At the end of the year, when the petals have long since withered off the roses, bright red berries emerge where the flowers once were. They remain through the fall and in the winter, their color peeking out through snow and frost. Birds and other animals eat them in the winter; so can you.
Seasonal Spotlight: Rose Hips
Rose hips are basically the enlarged ovaries of the rose flowers. They're particularly high in vitamin C, and can be used to make wine, tea, soup, and jam. Rose hips have more antioxidants than blueberries and contain a lot of iron as well.
If you want to pick your own rose hips, select bushes that have not been sprayed with pesticides. Pick the berries after the first frost. If they are soft and mushy, do not eat them. Never bring them in contact with metal pans or utensils unless they are stainless steel. Always remove the seeds before consuming; they are coated with tough hairs that we cannot digest, and when passed through the system, give us what the Aborigines call "itchy bottom disease." The French call rose hips "gratte-cul," which means "butt scratch." You get the picture.
Here are some recipes to try:
Rose Hip Jelly
Rose Hip Soup
Rose Hip Crumble Pie
Caramel Apple Tart with Rose Hip Puree
Rose Hip Puree
(Image: Riana Lagarde)
Comments (8)
The Kitchn Weekly Email
Top Posts
Top Recipes
Top Kitchen Tours
Links
- A Chicken In Every Granny Cart
- iron stef
- greengelato
- Habeas Brulee
- Pip in the city
- Birdseye Chili
- Erin Cooks
- Gourmet Project
- Last Night’s Dinner
- The Kitchen Designer - Journal
- Cookbook Catchall
- Eating the Garden
- Sara Hohn - Food… Brooklyn & Beyond
- iron stef
- Food Noob
- ...my burning kitchen...
- Janet Is Hungry
- Project Me!
- erin's kitchen
- Kitchen Adventures - Vox
- My Vegetable Blog
- Home Sweet Homewrecker
- Urban Girl's Almanac
- Cooked Books
- Superspark
- cucina nicolina
- Brownie Points
- Confabulation in the Kitchen
- My Husband Hates Veggies
- American Madness
- nylon diner
- how to eat like a bird
- 64 sq ft kitchen
- A Question of Taste
- NY Times Dining & Wine
- Epicurious
- Slow Food USA
- The Cook's Thesaurus
- The Groovy Mind
Copyright © 2008 Apartment Therapy
While summering in Alaska one year, I spent all morning harvesting and 3 hours de-seeding 3 cups wild rose hips for a pie.
Fresh wild blueberry and raspberry cobbler was much simpler, but the rose hip pie was tasty and though rather sweet, a fun venture....
view VeryDelishVeg's profile
Excellent! Sounds like a great foraging project.
It's funny how some names stick. They could have called them fuzzy rose flowers or something like that. I thought the French were civilized? ;-)
view art's profile
What do the seeds look like? More info would be interesting
view SydneyBristow's profile
Are there places that sell them? I'd love to make rose hip jelly just for kicks but I don't have any roses.
view Tiamat_the_Red's profile
In Denmark (maybe elsewhere too), you can buy the most awesome rosehip jam called Hyben. Apparently, it's also a folk remedy for arthritis.
view mikeinkansascity's profile
Tiamat, if you can't find fresh ones, google "buy rosehips" - dried ones work fine.
Sydney - the seeds look like this:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/YGLNews/images/seeds.jpg
view Kathryn Hill's profile
SydneyBristow: The seeds are on the inside, they are kind of small but you can't miss them.
I've only ever tried them in teas, but I think that they would be good in these other recipes. I will have to give it a try when I feel more ambitious.
view idiotdogbrain's profile
art,
The French have an inane fixation on all things butt- and excrement-related. So much slang incorporates references to one or the other.
There's even a French-Canadian dessert called "pets des soeurs", or nun's farts. I believe they're essentially cinnamon beignets.
view Michelle of Montreal's profile