Mr. Yuck doesn’t live here anymore

Friday, August 22, 2008

I’ve always been afraid of sumac.  My mother instilled the fear of it into me, lest I come down with some crazy poison sumac infection.  Little did I know that my mother taught me to be afraid of the wrong thing - the sumac she pointed out was not the poisonous variety.  And so for most of my life I’ve avoided sumac trees...when, in fact, I should have been running toward them to harvest the sumac.

The variety pictured is, I think, Staghorn sumac.  The Fair Food Farmstand is selling sumac right now (although I’m not sure who the supplier is), so I was compelled to pick up a bit of it.  As you may know, Sumac is native to our area and grows like a weed.  In fact, you’re likely to see sumac growing wild on the side of the road.  And sumac is, of course, edible - it tastes kind of lemony.

Sarah, the Farmstand manager, told me about one her customers that brews tea from sumac, but I also found recipes for sumac lemonade and sumac wine..

But sumac can be used for more than just beverages.  I found some amazing-sounding recipes incorporating sumac, including scallops with sumac and pomegranate molasses.  Yes, please!  Some other yummy recipes:

Sumac chicken with bread salad
Sesame sumac pesto
Tomato and sumac salad
Sumac crusted lamb
Sumac and onion relish
Couscous with sweet potato and sumac

There is a great tutorial on how to identify non-poisonous sumac and how to harvest it and a suggestion on how to preserve it here.  There’s also some good advice here.

I’m not sure what I’ll do with my sumac, but it’s just nice to have something different to play with!