The Edible Tree Tour takes the epicurious on an educational expedition to showcase the diverse array of fruit and berries that can be found in the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard.
Bringing new meaning to the phrase “scenery-chewing,” members of local food-education groups LEAF, Growing for Green, Not Far From the Tree and Forbes Wild Foods dished out facts and tips on foraging during the annual Edible Tree Tour. Winding through the Eglinton West neighbourhood, the tour attracted nearly one hundred people with a taste for urban edibles.
The trip kicked off in the Ben Nobleman Park Community Orchard on Sunday morning. Since ground was broken in 2009, volunteers have planted 14 fruit trees (bearing apricot, cherry, pear, crab apple and plum) in the green space across from Eglinton West station. From ravines to yards, the tour unearthed the culinary uses of everything from bull rushes to blossoms.
Here’s a quick taste of a few stops on the tour:
Black Locust Tree
Though the bark, pods and seeds of the Black Locust Tree are toxic, the white flowers that bloom on the tree in early spring have a sweet, vanilla-like taste. The blooms can be made into syrups, jellies, or tea.
European Mountain Ash
The berries have a tart, bitter taste that’s not for everyone: when members of the tour sampled them, there were more than a few puckered faces. The berries are best preserved in jams and jellies, though they can also be made into wine, cider and liqueur.
Southern Magnolia tree
This tree flowers twice a year in spring and late summer. When the fresh buds break, they taste like horseradish and can be used in soups or with meat. They need to be picked when they’re still fresh and young—wait too long and the blooms will lose their flavour and just taste leafy.
Staghorn Sumac
When ripe, the berries turn red and have a velvety texture. The lemony flavour isn’t actually contained in the berries but on the surface tissue. The clusters can be boiled, cooled and strained to make a kind of lemonade. Sumac can also be made into jams, jellies or teas.
Juniper trees
If only tonic grew on trees—the juniper’s bluish-purple berries are mostly known for being the basis of gin, but they can also be made into compotes and jellies.
Fruit Trees
Though much of the tour focused on the more surprising pickings of ornamental trees or wild bushes, there was also a visit to an apple tree in a backyard registered with Not Far From the Tree. The volunteer-run organization harvests fruit in yards across the city, giving a third to the homeowner, a third to the volunteers and the rest to nearby food banks or shelters.
When it first started in 2008, Not Far From the Tree’s 150 volunteers picked 3,000 pounds of fruit; last year, nearly 700 volunteers harvested about 19,600 pounds of fruit. Though the wet spring and dry summer may mean a smaller harvest this year, Not Far From the Tree has expanded their reach from seven wards in 2010 to 14 this year.
