FORAGING IN THE WILD

Chefs go nano-local

It poured rain all night and now the mosquitoes are buzzing hungrily at our ears and our ankles as we skip over mud puddles and zigzag through tall grasses and prickly brambles. No amount of waving or swatting will deter the bloodthirsty pests from their morning meal.

But Jonathan Lapierre-Réhayem and John Winter Russell don’t even seem to have noticed the heat or the bugs. With a quick squirt of insect repellent, the two young chefs who lead our foraging expedition bound into the woods, stooping every second minute to snip a handful of greens or pinch the blossom from a wild flower. In a few hours, their bags full, they will head back to their kitchens to infuse, pickle, dry or blanch.

Lapierre-Réhayem is on his day off from Restaurant Laloux on Pine Ave. E., where he has made a name for himself highlighting local, seasonal ingredients. Russell has been a chef at several Montreal restaurants, including Pastaga and Van Horne. He hosts pop-up dinners at locations all over town and is about to open his own vegetable-driven restaurant in a still-undisclosed location.

Everybody, it seems, is talking about local, seasonal food these days. But Lapierre-Réhayem and Russell go one step further — nanolocal, you might call them — as they forage for wild ingredients themselves in fields and forests just off Montreal Island, and even in parks and alleyways and along railroad tracks right in the city.

Ask people what Quebec food tastes like, and most will mention maple syrup, fiddleheads and blueberries. But Lapierre-Réhayem and Russell say that just skims the surface. There are hundreds of species of wild edibles growing all over the province that aren’t just edible, but also delicious.

And sure enough, on a sunny morning rambling about in an abandoned, overgrown quarry just outside the pretty village of Oka, we find a staggering variety of edible roots, shoots and berries that are ripe for the picking. Just a few steps in from the road, a patch of dried leaves is punctuated by wild strawberries. It would take all day to pick enough berries to bake a pie, but even a handful of the supersweet, jewel-like berries offers a burst of intense strawberry flavour that no garden-variety strawberry could ever match.

On a sunny morning … just outside the pretty village of Oka, we find a staggering variety of edible roots, shoots and berries that are ripe for the picking. Just a few steps in from the road, a patch of dried leaves is punctuated by wild strawberries.

Gooseberries grow in the forest, too, on waist-high bushes. The berries are still too green and bitter to eat, but in a few weeks they will be heavy with red fruit. There are ground cherries nearby, the still-tiny berries nestled inside lanternlike husks.

What has captured the chefs’ fancy today is milkweed “broccoli.” The tight pinkish clusters of flower buds atop the knee-high plants beloved by monarch butterflies are delicious for humans, too, when blanched briefly and then served with a little butter and sea salt. We pick a bag full for the Tuesday dinner menu at Laloux.

There are pretty white ox-eye daisies popping up all over the place. The chefs have already been out on earlier forays collecting the unopened daisy buds, burying them in sea salt and then marinating them in apple-cider vinegar, transforming them into local “capers.” Today they pick bouquets of long-stemmed daisies for the tender green leaves, which will be tossed into a gargouillou, a Montreal rendition of the theatrical salad created by French chef Michel Bras to showcase seasonal greens.

In a moist, shady spot in the forest, dark-green heart-shaped leaves offer another exciting clue. These are wild ginger plants, whose rhizomes can be dried and ground or infused in syrup. They have been designated as a vulnerable species, though, so we only take a few for ourselves, not for the restaurant.

So many of the plants we call weeds are gastronomic delicacies. Lapierre-Réhayem plucks a handful of clover-like wood sorrel and hands it over. It’s an invasive species I’ve been yanking and tossing from my garden for years. Who knew it was edible, even delicious, with its tangy lemon flavour? Even the ubiquitous low-growing chamomile-like flowers that grow along dry, gravelly roadsides are edible. Pineapple weed, they are called. Rub the feathery leaves and they release a delicate pineapplelike aroma. Steep them in water with a little sugar and you have lemonade. Freeze it and you have a refreshing sorbet.

This is the way people here used to eat a couple of hundred years ago. But until recently, many of these edible species had been over- looked, their culinary use forgotten in our excitement for imported exotics. But Russell, who describes himself as “plant-obsessed,” says getting people interested in them again is one way of promoting a healthier, more sustainable diet that’s richer in vegetables and less reliant on meat.

Seeing the forest and the field with new eyes, a forager’s eyes, also makes an outing into the countryside, or even the neighbourhood park, more interesting. Suddenly, where there were weeds and branches and brambles, there are now dandelion and daisy leaves for salad and ginger for cocktails and sumac for spice.

It’s enough to make you forget about the mosquitoes.

This is the way people here used to eat a couple of hundred years ago. But until recently, many of these edible species had been … forgotten in our excitement for imported exotics.

PHOTOS: DAVE SIDAWAY/MONTREAL GAZETTE A city street find on a walk with chef John Winter Russell: purple-leafed shiso mixed with wood sorrel. The purple leaves taste like a cross between mint and anise. Below: milkweed “broccoli.” The tight pinkish clusters of flower buds atop the...

Many of the so-called “weeds” that most people either detest or ignore are quite delicious and incredibly nutritious, says chef John Winter Russell.

DAVE SIDAWAY/MONTREAL GAZETTE “There are plenty of reasons to forage for wild foods,” says chef John Winter Russell. “The first is that they are delicious. But also the idea that we have stuff growing right on the street and in our front yards that is edible and tasty is exciting.”

Spotted: the yellow blossom of an “escaped” cabbage” growing wild in the city streets.

Above: A patch of pineapple weed spotted on a recent foraging walk along city streets. Left: Lamb’s quarters has diamondshaped spiky leaves which, when young, are nutty and tasty, not unlike spinach.