Sweetfern ✦

Comptonie voyageuse

What it is

Catharine Parr Traill listed it among the substitutes for China tea in her 1854 guide for emigrants to Canada, where the leaf grew free on the poorest sand. It is not a fern at all but a nitrogen-fixing shrub that colonises burnt ground, which is roughly what it tastes of.

In the kitchen

For smoking fish, lay the dried leaf on embers rather than flame: it is resinous and will flare. In a broth, five grams to the litre for ten minutes — longer and the bay note disappears under tannin.

Goes with

Trout Salmon Cream Blueberry Maple syrup Venison

In season alongside

Arleux smoked garlic Fir honeydew honey Savory

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