Dining On Maine's Wild Foods

[johnnyd]

I attended a dinner last month composed entirely of foraged plants, seafood and some Maine venison. I took pictures and recorded some audio of the event which I mixed together here:

[fchrisgrimm]

Great video, Johnny! It looks like it was a wonderful meal.

[Chris Amirault]

Holy cow. That's amazing.

Can you say a bit more about the milkweed pods? I've seen thousands of those over the years, especially during summers with my grandparents in Waterville, and in a million years I would never have thought that they were edible. What did you do to/with them?

[Peter the eater]

I would enjoy that meal very much. Reminded me of the cattails we ate on canoe trips in Algonquin Park, Ontario.

I've got a weird little book from the 1970's that explains how to forage here in Nova Scotia, but I can't find it. I think its got a section on milkweed.

[djyee100]

Wonderful video. Thanks so much!

Pls tell me about the juniper ice cream. Was it made from cream infused with juniper berries?

[janeer]

Beautiful and creative, and a portable record player too! A wonderful party.

[johnnyd]

Gee whiz, everybody! Thanks for taking a look. I am very proud of this.

I am trying to take foodblogging to a new level using tools I have gathered in my broadcasting career. This was produced on a Pro Tools LE audio workstation that I built myself. The field audio was captured on a Marantz 620pro, a hand-held solid state recorder that CNN takes(took) into Baghdad. Photos were taken by the same Canon A85 that I used in my eG foodblogs.

Subscribe here for future productions: http://portlandcooks.net/

@Chris:

As soon as milk weed pods get silk, they are done - ie: inedible - so you have to get at them early. This took place mid-July so there's your target window. PS: they were barely 2" across, most were smaller. I have a photo of them sauteeing that I will find.

@PTE:

I'll ask my pals at http://www.rabelaisbooks.com/ if they've heard/seen that. They are in the antique food/cookbook racket.

@djyee:

I don't know about that, but I'll pass on your request to Stephen. Stay tuned.

@janeer:

The TTable was a great touch. the two jazz ditties (especially the flourish over the end credits) was the actual player's output captured on the field recorder. There was a lot of superimposed audio (six tracks - 600 edits) in order to condense 4 hours into 3 minutes!

I am currently editing audio and slides of a lobster bake I attended a couple weeks ago on Long Island in Casco Bay, catered by http://www.cascobaylobsterbake.com/

It's going to be swell.

[johnnyd]

@Chris:

As soon as milk weed pods get silk, they are done - ie: inedible - so you have to get at them early. This took place mid-July so there's your target window. PS: they were barely 2" across, most were smaller. I have a photo of them sauteeing that I will find

Tough to gauge their size from this but I'd say these are less than two inches.

They were my wife's favorite course of the dinner because they... wait for it... taste like chicken.

[johnnyd]

I am pleased and flattered to report that my 3-minute audio/slide show on an unusual 15-course meal was picked up by SustainableFoodNews.com.

Sustainable Food News .com

It is being tweeted to 2000 subscribers worldwide! Woohooo!

Edited October 8, 2010 by johnnyd (log)

[janeer]

I am pleased and flattered to report that my 3-minute audio/slide show on an unusual 15-course meal was picked up by SustainableFoodNews.com.

Sustainable Food News .com

It is being tweeted to 2000 subscribers worldwide! Woohooo!

Congratualations! And I have subscribed to your multimedia blog. It makes me homesick...in a good way.

[tsquare]

Very nice and a great looking dinner. I assume that in your "not foraged by us" ingredients were things like salt, flour, oil, pepper and a few other items. Did you hear about the Herbfarm's 100 mile dinner? I guess these are getting pretty common around the country, but I think he did remarkably well by not allowing even a few ingredients (he made his own salt!) Most humorous - a guest insisting on opening a bottle of expensive French wine from the cellar. I can see there are food purist and there are rich folks who like novelty, there are adventurers and there are chefs trying to keep things interesting. Room for all, yes?