Jennifer Hahn - Pacific Feast: A Cooks Guide to West Coast Foraging and Cuisine

Dedicated foragers will keep the guide in their glove box and the cookbook right at hand in the kitchen.

Edible Seattle

Captivating stories of her wildcrafting adventures . excellent photographs

American Herb Quarterly

An inspired read for any adventurous cook, Pacific Feast is an exciting window into the bounty of wild northwest foods.

Blaine Wetzel, winner, Food & Wines Best New Chefs award, and executive chef, The Willows Inn, Lummi Island

Entertaining and accessible . You wont have to join a drum circle to glean some new West Coast culinary skills from Pacific Feast.

Harbors magazine

Part botanical history, part cookbook, and part wilderness adventure tale, Pacific Feast whips up more than 60 delectable recipes with lush, full-color photographs.

Mount Baker Experience

A wealth of information about foraging and identifying edible plants

Grow Northwest magazine

Where once I saw only choking overgrowth, today I see a potential source for dinner, thanks to Pacific Feast.

Journal Media Group

The recipes will make your mouth water.

Washington National Park Service newsletter

2010 by Jennifer Hahn

Photographs 2010 by Mac Smith unless otherwise credited

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form, or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

The following recipes were reprinted from previously published material: Breasts of Chicken Baked with Forest Mushrooms, from West Coast Cooking, copyright 2006, 2008 by Greg Atkinson; used by permission of the author. Bull Kelp Chutney, adapted from Common Edible Seaweed in the Gulf of Alaska, copyright 2005 by Dolly Garza; used by permission of the author, Alaska Sea Grant College Program, and University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska. Dungeness Crab Potato Pancakes with Lemon Dill Cream, from I Love Crab Cakes: 50 Recipes for an American Classic, copyright 2006 by Tom Douglas and Shelley Lance; used by permission of the authors. Green Lasagna with Greens, from A Platter of Figs, copyright 2008 by David Tanis; used by permission of Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing Co., Inc., New York; all rights reserved. Morels Stuffed with Shrimp Mousse, from The Riversong Lodge Cookbook: World-Class Cooking in the Alaskan Bush, copyright 1993 by Kirsten Dixon; used by permission of the author. Spaghetti Squash with Clam Sauce, from Simply Organic: A Cookbook for Sustainable Seasonal and Local Ingredients, copyright 2000, 2008 by Jesse Ziff Cool; used by permission of the author.

Published by Skipstone, an imprint of The Mountaineers Books

Printed in the United States of America

First printing 2010, second printing 2012

15 14 13 12 5 4 3 2

Copy editor: Heath Lynn Silberfeld / enough said

Design: Jane Jeszeck/Jigsaw, www.jigsawseattle.com

Cover photographs: Mussels cling to the rock at Dare Point on the West Coast Trail, British Columbia. Josh McCulloch/Alamy; Variety of mushrooms Fancy/Alamy

Illustrations by Jennifer Hahn

The following photographers contributed to this book: Bastiaan H. Brak (purslane); Michael Deitering (fennel fronds); John Harvey of JohnHarveyPhoto.com (rainbow leaf seaweed); Matt Kalman (chanterelles); Jodi May (morels); David Mendosa (wild raspberry); Janna Nichols (urchins); Walter Siegmund (wood sorrel, blueberry); Marshall Taylor (porcini).

ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59485-102-5

ISBN (e-book): 978-1-59485-405-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hahn, Jennifer, 1958

Pacific feast : a cooks guide to West Coast foraging and cuisine / Jennifer Hahn ; photography by Mac Smith.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-59485-102-5 (pbk.)ISBN 978-1-59485-405-7 (ebook)

1. Cooking, AmericanWestern style. I. Title.

TX715.2.W47H34 2009

641.5978dc22

2010028279

This book is not intended as a substitute for professional advice or your own good judgment. Foraging for any foods, especially mushrooms, requires significant care and knowledge. Prevailing rules and regulations should be adhered to in any beach, park, city, county, state, or federal lands which you visit. The publisher and authors are not responsible for any adverse consequences resulting directly or indirectly from information contained in this book.

Skipstone books may be purchased for corporate, educational, or other promotional sales.

For special discounts and information, contact our Sales Department at 800-553-4453 or .

Skipstone, 1001 SW Klickitat Way, Suite 201, Seattle, Washington 98134

www.skipstonebooks.org

www.mountaineersbooks.org

Men who fish, botanize, work the turning-lathe or gather seaweeds, will make admirable husbands, wrote Robert Louis Stevenson. Pacific Feast is dedicated to my beloved husband, Chris Moench, who has fished, botanized, turned a potters wheel, and gathered seaweedsand other wild comestiblesto urge this book forward. Without his generous and patient spirit, it simply wouldnt be.

Jennifer Hahn

Pacific Feast is also dedicated to Amelia Lear (Smith), my mother, for raising me and for passing on her words that are as real as her actions: Do what you love. Do your best. Do what you need to in spite of how many things pull at you. Do it with persistence and passion.

Mac Smith

DRINKS

SOUPS & SALADS

ENTRES

SIDE DISHES & APPETIZERS

SAUCES & PRESERVES

DESSERTS

THERE IS SOMETHING DEEP-DOWN satisfying, almost mystical, about foraging for your dinneror even a morsel of it. I remember this years first foraging trip on January 9 at sunset. Kneeling in the damp sand of a surf-slammed Pacific beach, reaching into a gloppy shovel hole, feeling for a soap-smooth razor clam. It was cold as river stone, but it pulsed with life as I touched it, as if woken from a long nap. The clam pulled away from my grip like a kite spool tugged ever deeper by forces beyond my reach. Remembering the pattern, I held tight to the upper half. Soon the clams digging foot paused and drew in. The downward tug slacked. In that moment, I lifted into the salt air a creature whose coastal roots go back millions of years. Thanks, I said, wiping the sandy clam, long and tapered as an eyeglass case, across my pant leg. The razor clams varnished surface reflected white surf, rose clouds, my shadowed face and flying hair. It was a scene as ancient and immediate as hunger. One that had repeated thousands of times. And I was part of this continuum.

Imagine for a moment one long feast table spanning from the islands of Yakutat Bay in southwest Alaska to Point Conception, California, and beyond, rising from the Pacific Ocean to the Cascades crest. Since the great Ice Age, this 3000-mile-long table is where Northwest Coast indigenous people traversed rain forests, clam-squirting beaches, wildflower meadows, muskegs, and river estuaries to gather all the food, medicine, and supplies needed to live. From alder-smoked salmon to dwarf blueberries, Dungeness crab to fern crosiers, the flavors, textures, colors, and aromas of ocean and earth filled their canoes, cedar storage boxes, and communal feast dishes.