Cleaned this year’s golpar harvest, my favourite spice…used in a range of dishes, see here: http://www.edimentals.com/blog/?s=golpar Real golpar is the ground seed of Heracleum persicum (Tromsøpalme), an important spice in Iran. I use a mix of wild and cultivated species of Heracleum (hogweeds): H. sibiricum, H. maximum, H. sphondylium…and naturalised H. persicum
Today I harvested the year’s first broad beans at the Væres Venner Community Garden where KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) are developing a garden: I also harvested the first potatoes at home…and the year’s first falafels resulted with new potatoes for dinner. The falafels were flavoured with salt, pepper, shallots, chili and golpar (ground seed of … Continue reading Broad beans, falafels, new potatoes and golpar
Indian bhajis are a popular snack or side dish in UK Indian restaurants…deep fried onions in a batter made of chick pea flour with various spices usually including cumin, coriander, black onion seed or kalonji (Nigella sativa), I replaced the cumin with golpar (ground seed of Heracleum persicum collected from a wild stand in Trondheim)! … Continue reading Golpared onion bhajis
Heracleum persicum is a giant umbellifer, very closely related to Giant Hogweed another very closely related invasive of more southerly latitudes. We call it Tromsøpalme here as these giant plants might resemble palm trees from afar where they grow in large quantities in the arctic city of Tromsø. I today harvested seed of one last … Continue reading Harvesting golpar
I made soba with stir-fried golpared veggies and wild fungi for tonight’s dinner. Soba is buckwheat noodles. Golpar is the Turkish spice usually made from the ground seed of Heracleum persicum (Tromsøpalme). To me the taste of “golpar” made with different Heracleum species isn’t very different. Tonight I used Heracleum maximum seeds fresh harvested from … Continue reading Soba with stir-fried Golpared veggies
Saving seed for my own homegrown Golpar, a great spice made from the seed of Heracleum species (Hogweeds/bjørnekjeks) including Giant Hogweed and Tromsøpalm.
To celebrate 40 years since I and my then wife Eileen bought Bergstua (literally house on the rock) and the garden that became The Edible (Forest) Garden, I endeavoured during the second of the two garden tours (as part of økouka – organics week) to talk about 40 of the plants in the garden during … Continue reading Around the garden in 40 plants
Yesterday was St. John’s Eve and many Norwegians (and other Scandinavians) celebrated what is known here as Sankthans or Jonsok with communal bonfires, the big midsummer celebration. Sankt Hans is a short form of Sankt Johannes. There is a special perennial onion which was traditionally harvested on this day in the Netherlands, which I believe … Continue reading Saint John’s Eve Felafels
This is what I had for dinner last night: a Mediterranean-diet style green (wholegrain spelt) pasta dish with wild fungi, annual greens, broad beans, weeds, golpar, chili and epazote (see more on the ingredients used under the picture!). My daughter, Hazel, peeling away the inedible slime layer of slimy spike-cap (sleipsopp): We used two mild … Continue reading Green pasta
To celebrate our good friends’ Jurgen Wegter and Ingvild Haga’s 50th birthdays together with Meg’s 50-year anniversary of arriving in Europe for the first time (in Southampton near where I lived at the time) as well as my 50 year anniversary of leaving school and a memorable holiday with 20-30 school friends in Newton Ferrers … Continue reading 50 and 20 year celebrations