Eating Wild: Rowan Berries
There are some foods, and certain ingredients, in this world that show up seemingly out of nowhere, waving their brand new-ness like a flag meant to catch your attention and pique your curiosity. Wander along the cookie or potato chip aisle in any grocery store and witness creativity – and an enthusiasm for the new and novel – untethered. I generally love this sense of anything goes in the food world, and though sometimes these new foods aren’t what I’m looking for (sour sandwich cookies, I’m looking at you), sometimes you land on a turkey-and-stuffing-flavored potato chip that you didn’t know your life was missing until you tried it.
Then there are other foods that have fallen out of favor over time, and often for good reason. The lengthy aspic section in Julia Child’s genius and groundbreaking Mastering the Art of French Cooking is likely not many people’s most visited cooking resource, filled with impressive food science though it may be.
But certain foods and ingredients that have taken the back seat, or have become relegated to very specific regions, are ones that people would likely enjoy a great deal if they were familiar with (and had easy access to) them. And it is here that we find a versatile wild ingredient, rowan berries.
The rowan tree – also called mountain ash, though the tree is not actually related to other ash trees – is one of the many plants in the familiar Rosaceae family that also contains roses, apples, and raspberries, and that I have written about here so often. Rowan trees are one of the most eye-catching trees in the Northeast and fall within the genus Sorbus. They are small-to-medium sized deciduous trees that bear clusters of small, striking reddish-orange berries. The gray bark of the rowan tree is mostly smooth, with some small cracks, and the bright green leaves grow in a pinnate compound formation, which means that there are many smaller lance-shaped leaflets growing opposite one another each on a five- to ten-inch long stem, ending with one facing outward at the very end. The most common look-alike for this leaf structure in my region is elderberry, but rowan trees bear 11 to 17 leaflets as part of their structure (the odd number accounting for the one at the very end), while the compound leaves of the elderberry bear slightly larger leaflets and number either five or seven. The berries of these trees are also quite different, with the elder tree bearing smaller, much darker and purplish, and much softer berries that disappear quickly as animals eat them, as opposed to the bigger, harder, orange-tinted berries of the rowan that stick around for months.
It is the bright berries of the rowan tree that makes it such a beautiful sight to behold, and that really sets it apart throughout the fall and into the winter when other trees have long since lost their fruit. These still bright and vibrant berries stand out against the stark and sometimes snowy landscape, offering a food source not just for hungry birds and other wildlife, but also for wild food enthusiasts.
Though these beautiful trees can be found scattered around the Northeast, they tend to thrive in colder environments and can sometimes be found in great numbers on steep ridges and hillsides. I have found rows of rowan while out hiking, dotting mountaintops with their noticeable clusters of fruit and delighting groups of birds stopping for a snack. But this isn’t a wild food you would ever harvest and sample alongside the wildlife, since these berries are, without processing and if harvested at the wrong time of year, anything but a treat.
The trick to harvesting and using rowan really is in the timing. Before the frost, rowan berries are far too bitter to enjoy, even after the cooking process that makes them safe to eat. But – much like carrots or parsnips or other cultivated foods that become sweeter later in the season – these fruits transform after several hard frosts into a delicious addition to our foraging repertoire. Waiting until after cold weather sets in also means that rowan berries are one of those rare finds – a wild edible food that is available to us long after the traditional harvest season has ended for the year.
Though rowan berries are often an overlooked or out of fashion ingredient in the United States, do a quick search for Scandinavian recipes or foods eaten in the U.K. and you will find that these berries have long been cooked into tart syrups or jellies, which are often then used as ingredients in or paired with savory meat dishes. And I think it is long past time to make this older, but in no way out-of-date, ingredient a new addition to our pantries and some of our favorite dishes.
It is in the late fall and into the early winter, after overnight temperatures have consistently reached freezing, that I set out to harvest these small but impossible to overlook berries, pulling them off their stems by the handfuls to be transformed in my kitchen into a jewel-toned jelly that catches the eye of everyone who sees it. Most recipes you will find for making rowan jelly pair the berries with apples, but in my kitchen I use crab apples since I live next to highly productive crab apple trees that I harvest and freeze the fruit from all fall. Apples will also work wonderfully, but I find that the bright red color and more tart flavor of the crab apple brings out just what I’m aiming for in my version of this jelly. If you don’t have time to make jelly when apples, crab apples, or rowan are ready to harvest, simply freeze any or all of them and pull them out and defrost before making jelly whenever you are able. As someone who doesn’t really enjoy straight sweetness in my foods, I am particularly fond of rowan jelly since the end result is a combination of lightly sweet, tart, and a bit astringent.
This multifaceted flavor profile makes rowan jelly an excellent match for both wild game and farm-raised meat, either on the side or as part of a glaze or marinade. It is also a delicious addition to a charcuterie board filled with pâtés and cheeses. In my kitchen, I have figured out an additional way to make something old into something new again – by substituting this jelly into an adapted version of my grandmother’s meatball recipe.
Famous in the Miller family, Grandma Marion’s Marvelous Meatballs were something of a culinary mystery while our matriarch was still hosting our large Thanksgiving celebration. When she reached the end of her life, I began taking over hosting this holiday and learned how to make the beloved dish, which, in true 1950s fashion, turned out to have jars of grape jelly, cans of tomatoes, and jars of chili sauce tossed together in a saucepan and simmered away for an hour or so along with the seasoned meatballs. While I still sometimes make this simpler and quicker version of my grandma’s recipe, I also love to prepare a more “from scratch” version, using homemade tomato sauce, mixing up chili sauce seasonings, and swapping rowan jelly in for the sweeter grape. The end result is a dish that mimics the flavor profiles and spirit of the original, still pleases even my most outspoken family members, and caters to my more homestead-y tendencies. I think Grandma Marion – a thoroughly modern lady – would first make fun of me for giving myself more work to do, and then be excited that her legacy was just as able to change and adapt as she always was.
So as you continue to explore the outdoor spaces around you throughout the colder months of the year, don’t assume that your wild food harvesting has to be put to bed alongside our backyard gardens. Look beyond the familiar, keep your eyes peeled for that bright flash of color, and discover an ingredient that might just transform one of your old and familiar recipes into something new.
*NOTE: Always consult with trusted experts and refer to foraging books and field guides for 100% positive plant identification before consuming any wild plant, and make sure you are familiar with every potentially dangerous plant that grows in your region. As with harvesting any wild plant, and particularly ones that grow in commonly sprayed areas, take particular care to collect from spaces you know to be chemical-free. Never pick any wild plant from protected spaces. Integrate new foods into your diet in small quantities to gauge any dietary and allergy sensitivities, and consult with a doctor if you have any questions or concerns about specific health issues or medication interactions.
Becca Miller lives in the Adirondack Mountains and works as a professional farm-to-classroom educator, ceramics teacher, writer, and photographer. A former Cape Codder in residence but always a Cape Codder at heart, Becca spent her time living on the Cape running a CSA program where she taught members how to use harvest items in new and creative ways. Becca is a Certified Master Food Preserver and a Leave No Trace Trainer, and her writing has been featured in Edible Capital District, Edible Vermont, and Adirondac magazines, along with Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard blog and Mother Earth Living’s Food Matters blog. Find Becca’s writing at beccamillerwriting.weebly.com.
