New foods for 2013

[redbird]

Based mostly on looking at posts tagged "2013," the new foods/ingredients I tried last year were: Riga sprats, candied chestnuts, apriums, fresh fava beans, sunflower sprouts, candied lilac petals, and maybe chanterelles.

I'm not sure about counting the chestnuts: this is the first time I'd been given a whole candied chestnut, but shortly before that I had tried and liked Grom's marron glace flavor gelato, which contains actual chestnut pieces.

I am fairly sure I had had chanterelles before, as an ingredient—in some sort of "wild mushroom" sauce at a restaurant—but not by themselves, nor had I cooked them. (I want to do some research into recipes and techniques, ideally before chanterelles are in season again.)

So, the short list would be Riga sprats, apriums, fresh fava beans, sunflower sprouts, and candied lilac petals. The apriums are definitely the star of that list, though the sprats and candied lilac are also quite nice. Sunflower sprouts are just sprouts, okay but unexciting, and my main impression of the fava beans was that they're a lot of work for not much reward.

ETA: I mentioned this to Cattitude after posting. He said the best of the year for him would be the varied salmon species we can get here, notably steelhead.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I feel unreasonably pleased by my tiny connection to this list. :)