Edible Paradise

Capers can be found growing wild all over the Mediterranean, extending even to the Sahara. Luckily for us, capers are being grown by a local farmer in Watsonville, and are now available at the Aptos Farmers Market at Belle Farms.

Capers like harsh conditions and are known to grow in drought, rocky and tough terrain. Sounds like my kind of plant. Capers are the unripened flower buds of caper plant. After the buds are harvested, they are dried in the sun, then pickled in vinegar, brine, wine or salt. Curing intensifies their tangy lemony flavor. Caper buds tend to be small in size and green in color and these are what we usually see in lemony sauces for fish. On the other hand, caper “berries” are large like an olive and are also green in color and are pickled with stems attached. Caper berries tend to have a more intense flavor.

Overall, the entire caper plant is edible. The ancient Greeks used the plant and stems to make an herbal tea to treat rheumatism. 

Nutritionally, there’s not too much to the caper: 1 teaspoon of capers is about 2 calories. Capers contain quite a bit of sodium if they have been pickled using a salty brine, so it’s best to rinse them if you are watching your salt intake.