|
|
|
|
 |
Author |
|
| Message | |
|
mr olive oil
Joined: 16 Mar 2008
Posts: 53
Location: london
|
 Posted: Sun May 24, 09 10:01 pm Post subject: wild wild herbs and capers in Turkey |
 
|
i have just got back from 3 weeks of hard work on my farm in Turkey
last year we had 800 mandarin trees grafted into lemon trees, as the new shoots take, the old branches are cut off so i spent a lot of time helping to drag the branches of 800 trees back to a central point where firewood was separated from twigs etc
on 3 occasions we drove into the mountains to collect wild oregano as well as sage and wild rosemary
we located so much of it, i gently dried a lot of it and bought it back to the uk for sale at the farmers markets, boy you need to smell this wild stuff (wild oregano is one of the most powerful natural
anti biotics known to man)
while we were picking wild herbs, we came across wild caper bushes or a better description would be brambles, we tore ourselves to pieces collecting not the capers berries as it was too early for them, but the more succulant caper shoots, these you pick like you would pick asparagus break it off where it is still very tender
these we bring back to the farm and wash, we then put into a large container adding 2 handfuls of coarse salt and some citric acid we then fill with water and seal
i can promise you the rewards are great after a month, remove what you require and rinse, you then add olive oil and lemon juice and tuck in, this is not available in the shops, although i am having some transported over but it is well worth those scratches, it is also worth seeing the wildlife you encounter on these trips eg large tortoises as well as on one occasion a whip snake, these are majestic animals which i do not approach neither do i harm them or allow anyone working on my farm to harm them as they are what is known as the farmers best friend, they eat poisonous snakes as well as rodents and there eggs
i will be posting pictures in my blog at www.mroliveoil.com for anyone interested
some of the other goods i had prepared for sale in the uk farmers markets are baby walnuts in syrup, bergamut marmalade, pommegranate molasses, preserved lemons, chilli flakes, sweet paprika, caper shoots, wild herbs etc these are all produced and prepared on my farm or picked in the wild and prepared on my farm
i look fprward to meeting some of you at whitecross street food market on friday the 29th may and at alexandra palace farmers market on the 31st of may
i look forward to reading some of your comments
regards mem
Last edited by mr olive oil on Mon May 25, 09 10:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
|
|
 |
marigold
Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex
|
|
|
|
|
|
Archive
Powered by php-BB © 2001, 2005 php-BB Group
Style by marsjupiter.com, released under GNU (GNU/GPL) license.
|
. A friend brought me some dried wild oregano from Cyprus a few years ago - I managed to grow some from the seed it contained, but, alas, it is no more...
View Latest Posts