Balsam poplar buds ✦

Bourgeons de peuplier baumier

What it is

Bees find these buds long before cooks do: the resin they strip from them is the base of propolis, the glue a hive uses to seal its own walls. Apothecaries sold the same buds as balm of Gilead, a name borrowed wholesale from a Levantine resin that has nothing to do with poplars.

In the kitchen

Pick them closed and sticky, before the leaf breaks, and infuse in warm oil or hot syrup — water pulls out the bitterness and none of the balsam. Clean the pan with alcohol rather than water, or the resin stays put.

Goes with

Honey Cream Apple Maple syrup Birch syrup Dark chocolate

In season alongside

Bog myrtle Mont d’Or

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