From Preservation to Plate

In Spring of 2020, the Food and Beverage team enjoyed an abundant harvest from the Garden, allowing them to prioritize ingredients for preservation projects and experiments. Flowers, sassafras leaves, mushrooms, eggplant and peppers were among the most-used ingredients treated with different approaches to drying, pickling and fermenting. This created an arsenal of preserved elements to enhance dishes and bring a touch of Spring into every season at The Barn.

With their fruitful supply of marigolds, in addition to drying some flowers, The Barn team made five gallons of marigold vinegar, producing a base they could use to turn into a variety of delicious creations. The team made a marigold barbecue sauce, marigold vinegar gastrique that went into a beet salad and a marigold sorbet as a refreshing palate cleanser for dessert. The Beverage team also enjoyed the floral flavor, creating a marigold shrub to use in cocktails. Other dried flowers, like mustard flowers and violas, are beautiful for garnishing a dish with a pop of color.

With their sassafras supply, the team dehydrated some of the young leaves and pickled others. Dried sassafras leaves are a useful and aromatic spice to have on hand for flavor. On foraging explorations, the team found many varieties of mushrooms in smaller batches, so they enjoyed using the same fermentation techniques on different types of mushrooms to experience the flavor range it could offer to their dishes.

To encourage creativity and keep the menu exciting, when the team has prepared a collection of preserved projects, Executive Chef Cassidee Dabney takes her sous chef team into the preservation cooler and assigns each person an ingredient to use. Not only does this mean that preserved items are constantly used in new ways, but it also means they get used all over the menu, from starters to desserts.

These preserved items have found their way into dishes throughout the year, and as we enter a new Spring, the preservation projects will kickstart again with a fresh harvest from this season. Right now, it’s viola season. A tip from Chef Cassidee if you have violas: Make a simple syrup with the flowers and stir it into lemonade – the color change is gorgeous!