to it.
@jblue Also, one more thing, but have I ever mentioned using crossvine flowers as a flavoring/seasoning to you?
@jblue It's not a potent seasoning, but I really like it. Mildly savory, with an aroma/flavor reminiscent of chocolate and button mushrooms. I like putting it in soups or on rice, things like that.
I was inspired to try making a seasoning from the flowers when I heard about people making tea from them. Then I smelled the flowers, and they smelled like chocolate to me. I also remembered that saffron is made from flowers, and the idea clicked in my head. So I gathered the flowers as they fell from the vine in the spring, and I dried and powdered them. Again, it's not potent, but it's pretty pleasant, and I really like it.
@delve that’s interesting, I’ll have to look out for them next year. A bunch of people have them in the neighborhood. For saffron, they just use the stigmas. Maybe the flavor could be more concentrated there?
@jblue Maybe, but I just used the whole flowers. They tend to fall whole from the vine with the reproductive parts still attached (IIRC both the pistils and the stamens are fused with the floral tube). I used to have a HUGE vine growing on the old pine tree outside my house, but they had to cut the tree down last year :(
The flowers fell daily in the early spring, and I collected them every day or other day as long as the bugs didn't get to them first.
But I must warn you, the flowers likely have eggs laid on them from insects. The eggs don't seem to affect the flavor, but my second batch that I collected, I forgot about for a while, and while they sat in the collection bag, the eggs hatched. The bugs then started eating the flowers ruined them. So I recommend freezing the flowers overnight once before or after you powder them, just to be on the safe side. That's what I do now after my experience with the ruined flowers.
@jblue Yep! I'm not certain what species I used for the drink, maybe Smilax smallii. It was one of our local species.
Some people talk about pounding them for starch, but I think they're more valuable as a flavoring agent.
@jblue First time I ever made tea from the "roots" was when I was a teenager. Back then, I used the thin, long rhizomes and made a tea for my mother. I read about it being used to treat rheumatism, so I got her some. She never ended up drinking it, but I had some, and it wasn't bad.
Later I tried again because I wondered if our local smilax was anything like the sarsaparilla of Mexico. I dried out a thick storage rhizome that I dug up from a sizeable patch of smilax. Then I cut it into cubes and stored it in a jar. It started off not very flavorful, but as it aged, it developed more and more flavor.
Attempts to do this again have usually resulted in mold/mildew. I've worked out now that you really need to scrub/clean the fresh rhizomes well and cut them into cubes *first*, then dry, or else they love to mold.
I guess I just got lucky on that first try.
@delve did it end up tasting similar? Sorry about your mom. Sounds like mine. I’ll make her fritters with medicinal mushrooms and she “forgets” to eat them.
@jblue Similar to Mexican sarsaparilla? Idk. Never actually tried it. But I like the local smilaxes that I've tried. I have a jar of some smilax rhizome I processed earlier this year. It was a large rhizome I collected from a local creek. This one seems to be less strong than the ones I collected before. The smell is hard to describe. It's like a deep earthy, woody smell, but it doesn't smell like soil. Maybe a little mushroomy? The taste is mild, kinda reminiscent of sassafras, but only barely. Also a teensy bit bitter.
@jblue psych, I'm sending TWO pictures!
I also like to pound the cubed pieces with a hammer after they're fully dried. They're really tough at first, but just a little pounding with a hammer softens them up considerably, enough that you can even easily just chew a piece in your mouth. I think this helps them oxidize better for better flavor, and I think it helps them steep out in water better.
@delve the one I’m growing isn’t a Smilax, it’s in the genus Piper like black pepper. You might be able to grow it, it’s lowest temp is 20F. I’m going to keep mine in the greenhouse this winter just in case.
@jblue Yeah, I saw! I was just looking it up a minute ago because you posted about it. I forgot there was native Piper in Mexico. We don't have any native Piper in Alabama, but we do have Piperales members. Wild ginger (Asarum canadense) is the most famous, but it doesn't grow in my area.
Another one we have that does grow around me is lizard's-tail (Saururus cernuus), which doesn't really have a history of being used as a flavoring agent, but it smells nice, and it's not poisonous as far as I can tell. It has a history of being used medicinally. I've tried the leaves on several occasions, starting with allergy testing, them moving up to eating a whole leaf and even a few. Never felt any bad effects. It's kinda tantalizing because it smells nice, but it doesn't really taste that great. I'm interested in figuring out if there are any uses for it as a spice, if I can tease out a way to use it, so I plan to keep experimenting.
@jblue Sorry if I'm talking your ear off btw. I didn't meant to get started on this, but I did, and native/wild spices are like, a sub-special interest of mine under my chronic special interest of wild food plants. The idea that there are delicious flavors just waiting out there, flavors we've never even dreamed of, waiting to be rediscovered and utilized, that idea excites me a whole lot. I've done a lot of research on and experimentation with this.
@delve im really interested too and am keen to experiment. Sorry if I’m lame, just super tired.
There’s one native plant that no one has in stock and I really want to grow. I managed to get seeds before but a baby bunny invaded my garage and ate all the seedlings and the only one that survived was eaten by a squirrel, Zanthoxylum americanum.
@jblue Not lame at all! I totally understand. I need to get to bed too, but talking about this got me excited lol. It's one of my passions.
I've been interested in getting my hands on our native Zanthoxylum too! It doesn't grow as far inland as I am in Alabama, but I'm interested in getting some from south Alabama one day.
I'm so sorry to hear about what happened to your seedlings! D: That's awful! I hope you can try again and this time it goes better!
Anyway, I don't mean to keep you up. I'll let you get to bed now, and I should get in bed too. We'll talk more about spices, wild foods, and plant medicines later!
jz.tusk
Mar@jblue oh bummer, that sounded like a good idea!
And they look good as well.
Ah, I wish we could taste each other recipes. I wonder if everyone would taste the flavor in the same way. I had a conversation here the other day about fresh vs dried mint. I only like fresh mint tea, but to the other person the fresh mint tea tastes like toothpaste. Not to me. I've never tried Yerba Santa, though.