What are capers? An overview of capers, plus a few recipes that showcase their powers.

the take out ^

[mylife]

Capers are salty little flavor bombs that, when they find your fork, create a perfectly balanced bite that pops like fireworks. They’re also the sort of food that we tend not to ask questions about, until one day, apropos of nothing, we suddenly realize we have no idea what capers are. Are they fruits? Vegetables? Something else entirely? It’s the sort of question that causes a person to bolt out of bed in the middle of the night, grab their phone, Google “what are capers,” and find themselves here. So let’s answer this pressing question so you can get back to bed.

What are capers? Capers are tiny flower buds that grow on the spiny, sprawling capparis spinosa bush, aka the caper bush. It grows in places where most plants can’t: cliffs, rocky hillsides, sandy or gravelly soils, etc. These bushes can be found along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, from the Middle East to the Himalayas, across the Pacific Islands, and in the outback of Northern Australia. If growing conditions are harsh, caper bushes find a way.

A brief history of capers Historically, wherever soil is inhospitable to crops, people have needed to figure out how to make edible whatever grows in the area.

From there, capers got famous. They make an appearance in The Epic of Gilgamesh, written on clay tablets in Sumer around 2700 BC. They can be also found in the De materia medica, which confirmed capers were prized in Ancient Greece as both food and medicine, and in Apicius, an ancient Latin “cookbook” compiled in the first century AD.

[Trillian]

My favorite pizza place in Italy had capers on their cheese pizza. It is still the best pizza i’ve ever had in my life.

[mylife]

:)

[mylife]

[ETCM]

Capers can be tasty, but many chefs seem to use them in large quantity on delicately flavored dishes like sole or calamari steaks, where they completely overpower the dish.

[Caipirabob]

Capers are delicious and are used frequently with many Brasilian and by origin Portuguese recipes. The first meal a Brasileira cooked for me was called “Potato Cake”, misleading as it was a Brasilian style Sheppard pie, with meat/sausage sautéed in capers, olives, garlic, onions…etc and then layered between mashed potatoes with feta cheese and other white cheese layered in.

What a flavor!

We now make it for Christmas, the now adult kids beg for it on holidays.

[mewzilla]

I love Ratbert!

[mylife]

Sounds good.

[mylife]

Dogbert Rules!!

[Smellin Salt]

Love capers!

[ConservativeMind]

They are high in quercetin.

[dirtboy]

I make a mean veal piccata.

[verum ago]

:D

Thanks for posting that! I’m traveling right now and only have my phone, and cannot figure out how to get it to show the address of an image so I can throw it in an html img tag.

[mylife]

I hate my phone too! :)

[Scarpetta]

I put them in my fresh salmon cakes along with the remoulade I serve with them.

[Political Junkie Too]

-PJ

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The infamous Claude Cooper copper clapper caper? Who hasn't?

[UnwashedPeasant]

Available at Trader Joe's.

[Exit148]

Add them to potato salad and you will never want potato salad again-— WITHOUT THEM! YUM!

[Mr. K]

Were they copper clappers kept in the closet?

[pingman]

Keto-friendly!