Article by K.M. Wehrstein/Photography by Tomasz Szumski

Sumac is a plant found in volume across Muskoka, often visible along the plant-filled sides of roads. It’s a strange tree, that seems as if it might have come from Mars or the bizarre imagination of Dr. Seuss. Sumac is easily recognizable with its hairy zigzagging trunks and branches, its astonishing colours in fall and its many-leafed fronds radiating out from upright fat red spikes of… what are they? Berries? Flowers?

While the sumac plant across Muskoka is known, what may come as a surprise is that sumac is also a spice. Part of the reason for that would be the spice called “sumac” is not very well-known in Canada and is generally made from a sumac species that grows in the Middle East. It is cherished there as a key ingredient of za’atar powder, which is used in many Middle-Eastern dishes.

There are about 35 species of sumac worldwide and their botanical names all start with Rhus. The one you see along roadsides in Muskoka is staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina). Store-bought sumac powder is typically made from the shrub Rhus coriana and imported from the Middle East.

So, you have your choice: buy it from the store to be more traditional or harvest it right here in Muskoka to use for your sumac-requiring recipes. The latter would be the choice of Laura Gilmour, CEO and co-owner with her husband, Chris Gilmour, of Wild Muskoka Botanicals. The Gilmours’ business in Dwight focuses on the healthy locavore movement to the max: getting nourishment and deliciousness right out of the Muskoka wilderness.

“We think of spices as coming far away but this one is here,” says Laura Gilmour. “People need to eat locally and that includes spices.” There are at least a dozen high-quality spice plant species that grow in Muskoka, she shares, naming off a few: wild leeks, pine for roasting and sweet gale, whose flavour she describes as “like black pepper and bay leaves had a baby.”

Gilmour eats a lot of foraged foods that she would never sell as products. Either they’re not sustainable on a large scale (“the short-window things like shoots of plants and baby leeks”) or they require too much processing.

“I eat acorns,” she says, absolutely seriously. “But you have to shell them, grind them, leach out the tannins, then dry them and it’s flour at that point.” She does the obvious thing to do then: bake acorn bread.

“Wild leeks, sumac, pine, elderberries – these are the large-scale items,” Gilmour says. Wild Muskoka products made from these ingredients and more include syrups, infused apple-cider vinegars, cocktail and mocktail (non-alcoholic) mixers, spice blends and bitters (for high-octane cocktail flavouring).

One of the vinegars is called simply Sumac (for a home-made version, she instructs, “You can soak the flower still on the stem in vinegar; soak for at least a month.”) Among the mixers you’ll find one of Gilmour’s best-selling offerings: Strawberry Sumac Shrub (which one online reviewer delectably drizzled over ice cream). Finally, there is Muskoka Za’atar, Gilmour’s version of the famed Middle-Eastern flavouring – whose recipe she has shared with us.

Originally from Niagara, Gilmour moved with her family to Muskoka at the age of 10 when her father landed a job as a chef at Deerhurst, and they lived in Melissa, just north of Huntsville. While studying ecology at Fleming College, she says, “I got really inspired about sustainability.” Once graduated, she signed on with Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF), an educational exchange organization founded in 1971 which provides organic farm placements in 130 nations worldwide.

“I travelled mostly in western Canada and the United States, lived and worked on all sorts of organic farms, met herbalists and foragers,” she reminisces. “That’s where I started to learn what I know. I learned herbal medicine – food is medicine – and became a total nerd. My partner and I spend all our free time doing this kind of stuff.” Actually, it’s all her time, really, since it’s her work time, too.

Around 2007, the Gilmours settled in Bracebridge, where Laura worked as an ecologist for five years. “And I kept practicing; I was a passionate forager and herbalist. I kept getting asked by different organizations to come and lead foraging walks and herbal medicine workshops.”

At the same time, following in dad’s footsteps, she became a passionate cook but with foraged ingredients. “People kept asking me to help and if they could buy things I was making. So, I started Wild Muskoka in 2015.”

At first the business was part-time work for Gilmour but it has grown to full-time work for the couple plus one part-time employee who has been there for a year. As well as the edible and drinkable products, you can buy books and swag from Wild Muskoka or you can put on your hiking boots and bug repellent and attend Gilmour’s foraging classes – though not this year as they’re all full.

“I put the classes out in winter. Sign up to our newsletter if you are interested and book early,” she recommends. “This year they were sold out by April.”

Here is a quickie sumac foraging and preparation class by Gilmour, as a free sneak preview.

“The staghorn sumac is all around us but catching the window is difficult,” she shares. “It’s usually mid-July to early August but that can vary by area. If you pick it too early, it has no flavour. Too late and they’re infested with bugs.” Pick the red flower-spikes and open them up. “They should be pretty clean on the inside.”

To produce powdered sumac, Gilmour says: “I freeze them right away, for at least a week. Then I dry them: the place has to be dark, low humidity, with good air flow.” Once the spikes are dry, she picks the flowers off the stems, grinds them in a coffee grinder to release the hairs from the seeds, and sifts out the seeds. “The hairs are what you want.”

Trying a pinch of these, there’s a sweetness in the sourness of sumac. “They’re a fruit, so they’re sweet,” she says.

Gilmour describes Za’atar as “a blend of sour, salty and aromatic.” The flavour combination is reminiscent of a powdered Greek salad. That leads us to the second recipe Gilmour provides us: a Greek salad. A real Greek salad; Greek salads served in Greece never have lettuce in them. Accordingly, Gilmour likes to serve hers a bit later in the year than now.

“By late summer, unless you’re good at replanting, your lettuce has bolted and you have an overabundance of tomatoes and cucumbers,” she explains.

But Gilmour makes a major departure from the traditional Greek salad: her Muskoka Za’atar powder made using staghorn sumac replaces both lemon juice and oregano. It makes for a more subtle and slightly sweeter citrus taste and imparts a slight warm redness to the feta cubes.

If you’re worried about harvesting poison sumac by mistake: that nasty plant is in a different family entirely, along with poison ivy (not surprisingly their species name starts with Toxicodendron). It has smooth twigs and white-yellow berries that hang down. If the sumac tree you’re looking at has hairy twigs (like a stag’s horns) and rich dark red flower spikes that stand upright, you’re good.

You’ve met Liam Cooper in these pages before – last year’s last issue, in fact, for which he created a holiday turkey dinner using sumac. What he’s cooked up exclusively for Cottage Country Cuisine this time is Sumac Brined and Roasted Duck with Raspberry and Sumac Reduction and oh, it’s good.

This July the culinarily-precocious son of chef John Cooper of Basilico in Bracebridge turned 16, after presumably having aced the hospitality course he took at Bracebridge Muskoka Lakes Secondary School.

“My hospitality teacher just lets me do whatever,” Cooper says.

Having learned knife safety from dad while knee-high, he gently aided his classmates. The key trick, which not only keeps your fingers intact but makes you able to cut faster and more accurately: “Keep the flat of the blade on your knuckles.” That means you curl the fingers of the hand that’s holding the food so you can have the flat of the blade touching the knuckles while you cut, keeping the fingertips tucked away safe and in effect controlling the knife with both hands. If you’ve never done it, it feels awkward at first but soon you feel how much more control you have.

Cooper has worked kitchens professionally and has even had one of his creations on the menu of the Old Station Restaurant in Bracebridge. So, he knows his ingredients, including sumac. In some cases, he says, “You can treat sumac like lemon; I used it in the brine like lemon and used it in the sauce instead of lemon zest.”

However, he advises against using it as a direct substitute. “Lemon is a lot stronger.” He does recommend using sumac instead of lemon in tea: “Sumac doesn’t lose its flavour when heated.”

How did he first learn about this relatively obscure spice? “There’s a sumac bush behind my elementary school and my friends and I used to eat them,” he shares. “I maybe read about it in a book as well. They’re not really berries, they’re flowers.” He and Laura Gilmour agree on that. The sumac he used to prepare this dish was harvested from a tree in the forest near Bracebridge.

Why brine? Cooper shares his expertise. “Brining makes things a lot juicier and helps the skin crisp. It helps impart flavour. The salt breaks down collagen between meat fibres, making the meat more tender.” He recommends brining game meats for tenderness.

How to invent brine recipes? “Throw it in and hope for the best, it always works out well.” Well, it does for him. Remember, cuisine is in his blood.

Why use this particular sauce with duck? Because the nature of duck calls for it. “Sweet and sour cuts the richness,” says Cooper. As well as its natural richness, the meat has added flavour complexity from the brine that the reduction complements deliciously. Another winner from the wunderkind.

Muskoka Za’atar ­­

Spice Mix

– Laura Gilmour

 Ingredients

1 Tbsp sumac powder

1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1 tsp dried parsley

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried thyme

¼ tsp salt

Method

Combine all ingredients in a small grinder (spice or coffee) and pulse until incorporated.

 Wild Muskoka Greek Salad

– Laura Gilmour

 Ingredients

1 cucumber, cubed

1 small container of grape tomatoes

(289 g), halved

¼ cup chopped red onion

100 g feta cheese, cubed

¼ cup black olives, chopped

¼ cup olive oil

2 Tbsp Muskoka Za’atar spice mix

 

Method

Combine, let sit for 10 minutes and serve.

 Forager-Cook Tips

• Why no lemon juice? The sumac provides that flavour.
• Why the 10 minutes sit time? The vegetables and the oil hydrate the spice, which brings out the flavours more.
• Because it has no greens, which go soft if left for any time, this makes a great prepare-ahead salad. It’s also a great summer picnic salad because it marinates well.
• Za’atar is also great on rich meats.

 Raspberry and Sumac Reduction

– Liam Cooper

Ingredients

1 cup staghorn sumac flowers

1 cup frozen and thawed raspberries

(or fresh)

2-3 cups hot water

3 Tbsp white sugar

¼ tsp ground sage

¼ tsp ground ginger

1 bay leaf

 Method

• Bring the hot water to a boil, place it with sumac flowers and soak overnight in a closed thermal container.
• Put the sumac and water into a pot and bring to a boil.
• Add raspberries.
• Boil for five minutes and strain through a fine mesh sieve.
• Put liquid back into the pot and add sugar, sage, ginger and bay leaf
• Bring to a simmer and cook until thick (20-30 minutes). Remove bay leaf.

Sumac Brined and Roasted Duck

– Liam Cooper

Ingredients

Brine:

Enough water to cover the duck

Add 2 Tbsp of salt per litre of water

3-4 Tbsp sumac flowers

2-3 bay leaves

¾ tsp sage

1 tsp whole fennel seeds

 Method

• Brine the duck for 6 hours with sumac flowers, bay leaves, sage and fennel seeds.
• Remove the duck and pat dry, leave uncovered overnight in the fridge.
• Remove from fridge and cold smoke the duck for 1½ hours (optional).
• Transfer the duck to a 375°F oven and roast on a wire rack with a deep casserole or roasting pan until 165° in the breast for medium (180° for well-done) and 180° in the thigh. Roast 15-20 minutes per pound.
• In the last 10-15 minutes, baste the duck with the hot fat.
• Serve with raspberry and sumac reduction. Suggested side dishes: broccolini (scalded in hot water) and mashed potatoes (with white pepper, butter and leftover duck fat).
• Wine pairing (by John Cooper): A red that’s floral and not too sweet, such as Chianti.

 Child Prodigy Cook's Tips

• Set up the rack in or on top of the casserole dish or roasting pan so the duck doesn’t end up sitting in fat. That prevents the meat from confit (cooking in fat) – changes the structure of the meat and makes it fall apart.
• Lollipop the legs – score the skin just above the end of the drumstick and roll it back – to make it look pretty.