Tagged Beach Plums
Josephine’s Feast! Wins Good Food Award 2013
Laura, June Taylor, Alice Waters at the San Francisco Ferry Terminal for the Good Food Awards 2013
What do you get when you bring the best artisan food producers in the USA into one room? The Good Food Awards, which marked it’s third year on January 18, 2013. Held at the San Francisco Ferry Building, the event is sponsored by The Seedling Project and was hosted by Alice Waters. And I am so very proud to say that Josephine’s Feast! was announced as a winner in the Preserves Category for our Hand Foraged Wild Beach Plum Preserves.
Good Food Award Medals 2013
This national award recognizes the highest level of achievement in producing artisan products that are both delicious and produced in a responsible manner using local and sustainable ingredients. 1,366 entries from 49 states were blind-tasted resulting in 100 winners across 9 categories. The complete list can be found on the Good Food Awards website.
The Awards Ceremony is a Black Tie Gala often referred to as the “Oscars of Food”. The Wall Street Journal columnist Kitty Greenwald remarked, “the Awards Ceremony puts a spotlight on people who are working hard to keep a pulse on what’s happening around the country…it means an exciting future for young entrepreneurs and for food quality nationally.”
The gala featured tastings of the winners food and dishes envisioned by 10 local chefs, including Sarah and Evan Rich of Rich Table, Comstock Saloon’s Carlo Espinas, Bill Corbett of The Absinthe Group, Trevor Ogden of Chambers and Slanted Door alum Grace Nguyen of Asian Box. Josephine’s Feast! Hand Foraged Wild Beach Plum was chosen by Chef Carlo Espinas of the Comstock Saloon for a Wild Beach Plum and Rye Whisky Cured Gravlax with Picked Creme Fraische.
Carlo Espinas dish using Wild Beach Plum Preserve
It was a delicious evening, or rather a Delicious Revolution as Alice Waters would say. The beauty of the event was that like-minded producers were able to come out of their kitchens, smokehouses and roasting rooms and share their craft. We had the opportunity to speak with other food crafters and taste all the winners – which was no easy feat! Some of my personal favorites are listed below:
Vanilla Bean Salted Caramels –Her Coconess Confections , California.
Shelly is my new BFF and insists she was put on this earth to feed the world. Her caramels are outstanding and her Bittersweet Nibby Rocky Road ain’t bad either.
Black Sesame Brittle –Sweetdragon Baking Company , California
At Sweetdragon the Black Sesame Brittle is awsome and her New Crop Pistacio Brittle is also off the charts – in fact my brother and I almost got into a fight over the last piece
Tarragon Cherries – Cold Water Canyon Provisions , California
Rondo makes preserves from his mother recipes The pickled cherries were divine! The perfect pairing with a marscapone cheese or alongside roasted duck.
Japanese Pickle & Arame Kimchee – The Cultured Pickle Shop , California
June Taylor sent me to meet Alex, “Their Kombucha is outstanding”, and on that I was greated with the smell of fermenting krauts. The Pumpkin Kimchee is my favorite along with a Red Beet Kombucha.
Borselino Salami – La Quercia , Iowa
Kathy Eckhouse is an inspiration to anyone who handcrafts artisinal food. A gifted cook and mother, she and her husband Herb have built a business based on the good food and respect for all. I have been buying their proscuitto at Dean and Deluca for years but never realized how great they really are.
House Ham – The Meat Hook Brooklyn , NYC
Now this is ham!
Wild Thimbleberry Jam – American Spoon , Michigan
Larry makes a perfect wild preserve. Just lovely.
As for us, we would just like to thank all the people who bought our Wild Beach Plum Preserve in September and October before there was any awards or recognition. You bought it because you tasted it and you liked it, and it just goes to show you certainly have great taste!
Stalking the Wild Beach Plum
Here is a our story about the elusive Wild Beach Plum.
Prunus Maritima is a member of the rose family and often confused with rose hips by the uninitiated. Beach plums grow along the seashores of the Atlantic coast from Eastern Canada to Virginia.
They range in size from a small Nicoise olive to a giant Sicilian olive. But they have a huge pit – and often more suited to jelly making than that of a true preserve. They are a finicky plant, producing an overwhelming abundance one year and almost nothing the next.
Ron G - The Forager
Another problem is where to find them. No true forager reveals their sources. In fact, when asked where the beach plums are found, almost unanimously the answer is “if I tell you I will have to kill you.” Our forager is a third generation farmer and carpenter from East Hampton who gleefully brought a hundred or more pounds of beach plums to me 3 years ago. Ron G keeps a little book with “his” foraging haunts and has brought us wild beach plums, wild grapes, wild cherries and wild cranberries. He fights the ticks and the poison ivy and I really think he loves this work.
There was such a bounty that first year. We had no idea what to do with all the beach plums. Ron made jelly from his mother’s recipe and I began experimenting with preserves. We made beach plum liquor and liquor soaked beach plums. I even pickled some. The following year, after Huricane Irene, the bushes were barren. This year, the harvest was a pretty good one if you got to them before the other foragers. You also have to beat the deer who are known to eat beach plums.
The taste is a cross between a plum and a prune with a heady tang and an especially deep flavor.
As I began selling this preserve at the markets, my customers shared family stories of parents dragging bands of children onto the beaches with pails to pick the beach plums – they only produce fruit along the bay and the ocean. Farmers and bankers alike, all making jam and jelly over the years.
The preserve making is time consuming. First you wash,sort and pit. Then I mix the berries with cane sugar and let them macerate over night in a true method confituer – this helps to develop the natural pectin. Cooking is also tempermental. The fruit gels only when the proper balance of water to sugar to fruit pectin is reached. Then we hand jar, vacuum seal in a water bath, cool and label our preserves.
Removing Pits from Beach Plums with an Italian Food Mill
Eli in the Kitchen processing the Beach Plums after Food Milling
In an effort to better understand the beach plum I registered for a class at the New York Horticultural Society in the Fall. It was given by Gary Lincoff who has foraged with Euell Gibbons himself over the years. His talk was wonderful and his book is even better – The Joy of Foraging. I highly recommend it, especially if you want to add a little purslane to your salad, but that is a conversation for another day. Gary finds beach plums along the coast of New York City and Long Island. He pits the plums with an antique cherry pitter – because, “it still works as good as anything.” He served his Beach Plum Preserves over a ricotta cheese cake. Couldn’t be better.
Gary Lincoff at the New York Horticultural Society - 2012
Josephine’s Feast! – Good Food Awards Finalist
We couldn’t be happier to share some good news with you. Josephine’s Feast!’s Hand Foraged Wild Beach Plum Preserves has been named as a finalist in the 2013 Good Food Awards in the Preserves Catagory. The awards will be announced in San Francisco on January 18, 2013 at the historic Market Place in the San Francisco Ferry Building. The Black Tie event will be hosted by Alice Waters and is considered to be the Oscars for food producers in the US. You can read the Good Food Awards Press Release here. There where over 1300 entries, from 49 states. Only 16 companies from New York State where chosen as finalists. Wish us luck!