Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Rowan along with all the Rowan containing recipes presented on this site, with 7 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Rowan recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Rowan as a major wild food ingredient.

The Rowan tree, Sorbus aucuparia are deciduous trees of the Rosaceae (rose) family They are native throughout the cool temperate regions of the northern hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in the mountains of western China and the Himalaya, where a number of microspecies are found.

For the most part, rowans are small deciduous trees some 10–20 m tall. The leaves are arranged alternately, and are pinnate, with 11-35 leaflets. The flowers are borne in dense corymbs; each flower is creamy white, and 5-10 mm across with five petals. The fruit is a small pome 4-8 mm diameter, bright orange or red in most species, but pink, yellow or white in some Asian species. The fruit are soft and juicy, which makes them a very good food for birds, particularly waxwings and thrushes, which then distribute the rowan seeds in their droppings.

Perhaps the best known species is the Europeam Rowan, Sorbus aucuparia and is a tradtional wild food both in Britain and Scandinavia. Rowan berries make an excellent (if slightly bitter) jelly and is traditionally used as an accompaniment to game. The berries can also be made into jams or preserves (either on their own or with other fruit such as apples, and blackberries). Note that Rowan berries are very bitter and you will need to add both sugar and salt to balance this. Much of this bitterness is caused by the compound sorbic acid. You should also note that raw Rowan berries also contain sorbic acid's precursor parasorbic acid. This causes indigestion and in high doses it can lead to kidney damage. However, heat treatment converts parasorbic acid to the benign sorbic acid. Thus if you have cooked the fruit in some manner they are entirely safe to eat. Freezing also helps in this conversion process so if you collect the fruit immediately after the first frost and then freeze them before preparation this will also help reduce the levels of parasorbic acid in the fruit.

Rowan's importance as a winter food and due to its importance in Celtic, Anglo–Saxon and Norse mythos has led to a large number of common (and local) names for the tree that include: Delight of the eye (Luisliu), Mountain ash, Quickbane, Quickbeam, Quicken (tree), Quickenbeam, Ran tree, Roan tree, Roden-quicken, Roden-quicken-royan, Round wood, Royne tree, Rune tree, Sorb apple, Thor's helper, Whispering tree, Whitty, Wicken-tree, Wiggin, Wiggy, Wiky, Witch wood, Witchbane, Witchen, Witchen tree. In Gaelic it is known as: Rudha-an (the redd one) and in Welsh it is cerddinen (the song treee, due to its use in harp making).