Sweet Delight

Quick pickled springtime Maple blossoms

We live on the top of a fairly high ridge in West Seattle, which is surmounted by a line of huge big leaf maples (Acer macrophyllum), each one hundreds of feet tall. They’re striking, and creak in the wind, and generally fantastic to have so close by. Bigleaf maple is one of my favorite plant allies — it provides us with shade in summer, garden fertility in autumn when the leaves fall and can be mulched for application in the spring, and an ample network of branches to shelter the squirrels and crows that entertain us.

Every year, around this time, they are covered with what must be hundreds of thousands of cute little yellow-green flowers:

They come away quite loosely if you can find a fallen branch or one hanging low enough to the ground, and are slightly sweet to the taste. Each cluster of blossoms has about thirty tiny flowers covered in yellow pollen (the same kind that has burrowed into my sinuses and produces regular explosive sneezles). A good few also have soft, underdeveloped leaves that will soon grow into the six-inch wide monsters that give the tree its name.

All maple flowers can be eaten; different species have different flavor profiles. The entire flower cluster is edible; the flavor is somewhat like honeysuckle crossed with the tiny inner leaves of the artichoke. They have a slight astringency– almost a “gaminess”– that adds depth to the taste.

You can saute them, add them to stir-fries, or directly to salads, but I’ve found that the nicest way to preserve their flavor and add a sharp crunch to maple blossoms is a quick pickling.

Pack a handful or two into whatever jar you have around. Add a teaspoon of salt and a handful of Sichuan peppercorns, or regular peppercorns, or whatever floats your boat in the spice department. Cover them with apple cider vinegar and let them hang out overnight or for a week or so.

It’s an ephemeral preparation; the window for gathering maple blossoms is maybe two weeks or so and then they’re gone, either littering the ground or transforming into dry speckles, having expended their qualities as distributors of Fullness and retreated back into the Acer soul for another year. You have to be sensitive to the rhythms of your local biosphere to take advantage of this gift.

A simple meal or snack of pickled maple blossoms and deviled eggs is, essentially, springtime on a plate, a celebration of fertility that satiates the soul as well as the palate.