Day 15: Japanese knotweed in milk chocolate



Japanese knotweed, Reynoutria japonica

There is much written about this plant – a very invasive non-native; it was brought to Europe from Japan in the mid 19th century, and admired because it looked a little like bamboo.  It is now despised by many, but the foraging world loves it as it is delicious, and the herbalists are exploring the use the roots for a remedy for Lyme’s disease.  Care needs to be taken when harvesting – it is an offence to cause this plant to spread; any part of the plant is thought to be able to propagate – so it is important when gathering to take everything you cut or break from the plant away with you and burn whatever you do not use (and on no account compost it!).

The young softer shoots are the sought after part – pink tender stems that can be cooked like rhubarb and have a rich fruit flavour.  Syrups, flavoured alcohols – all work well.  Mark Williams at Galloway Wild Foods summarises the knotty situation with this plant really well - re invasiveness vs usefulness, accompanied by brilliant recipes and cocktail suggestions, so if you want to know more, take a look at his website:

http://www.gallowaywildfoods.com/japanese-knotweed-identification-distribution-edibility/ 

For this chocolate we have crystalised the stems in sugar (the syrup that is produced in this process is very useful too), and ground some of them into the chocolate, and then added small bits whole to give the chocolate bar a little bit of texture.  The chocolate we have used is Chocolate Tree's Guatemala 50% milk chocolate, and the fruity Japanese knotweed flavours work really well with the chocolate


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