Junipers

"No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, November!" (Thomas Hood).

Don't get lost in the woods right now. It's cold and there's nothing much to eat. No matter the weather, we can rely upon the exuberant and generous Juniper to gift us with at least a spicy condiment.

Common and Rocky Mountain Junipers are native to the Inland Northwest. As their habitat is now wheat fields, we look to the unwitting, ornamental landscape for our forage. Junipers are an evergreen shrub (or tree) varying in size, shape, and color, yet somehow retaining a quintessential "juniper-ness." Around our towns I have spotted both tall and short, blue-grey, lacey Junipers (Blue Pfitzers or Juniperus Chinensis Pfitzeriana 'Glauca' as Huckleberry calls them) as well as deep urgent green, short 'Tam' Junipers. These plants are on almost every corner. Most Junipers have edible "berries" with one exception: the unpalatable One Seed Juniper. This tree-like, bluish landscape Juniper looks a little like an arborvitae. If you are at all unfamiliar with spotting and identifying Junipers, please consult your expert: person or book. If the berries on an evergreen, needle-leafed shrub are red, it is a Yew and could cause a gruesome death.

Having indubitably identified your Juniper, you will want to identify it's "sex". Juniper "berries" grow, of course, only on female plants. The males have pathetic little brown/green cones. The females have round reproductive organs called "berries" which are actually fleshy cones with a grey bloom. You will notice small, purple, second-year berries and larger, green, first-year berries. Reassuringly, both are fine for culinary use.

I look for a good, weedy base around the plant, or spider mite webs, hoping they are evidence that pesti/herbi-cides have not been applied recently. I avoid the creeping Junipers as they look like great targets for territorial dogs.

Once found, what is it that we do with Juniper berries? In my house, I dry them in the oven on less than low for several hours, until they look like peppercorns. Then I put them in my spice grinder and use it just like pepper, just for the thrill.

"Why would you want a pepper substitute?" you ask.

Answer: It's local. It has no colonial history. It has more complex flavors than pepper. As I gather and prepare it, I feel connected to tens of thousands of years of human foraging and food preparation history. I get to meet some wonderful plants. And I'm madly in love with it. That's why.

I recommend using a little bit at first, until you get used to it. I adore it in mustard-tamari salad dressing, vinaigrette coleslaw, cheesy noodles, homey lentil soup, borscht (with dandelion roots), and in an apple, carmelized onion, and cabbage soup.

You can use them fresh, crushed or whole. Put fresh, whole berries in while cooking and removing them later, as with a bay leaf.

Junipers are included in Wild Berries of the West (Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2001) despite the fact that Junipers produce fleshy cones, not berries. The authors, Betty R. Derig and Margaret C. Fuller, remind us that Junipers flavor jin. Oil of Juniper is toxic and the berries are not to be eaten in large quantities.

Without giving us any specific preparation advice, Derig and Fuller inform us that the Nez Perce, among others, treated colds, coughs, headaches and the flu with Juniper tea. Some tribes treated sinus congestion by inserting a juniper twig in a pierced septum. The aromatic smoke of burning Juniper was used by many tribes to cleanse and purify a home. The Hopi would hold a child over the smoke of burning Juniper until it was cured of naughtiness, supposedly. Either we're doing it wrong here, or it's just a myth.

Junipers were also used as a green dye, a writing tool, diapers (ouch!), rope, necklaces, a talisman against evil, love-charm flutes, contraception, abortion, to start labor, and to ward off bad baby dreams.

In addition, I found a Twister Juniper to be an extremely useful focal point during labor with my daughter, who was then named after it: Blue Juniper.

In this month of Thanksgiving, I will be giving thanks for the spicy beauty of the Juniper, a generous shrub, bestowing upon us berries and greenery in a time when both are scarce. Also, I am thankful to not be lost in the woods.