time to pick wild garlic, the secret flavor of the undergrowth

The place is kept secret, in the undergrowth of Alsace, and known only to insiders. Cédric Dossmann is a professional plant picker in Bas-Rhin. “By walking, it allows you to select, to see what is beautiful, what is not damaged, what we are going to take”, he explains. Today, he picks wild garlic, a wild plant with a garlicky taste. From March to June, connoisseurs snap it up.

Cédric Dossmann can pick more than 5 kg per day. Back home, he turns into an alchemist. He sorts the flower buds and the leaves, which will then be washed, wrung out and processed. Nothing will be thrown away, not even the bulb or the seed. Wild garlic, once prepared, makes it possible to sublimate products such as butter, sausage or pies. In the spring, it becomes the favorite condiment of great chefs. “As soon as spring arrives, it comes with its little trays, it’s really the pleasure of the beginning of the year”, confides Guillaume Kassel, chef of the restaurant Au Vieux Moulin (Bas-Rhin).