SC - Sumac?

[Robyn Probert]

In a message dated 1/17/99 3:01:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
melisant at iafrica.com writes:

<< Could someone please tell me what sumac or sumach is? >>

Sumac is the roots or bark of the Sumac tree. as a culinary ingredient.
Usually it refers to the berries of non-poisonous sumac. These berries are
reddish colored and fuzzy. They grow in tight clumps at the ends of Sumac
branches.

<<none of my cookbooks mention it. >>

That doesn't surprise me.  :-) It is  found most often as an ingredient in
Middle Eastern dishes.

<<The recipe requires you to boil the
 sumac and then cook the lamb in the sumac water - what would this do? >>

One of the modern uses of sumac berries is to make a beverage that tastes very
similar to lemonade. The berries are acidic and produce a liquid which has
been described as lemony. The flavor actually is about as similar to lemons as
rabbit is to chicken. :-)

 <<Is it
 a thickening or binding agent, or is it just for flavour? >>

Flavor. It adds no body to the finished dish. 

A word of caution: if you collect your own sumac berries or bark be very
careful not to collect poison sumac. Although poison sumac looks very
different from edible sumac, there are people who have somehow mistaken the
two. Edible sumac has hairy stems and leaves with tightly clumped hairy red
seed heads. Poison sumac has smooth bark and shiny leaves and the smooth
berries are born in very loose racemes and are a different color. Edible sumac
is available at any good middle eastern grocersand, rarely, at health food
stores.
 
 <<yours in culinary curiosity,
 Melisant >>

Yours in Service to the Dream,

Ras
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