Every spring, the daisy flower bud slips through the fingers of curious people who want to showcase Québec’s vast edible territory. Less salty than the European version of the caper flower – a flagship condiment of Mediterranean cuisine and easily accessible in grocery stores – the daisy bud caper slips even more beautifully into the plates of Quebecers.
Tasted freshly picked, this green pea with a tiger skin is crunchy, peppery and slightly floral, with a delicate bitterness at the end. “It’s really in line with the philosophy of the latest generation of chefs who prefer to showcase local products rather than products that don’t come from here,” explains picker Karyne Guillemette, owner of the company La conserverie sauvage.
“It’s an accessible product that’s not fragile. We have an abundance of it, so why not use it”? Karyne Guillemette, picker and owner of La conserverie sauvage.
Karyne picks the buds one by one before they become flowers. She kneels in the fields very early in the morning and can count almost an hour of work for about 250 ml of buds.
It’s gruelling work that’s worth its weight in gold, as a litre of freshly picked daisy buds can bring her close to $75. For a litre of buds, she invests five hours of work. The woman who works full time as a representative for a seafood distribution company picks mostly out of passion.
“I don’t do it for the money, but for the pleasure I get from being in kind,” she says.
Still, Karyne works closely with renowned gourmet restaurants in the Quebec City area to supply them with wild edible products.
Gastronomic delicacy
Abundantly (and wildly!) available in Québec’s fields, the daisy – from the bud to the leaf to the petals – is considered by the chef of La Tanière restaurant in Québec City to be a key ingredient in Québec’s new culinary identity. François-Emmanuel Nicol works closely with Karyne, who picks custom ingredients for him.
“She gives us access to fresh daisy buds,” he enthuses. A daisy button that has been picked at home by someone we know nearby is luxury on the plate”.
They’re here in abundance, and they’re easy to control. There’s no reason to bring capers from Sicily when you’ve got them here. It just has to become a habit, and the markets will grow around it. François-Emmanuel Nicol, chef co-owner of La Tanière restaurant
To sublimate and respect the product, Chef Nicol uses a maple charcoal barbecue. He sprinkles the buds with a little canola oil and a pinch of salt, then grills them in an iron sieve directly on the embers.
Tasted when freshly picked, this green tiger pea is crisp, peppery and slightly floral, with a delicate bitterness at the end.
Chef Nicol accompanies the buds with a beautiful piece of halibut; a seasonal white-fleshed fish caught on the North Shore that also bears witness to the beauty that abounds in our vast edible territory.
Born by chance 20 years ago
It was during a dinner with friends more than 20 years ago that Gérard Le Gal, co-owner of the company Gourmet Sauvage, in Saint-Faustin-Lac-Carré, invented the daisy bud caper.
His daughter Ariane Paré-Le Gal tells me that her father served a wild meal to friends and was looking for a vegetable to help with it. He saw the daisy buds and thought he would make peas with them. At the service, one of his guests, “Here! Capers! The caper daisy bud was born from then on.
The company has been selling capers of daisy buds in brine for a little over ten years now.
