Cathlapotle Plankhouse March 2021

Do You Like Sweets???

Do you like SweeTARTS? I do. I really, really do. Anyone who knows me well is more than aware of my ever-present sweet tooth. And SweeTARTS are one of my absolute favorite candies. For me they are the epitome of a flavorful treat. I love the crunchy punch of sour cutting through the almost too sweet sugariness.

This craving for the combined sensations of sweet and bitter is not new, not by a long shot. Cross-culturally humans have combined these seemingly opposing flavors for a pleasing treat worldwide. While traveling abroad have you enjoyed a particularly refreshing gelato or a uniquely indulgent custard fruit tart? No matter where I travel, I seek out this tangy combo. Central America? I want to find a bag of quenepas ASAP. Italy? Tangy gelatos please! Raiding my daughter’s Halloween stash? Sprees, Nerds, and the pinnacle SweeTARTS are all mine. Keep your sticky milk chocolate, kid.

However, here at home nothing really beats Cranberries for a sweet-sour treat. Except, perhaps, the small and humble fruit of the Oregon grape.

This month I invite you to take a new look at this evergreen shrub found all over in public parks and green spaces across the greater Vancouver/Portland Metro area. Originating in the northwestern portion of the North American continent, Mahonia is present throughout the Pacific Northwest- from the coastal evergreen forests to interior deciduous oaken woodlands. Whether it be the tall shiny Mahonia aquifolium and the shorter dull variety Mahonia nervosa found west of the Cascades, or the even lower groundcover Mahonia repens that appears on the eastern side of the Cascade Range, variants of Oregon grape produce a lasting lush display. Prized by urban landscapers and city planners, Oregon grape offers year-round greenery with the added benefit of seasonal color changes.

In a regular year, early spring new leaves begin to appear on most terminal ends of the Oregon grape branches. This new growth is a bright yellow-green and the sharp points of the still-tender leaves can be easily crushed with an ungloved hand. The budding greenery provides fresh food for deer after the long winter, and a distraction for hungry ungulates that may be seeking out early berries. The sacrifice of spring leaves to the deer results in an elegant balance that protects the closed flower buds hiding below each cluster of leaves. As the flower buds develop, the leaves harden and offer spiny protection for the developing flowers below. The deer get a spring snack and Mahonia will produce fruits to seed another year.

A few weeks later, clusters of showy yellow fluorescence burst forth from under the now darkened and sharply pointed leaves. Offering a bold vermillion color statement from May onward, Mahonia welcomes in pollinators for a late spring buffet. Oregon grape offers a great opportunity to bee watch during this season. Often you can find numerous species of bees among the flowers, humming along quite peacefully, with no need to bother one another. Additionally, the bright golden blossoms offer a teasing clue to the dyes gathered from this Plant Family member.

By late summer, the flowers have transformed into offerings of dusky clusters of deep purple fruits, a sign that berry gathering season is well underway. Unlike most other regional berries, Oregon grape’s fruits are best gathered later in gathering season, with some Indigenous populations feeling that the first frost adds to the flavor of the berries, and they can be gathered through late fall into early winter.

Historically, these tart fruits were frequently added to dried berry cakes across the northwest. Drying the berries preserved them for future use and the style of the cakes allowed for the storage of significant quantities of food that would be available for the leaner winter months. Additionally, the berry cakes were a lightweight, easily transportable trade good.  A variety of berries went into these types of cakes. Each Indigenous group’s cakes would be defined by the berries that each group had access to. Salmonberry, wandering blackberry, thimbleberry, wild raspberry, woodland, coastal, and blue-leaf strawberries, salal, and others could all be used for ingredients. Oregon grape’s sharpness added a contrasting flavor to the sweeter fruits of the region.

Mahonia’s roots have long been utilized by Northwest Indigenous Peoples in the preparation of a dye that leaves fibers with a golden yellow hue. In a region where basketry designs and patterns are handed down through generations, access to critical resources that provide cultural continuity is critical. Imagine the care and labor that it took to tend a stand of Oregon grape for both its fruits and roots, ensuring that you don’t over-collect the seeds so that there is always a Plant Family member present. This also ensures that gathering materials for dye-making and fiber crafts did not deliver permanent lasting damage to the bushes themselves.

However, sweet and tangy treats in the PNW were not limited to dried mixed-berry cakes of the interior woodlands. It’s worth noting that Oregon grape’s territory overlaps the range of another Plant Family member that contributes to the sour-sweet foodie offerings of the landscape, the cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon). Today, cranberry bogs along the lower Columbia River are surviving reminders of how deeply Indigenous culture underpins large-scale contemporary agriculture exports from the Pacific Northwest. Personally, childhood trips to the Coast were never without a trip to a seaside chocolatier to get my teenage sugar-overload on- by consuming my weight in white chocolate cranberry hazelnut fudge. Further north, in what are now known as the San Juan Islands, a popular treat was literally whipped up on the beaches. Northern Salish communities created a dessert by frothing flaked red or purple laver (Porphyra abbotae i.e. seaweed) flakes and cranberries together. Essentially it was a whipped sorbet dessert minus the dairy. Who needs Pinterest to advise you to add sparkling soda to your Jell-O, when you’ve got great recipes like this?

Interested in a closer look?

Don’t forget to check out Habitat Restoration Technician Emily Lane’s blog this month as she recounts our salvage work in recovering Oregon grape roots for use in making Indigenous fiber dyes.

Interested in further resources for Pacific Norwest flora?

Here are my current top three identification guides. All three are available in water-resistant additions to help with hiking out and about it our lovely temperate rain forests. Please feel free to email me your favorite plant id guides as well!

Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples by Nancy J. Turner

Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast: Washington, Oregon, British Columbia & Alaska by Jim Pojar and Andy MacKinnon

Trees & Shrubs of Washington by C.P. Lyons

Interested in Volunteering?

Please keep a lookout here and on social media as we move forward with ways to get volunteers back out on the landscape in a safe and responsible manner. Major projects on the spring horizon include hand pulling of non-native species in the field south of the Plankhouse, and tending the hill between Duck Lake and the House, with additional projects being brought online soon after.