OPB’s “Superabundant” explores the tales behind the meals of the Pacific Northwest with movies, articles and this weekly e-newsletter. Each week, Heather Arndt Anderson, a Portland-based culinary historian, meals author and ecologist, highlights totally different points of the area’s meals ecosystem. This week she presents a recipe for a moist buttermilk shortcake with strawberry-linden blossom compote.
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As we wind down Pollinator Week, we thought we’d pay homage to the hard-working bees that convey a lot superabundance to our area with a particular deal with: a zhuzhed-up strawberry shortcake. The floral perfume of a wonderfully ripe strawberry is unparalleled, besides, presumably, for that of a linden tree on the summer time solstice. As all the time, we are saying collaboration, not competitors! Carry these two June exemplars collectively, ideally with whipped cream and a vanilla-buttermilk pound cake. Certain, you need to use just about any type of cake you want right here, however we love the simplicity of this pound cake — factor is, it’s not a real pound cake. 🤫 Are you aware why not? Learn on to search out out!
Camas crops, inherited espresso cravings, summer time meals for varsity youngsters, a chat with Akkapong Ninsom and good issues in markets, gardens and kitchens
Although the primary anthropologists to go to the area could have surmised that Indigenous Pacific Northwesterners had been strictly hunter-gatherers, rising proof means that wild plant populations had been fastidiously managed in methods that may solely be described as agricultural. A current research by Oregon State College not solely substantiates this but in addition means that populations of camas — a starchy, candy root vegetable and an necessary commerce commodity — have been managed with managed burns for 3,000 to 4,000 years.
Seems “don’t speak to me till I’ve had my espresso” might be hereditary, based on a brand new research evaluating genetic knowledge from 23andMe samples from the U.S. and UK. Espresso has solely been a part of the American and British diets for a few hundred years, however a style for it seems to be tied to genetic precursors for substance use and weight problems, suggesting that like bodily traits, habits is hereditary.
Watch the Espresso episode of “Superabundant.”
With faculty cafeterias being closed for the summer time, many low-income households wrestle to get meals for his or her rising youngsters. Fortunately, the Oregon Division of Training is making certain that children aged 1 to 18 could have free meals over the summer time (no paperwork to fill out, so no requirement to show want or immigration standing). To discover a pick-up website close to you, go to the USDA’s Summer time Meals Web site Finder, name 211 for operator help or textual content FOOD or COMIDA to 304-304.
OPB’s “All Issues Thought of” host (and Superabundant narrator) Crystal Ligori spoke with Portland chef and restaurateur Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom final week to debate his current James Beard Award win. Take heed to it right here.
And welcome to our new section, “welp, you’ve actually stepped in it now — you impulse-bought three whole flats of [ ].” This week’s installment: native strawberries. OPB’s affiliate director of viewers improvement, Robyn El Kay, got here to “Superabundant” with this very quandary. “I actually did that and I ended up composting a pair pints. I had no thought the half-life on strawberries was like 48 hours.”
If you end up in a bind like Robyn’s, you’ve bought some choices: First, keep in mind you could all the time freeze them and take care of it later. Frozen berries aren’t simply good for smoothies, however they’re additionally nice for jam and baking. You’ll be able to dump a bunch of them right into a jar and prime it off with vodka; go away them in a cool, darkish cabinet and provides them a mild shake on daily basis, and inside per week you’ll have probably the most scrumptious, lurid-red booze for cocktails or sipping neat (and don’t chuck out these boozy berries — toss them in sugar and dehydrate them for later). And naturally, you may attempt them on this week’s recipe.
Watch the Strawberry episode of “Superabundant”
Native cherries are popping off! However the current rains could end in a less-sweet specimen — when you can, attempt to pattern one before you purchase. Raspberries are nonetheless as aromatic and plentiful as ever. Garlic scapes are good now, too — after all, when you develop hardneck garlic you may all the time simply snip your individual (it helps the garlic bulbs develop fatter).
Lindens are blooming across the neighborhood, and we’ve been gathering the blossoms so as to add a heady floral sweetness to teas, fruit jams and syrups. And pal of the e-newsletter Jonathan Kaufmann reminded us in his newest missive that the fronds of weedy, wild fennel are prepared for plucking (if the vegetation close to you’ve already begun blooming, attempt to seize a number of the pollen — fennel pollen is a kind of fancy boutique components you could sprinkle on stuff to impress your folks). Should you pop a bag over the flowering heads and provides them a stout shake or two, it is best to be capable of gather a small jarful very quickly in any respect.
Tomatillos and floor cherries are up and starting to bloom, having volunteered from fallen fruit left within the beds final summer time; their propensity for self-sowing is excessive on the record of causes we take a laid-back method to fall backyard cleanup (one other is that leaving particles is sweet for backyard invertebrates — an necessary reminder throughout Pollinator Week!). Talking of which, the radicchio that we forgot to reap is now bolting, so right here’s hoping a few of these flowers ripen into viable seeds!
The shiso and crown daisy (aka garland chrysanthemum, tong ho choy, ssukgat or shungiku) that we seeded within the fall is arising properly and can quickly be prepared for including to lettuce wraps and noodle salads. This yr the apple bushes are producing far much less fruit than they did final yr (the 2023 bumper crop is probably going the rationale why — the bushes are nonetheless recovering!), however your fruit bushes will doubtless profit from a culling to attenuate pest infestations and enhance the standard of the remaining fruit.
✨ To make room for the loganberries and raspberries from the backyard (it appears smarter to stash them there till the season is completed, at which level all of the jam might be made without delay), we pulled out three rotisserie rooster carcasses for making rooster inventory — stress canning the inventory additionally saves freezer room.
✨ We bought a wild thought to make meatloaf parm — it’s all the things you’re keen on about meatballs, however in a loaf! — and though it seemed a scorching mess (the mozzarella middle oozed out ominously), it was fairly nice on comfortable garlic bread.
✨ A pal handed alongside a bath of maple sugar that he wasn’t utilizing, so we sprinkled it on slices of bacon cooking within the toaster oven. The sugar melted and caramelized fantastically, and the bacon was a spectacular addition to brioche French toast for brunch.
Recipe: Buttermilk pound cake with strawberry-linden blossom compote
Strawberry-linden blossom compote makes a divine topping for a slab of vanilla-buttermilk pound cake.
Heather Arndt Anderson / OPB
We often consider strawberries as a late spring fruit, since lots of the hottest varieties are June-bearing. Whereas Hoods and Shuksans is perhaps on their approach out, Oregon strawberry season continues to be very a lot underway. Day-neutral varieties like Seascape and Albion are nothing to sneeze at! And don’t you dare sleep on an Ozark Magnificence!
Linden blossoms, nevertheless, have a finite and slim window for gathering. Simply because the elderflowers are bidding spring a fond farewell and acquiescing to fruit, the lindenbaum start perfuming whole swaths of Portland with their small white blossoms, perched on their bracts like ostrich feathers in a hat. Should you’ve ever parked your automotive beneath one, too properly their expertise for attracting aphids, which convert the tree’s sap into copious quantities of sticky honeydew.
This sap is excessive within the sugar mannose which, whereas necessary for human metabolism, is poisonous to many native bees and wasps. (European honey bees don’t appear affected by the linden nectar, doubtless as a result of they co-evolved with the bushes.) To make issues worse, since lindens are planted as city shade bushes throughout western Oregon, the aphids they appeal to create a battle (the aforementioned sticky sap-coated automobiles) that people too usually clear up with systemic pesticides. Due to this good storm of things, mass bumblebee die-offs have been strongly correlated to city lindens.
So what are you able to do about it? Decide as many linden blossoms as you may and switch them into dessert.
Linden flowers are beautiful dried for tea — Steven Smith Teamaker’s Meadow mix makes use of them, as does the Hedgewitch and the Indignant Inch tea mix from this article’s writer. You should use it to make liqueurs or syrups (and in flip, jellies and granitas), or you may macerate them with berries in a few spoonfuls of sugar to lavish over buttery muffins and whipped cream, like we do right here. Serves 4-6.
Be aware: OK no, this isn’t technically a pound cake (which is historically made with a pound every of butter, eggs, sugar and flour) however the finish result’s fairly related — the recipe yields a moist and tender crumb whereas being barely sturdier than a sponge cake, with a delicate candy twang of buttermilk. Baking it in a loaf pan additionally provides it that pound cake really feel, however be happy to bake it as a sheet cake, bundt, a spherical or in a muffin tin when you desire (alter the baking time accordingly. Since this makes a complete loaf, you’ll doubtless have leftover cake — it’s fantastic with jam as a breakfast or tea snack or you may dice it and toast it to prime ice cream.
Components
2 cups all function flour
1 ¼ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon nice sea salt
½ teaspoon cardamom
1 cup buttermilk (or ¾ cup milk whisked with ¼ cup bitter cream, crème fraîche or yogurt)
½ cup impartial cooking oil (like corn or vegetable)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon glowing sugar (optionally available however good)
1 dry pint contemporary Oregon strawberries, rinsed, hulled and halved
¼ cup contemporary linden blossoms
½ cup sugar
Whipped cream for serving (home made is good right here)
Directions
- Bake the cake: Preheat the oven to 350o and line a greased 9″ x 5″ loaf pan with a strip of parchment paper. Whisk collectively the dry components (flour, sugar, baking powder/soda, salt and cardamom) in a big mixing bowl till properly mixed. In a separate bowl, whisk collectively the moist components (buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla). Make a properly within the flour combination and pour the moist components into the middle, whisking till simply mixed. Scrape the batter into the ready loaf pan and sprinkle the glowing sugar excessive of the batter. Bake till the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted comes out clear, about 50-55 minutes, then switch the cake to a cooling rack.
- Whereas the cake is baking, make the compote: stir the strawberries, linden blossoms and sugar collectively in a bowl, cowl with a kitchen towel and put aside.
- When the cake is cool sufficient to be sliced, slice it as thickly as you want (an inch or so appears truthful). Give the berry compote one other stir to evenly distribute the luscious syrup that’s shaped, and spoon a beneficiant serving over the cake. Add a dollop of whipped cream and one other drizzle of the syrup excessive.