Lip Sumacin Good

Staghorn Sumac
The other day we were meandering along checking out the wild edible situation right under everyone else’s noses. We came up with about 4 different varieties of apples, currants gone wild, raspberries, hops (didn’t eat those) and staghorn sumac. John picked off 5 bunches of the sumac for us to take home. The lemony tang was finger lickin good.

I knew that sumac was used for a drink likened to lemonade so I whipped out “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” by Euell Gibbons to see what he had to say.

I put the 5 clumps in a bowl and covered them with water. Then I mashed and pounded for 10 minutes with my potato masher. I strained it through several layers of cheese cloth as the man instructed and added about 1/3 cup of sugar and a little more to the juice. Oh no not another one of those talked up wild treats. It was very refreshing. So I can talk it up. Definitely lemony. It’s a keeper.

This is the time of year to be using it. If there is a heavy rain then wait a day to pick it as the rain washes the good stuff off. But it comes back. And there is another sumac by the way that is poisonous. But it is totally different looking and has white berries and is low to the ground. No worries.

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