Foraging sumac

Foraging sumac. These bushes are across the street from us in Saratoga Springs.

Sumac is an important ingredient in Middle Eastern cooking. And foraging sumac in the wild is not that hard if you live an area where the bushes with their opposing branches and bright red “horns” grow wild. For our recent shish kebab success we tried harvesting from a bush across the street.

A close-up look at ground sumac. Note the bits of solid material mixed with red fuzzies. This is a commercial product from our local middle eastern grocery (now sadly closed).

The horns, technically “drupes”, are where the goodness lives. Snip off the base branch with kitchen shears then strip off the individual seeds and fuzzy coating. Let this dry a few days (or use a dehydrator) then give the seeds a whirl in a powerful blender. This blog post which comes up first when you google “foraging sumac” says that the seeds and coating will automatically separate but we found this not to be the case; the seeds are quickly ground up along with the fuzzy stuff. Which is not actually a bad thing; the sumac spice we purchased at our middle eastern grocery had the same texture, a coarse powder rather than fine threads like saffron. Alternatively, you could do a coarser grind and then use a colander with small holes (rather than a sieve which only lets the finest particles through) to give you some fine threads mixed with partially ground seeds (like peppercorns put through a coarse setting on a peppermill). It’s all good: the red fuzzies are where the intense flavor can be found, but the seeds are in no way objectionable.

Straining sumac seeds in a fine-mesh colander.

What can you do with your sumac? Dominic Colose’s Sumac Onion mezze is a great place to start, or use sumac anywhere you’d use lemon (and maybe combine with lemon) in a middle eastern dish. The bits of bright red are a nice garnish in addition to their taste.

Staghorn Sumac grows wild across much of the northeastern and central US; it’s a different species than that found in the Mediterranean but the flavor seems identical. The drupes appear in mid summer and last till early fall; as of September 15 in upstate New York the leaves are starting to turn but yours are probably prime for harvest if you live in a less brutal climate.