Strawberry Sumac Cake
In the introduction to this recipe from her cookbook, “Watermelon and Red Birds,” Nicole Taylor notes that cooks in the Mediterranean and the Middle East know the acidic tang of crimson dried powdered sumac as a kitchen staple. Sumac doesn’t get a lot of love in American kitchens, even though edible sumac species grow wild throughout America and are essential in the Indigenous American kitchen. Dr. Cynthia Greenlee wrote about how foraging is back in style for a new generation of Black Americans. If you want to forage for the wild variety of sumac and dry and prepare the spice at home, the fall season is the time to do it. Look for sumac with red berry clusters, such as staghorn sumac. Be sure to avoid berries of any other color, which may be poison sumac.
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