Three Hops for Hopniss!

Hopniss (ground nut) vine in flower.

It looked just like the pictures. And supposedly, it grows all over the place. And yet I had been unable to find it until I'd gone on this guided foraging walk. Our guide, Russ Cohen, dug a small, roundish tuber out of the ground at the base of the ground-nut vine. The tuber, too, looked just like the pictures.

Hopniss leaves from the vines we found in the parking lot.

Also known as hopniss, ground nuts were a staple food for Native Americans, who shared knowledge of the plant with the Pilgrims and helped them to survive their first winter on this continent. Ground nuts have been compared to potatoes, only they are sweeter, nuttier, and much higher in protein. (To learn more about hopniss, including attempts to commercialize the plant, check out this interesting article by Tamara Dean in Orion Magazine.) Once I'd seen the vines in their natural habitat, it wasn't long before I'd recognized a mass of them at the edge of a parking lot at a large warehouse-type complex where my eldest son and I had gone to collect blackberries. It seemed like hopniss habitat, and I soon spotted the leaves. Then I noticed the attractive pinkish-purple flowers trailing along the ground and hanging among the bushes. This was the first time I'd seen hopniss flowers outside of a book, but they were unmistakable. I poked around in the dirt a little but couldn't easily unearth a tuber with the small spade I had, and anyway, I didn't have permission to dig there (yet).

Hopniss vines are thin, like a delicate yarn.

The next morning on the way to our local produce store, my eldest son and I stopped by the parking lot again, this time with a larger shovel. It was Saturday, and the lot was deserted except for one truck and a car down by the loading dock, where two men were eating at a picnic table. I parked and walked over to them. "I have an odd question for you guys," I began. "Who would I talk to if I wanted to dig up some hopniss vines from the edge of the parking lot?"

Predictably, the first response was, "Some what?" I explained briefly about the hopniss vines -- that they were native plants, that I'd heard you could eat the tubers, that we would only take a few. "Just dig 'em up!" said the man. "They're not landscaped, right? No one wants 'em."

Ideal hopniss habitat. Cattails grow
in shallow water behind this mass
of hopniss vines in flower.

Now, although I'm quite certain he was right, we also established that he only worked for the land owner, whose number could be found at the entrance to the parking lot, where a large billboard advertised rental space. Still, because there was no one else around and because these guys didn't seem to mind, we took our shovel over to the mess of undergrowth along the edge of the parking lot and unearthed a scoop of dirt at the base of a hopniss vine. And there it was! A tuber about the size of a golf ball.

That's actually a sizable hopniss tuber. Most were the size of large marbles. We dug up a handful -- enough to eat a few and plant a few. We walked back over to the men and showed them a vine cutting and a tuber, just in case they were interested. I don't know whether they were, but they listened politely.

Cleaned and peeled hopniss tubers. The tubers exuded a
sticky substance that collected in tiny white droplets all over
the peeled surface. It also stuck to my fingers and,
once it dried, reminded me of rubber cement in the way
it stretched in long strings between my fingers and rolled into
little sticky balls.

Hopniss likes to grow among the roots of other plants, particularly Jerusalem artichokes, which I happen to have in my garden. I planted some of the smaller tubers there. The larger ones I cleaned, peeled, and thinly sliced, then sauteed in a little salt and butter until they were browned and crisp. They were dryer than I expected, but very much like a nutty potato. The flavor supposedly improves after a frost, but the whole family enjoyed this summer version. I'm excited about the culinary potentials of these tubers.

Of course, I carefully documented my hopniss excavation so that I could share it with interested blog readers. I arranged the tubers next to a bit of vine and some flowers and took a picture. I plugged my camera into my computer and transferred the photos -- all but the one of the unearthed tubers, apparently. Then, without double checking the results of my file copying, I deleted the files from my camera.

Hopniss tubers (ground nuts) in hand
with a hopniss vine and flower behind.

And that's how my middle son and I ended up back at the same parking lot to dig some more hopniss this morning. (Incidentally, the same two guys came out to eat their lunch at the picnic table.) Although finding the tubers yesterday had been a piece of cake, this morning we didn't have such good luck. I hope it will be easier when all the undergrowth has died back; hopniss is supposed to taste best if dug after a frost, anyway. Regardless, after a bit of effort I managed to find two small tubers. Then, just out of curiosity, we took a stroll around the edge of the parking lot to see what else might be there.

Unripe apples.

It was an immense lot that completely encircled the large building complex. The hopniss had been growing at the edge of a wet area, where cattails enjoyed the shallow standing water. At the other side of the lot it was drier. Sumac bushes popped out from the tree line here and there, and several trees dangled tiny, green, unripe apples from their branches.

Here I'm showing the underside of a black-cherry
leaf. The upper side, visible on the right, is
shiny. Ripe fruit dangles in the top left corner.
Black cherries often have a rust-colored fuzz right
next to the midvein at the bottom of the underside
of the leaf. You can see the fuzz in this picture;
it's a good identifying characteristic of a black cherry.

There was a black cherry tree, loaded with ripe cherries. Alas, most black cherries don't taste very good, and these were particularly bitter. Last year I did find some cherries with a nice flavor. The skins left a kind of fuzzy feeling in my mouth, but when I simmered them and strained out the skins and pits, the puree, mixed with some blackberries and pin cherries, made a nice jam.

Pokeweed plants forming what looks like a large bush.

There were also some of the largest pokeweed plants I've ever seen. Some had stalks as thick as small tree trunks and had grown taller than I am in order to break out of the undergrowth and get some sunlight. In some places the pokeweed plants had no competition, and there they formed what looked like large bushes out of what was actually many different plants. This would be an excellent place to return to gather shoots in the spring (see my April 27 post for more on pokeweed).

Unripe autuumnberries.

The most prevalent bushes on the non-hopniss side of the lot were autumnberries. Autumnberries are invasive in Massachusetts, so they aren't hard to find. They are one of my middle son's favorite wild fruits, though, so we're always excited to find more of them. The flavor can vary considerably from location to location, too, so it's always nice to taste test from a new group of bushes.The berries on these bushes were in various stages of ripeness. Some were hard, brown, and smaller than the end of a Q-tip. Others were pea sized and somewhere on the way from yellow to orange to red. When ripe, autumnberries are red and soft. All berries are covered with tiny silver speckles (and the undersides of the leaves are coated in silver, as though an artist has painted them a metallic sheen). A few of the berries seemed red enough and soft enough to warrant a taste test, even though it's a bit early in the season. They were passable -- but we didn't reach for a second.

These autumnberries are getting riper. Some are
yellow or even approaching red.

One autumnberry bush provided something much more exciting than its fruit, though. If you have a drum nearby, I think this warrants a drum roll: at the base of an autumnberry bush was what looked almost exactly like a walnut tree. In fact, there were several walnut tees, some old enough to bear nuts, in that part of the parking lot. But this tree, growing at about 3 1/2 feet high, was not a walnut tree. Unlike a walnut tree, it had a well-developed terminal leaflet on each of its leaves. And that could only mean one thing: butternut!

Butternut sapling growing under
an autumnberry bush.

If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that this find was an exciting, breathtaking moment. I won't say it's the culmination of a long search because this tree was much too young to bear any nuts. Someday, I hope to actually taste a butternut. No doubt this will be quite a let down after all the build-up, but the hunt is most of the fun, anyway. If I have to wait for this particular tree to reach maturity, though, I might be in trouble. It looked like it was heading straight for a tangled ceiling of autumnberry branches. Perhaps the trunk will do a little zigzag to get out in the sun. Or perhaps some kind-hearted lover of butternut trees will rescue this one by moving it to a less compettive location (suggestion: my yard would work well).

Butternut trees are being killed by something called the butternut canker, which has reduced butternut populations by as much as 80% in some states. Trees in sunnier locations seem more resistant to the disease. Butternuts are the only known natural host to be killed by the parasite, called Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum, which can survive on dead trunks for up to two years. So, if you know of any butternut trees, take care of them, and plant a few nuts in promising locations every year!

Wapato (arrowhead) leaves with hopniss vines
in front.

After leaving the butternut tree, we had almost completed our tour around the parking lot and were nearly back at our car. As we neared the cattail marsh, more hopniss lay sprawled lazily across the ground; here they had fewer other plants to climb and were left to their own not-so-sturdy devices. I decided to take my shovel into the midst of the hopniss for one last attempt at unearthing more than the two tubers I'd thus far gathered. As I stepped into the vines and brush, a snake slithered away under the grasses. With my eyes, I followed the wave of motion toward the water and spotted some arrow-shaped leaves I immediately recognized as wapato.

Wapato leaf and flowers. Wapato is sometimes confused
with arrow arum, which has a similar leaf shape but different
venation. Arrow arum has a central vein with
shorter veins stemming off of it, whereas all veins on a wapato
leaf originate from a point at the base of the leaf.

Wapato is another tuber, one that usually grows in shallow water or mud. I've never tried one, but it's another plant on my list of desirable finds. Although the tubers are probably the best-known edible part, the young leaf shoots and flower stalks are also edible and, according to Samuel Thayer in The Forager's Harvest, are delicious when boiled. It's past the season for either of those parts now; these wapato plants already had flowers (I understand that later in the season, the yellow center of the flower will give way to a green seed ball). Thayer says the best time to collect the tubers is in the fall, when the plants begin to brown and die. I'll be back at this lot a little later, and I'll give you a report.

Ripe sumac berry cluster.

On our way home, we stopped by another parking lot -- the one where we've collected milkweed, day lilies, wild carrots, evening primrose and, last year, autumn berries. Yesterday after my first hopniss harvest, I had stopped by this lot to see whether the sumac was ripe. I licked a finger and touched one of the red berry clusters, then licked my finger again. An unmistakable tartness told me these berries were ready to be picked. My eldest son and I soon had a plastic grocery bag full of about 20 berry clusters, which we used to make a refreshing pitcher of sumac-ade. In fact, today it is nearly gone, so my middle son and I were now back for more.

Sumac-ade is similar to lemonade
in its tart, fruity flavor.

To make the sumac-ade, I crushed the berry heads in a pitcher of cold water and let them sit for 15 minutes. Hot water releases a bitter chemical from the fruit, so it's important to use cold water. I then added sugar to taste. I had more berry clusters than I needed (12 to 15 seems to be sufficient for the pitcher I have), so I saved the rest. I'll add the sumac we collected this morning to this leftover sumac. I plan to make a sumac concentrate that I can freeze. Later I can add water and enjoy sumac-ade out of season. I can also add some sumac juice to various jams and jellies -- perhaps elderberry or crab apple.

The bag of sumac we collected this morning.
There are two varieties of edible sumac growing here:
smooth sumac and staghorn sumac. Both have showy
red berry clusters that point up. Poison sumac
(which gives you a rash)  has many
distinguishing characteristics, among them its white berries
that often point downward.

Yesterday's was our third pitcher of sumac-ade this year. Well, that's not counting the bark-flavored drink I made from unripe berries that looked so beautifully red that I had to try them, anyway (see my July 9 post). The first ripe sumac I found this year was on one of the Boston Harbor Islands, where we took a friend from Missouri during his recent 2-week stay. The island was covered with blackberries and sumac, but we didn't have any containers with us. We ate berries on the spot and stuffed my eldest son's backpack with as many sumac berry clusters as it would fit. The sumac back home wasn't ripe yet at the time.

Just a week later, I did find ripe sumac under some power lines while I was checking on the hazelnuts also growing there. Sumac is on the Massachusetts list of invasive plants, so if you want to do your part to stop the spread of this weed, drink lots of sumac-ade (but don't put the seeds in your compost). As for hopniss and arrowhead, which are native plants and not invasive, just be sure to leave a few tubers behind when you dig. They'll take advantage of the reduced competition and produce a large crop the following year.