Foraging for Juniper Berries in the Touraine Loire Valley

I used my last juniper berries in a batch of boar bourguignon, but since juniper grows wild on every limestone slope here it is not a problem. Simply go out and pick some more.

European Juniper Juniperus communis, with berries in different stages of maturity.

Juniper has berries at all stages of development all year round, so you can usually find some ripe ones to pick. The best time is autumn though, when a lot of berries are ripe, but haven't been eaten yet by hungry wildlife over winter. Juniper is viciously prickly, so if you are organised you will have remembered to take a bucket and thornproof gloves on your foraging mission (or if you are like me you just stop on the way home from some other errand and pick a few with your bare hands and bad language).

Juniper scrub on the Eperon Barré de Murat. Sheep are traditionally grazed on these steep limestone sites, and juniper is one of the few plants they won't eat, so it proliferates.

You need to pick berries that are black and ideally slightly wrinkled looking. They impart a spicy herby flavour to casseroles and dry salt cures for pork or duck and they are best if crushed a bit to release their flavours before putting in the mix.