It's juniper berry season here in Massachusetts, and that means I've been out foraging, hoping to fill a quart-size zip-lock bag so I can make my annual duck breast pastrami.
I filled a bag last week along a highway on upper Cape Cod, and started to inspect, clean, and wash them one night last week.
The process is somewhat of a pain in the neck, but I finally got all of the stems and leaves and the rest off and placed the berries in a large bowl of cold water to soak for a while before I transferred them to a colander where I could spray them off and begin the drying process.
I've done this at least a dozen times in the past. This time, I was surprised to see hundreds of tiny bugs float to the surface of the water. The bugs had apparently made homes inside the berries, which showed no signs of infestation when I first examined and cleaned them off.
So I drained the water, put the berries in the colander, sprayed them with water for several minutes, and returned them to the bowl which I had refilled with clean water. Again, an army of dead bugs came floating to the surface.
I tossed the berries. I'm NOT going to flavor a few pounds of expensive duck breasts with ground up bugs.
Has anyone else ever encountered this with juniper berries?
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