When I was a young lad I started back-packing with a friend called Clive. We didn't go far but we did it on a shoe-string, living off the land (or out of the back-doors of restaurants and off the back of lorries when no one was looking) and trying to get by on as little cash as possible. Sometimes kind people gave us things. We usually split up to hitch-hike, agreeing on a meeting place further down the road. Once I got a lift in a lorry delivering Jaffa oranges. The driver gave me about thirty oranges then dropped me off just outside Birmingham on the motorway hard-shoulder, a highly illegal place to be on foot. The police came along just as I was trying to gather up my stash of Jaffas. I had stuffed most of them in my bag but still had so many in my arms that they kept falling and rolling away. I was having difficulty picking them up without dropping more. Just as the the police stopped, the strap on my bag burst and oranges rolled in all directions. It was probably quite a surreal sight. The police thought I had nicked the oranges. 'Why would I be standing on the hard shoulder of a motorway with a load of stolen oranges?' I asked. 'That's what we stopped to find out.' they replied.
Clive and I eventually parted ways for the summer. Girls were involved. Clive went with one to Greece and I went with another to the south of France. We both had great adventures but Clive was the one who discovered this salad. He got a job in a boatyard painting boats and he ate in the local taverna as part of the deal. Actually, he mostly drank in the taverna, but every three drinks or so, the owner put a little plate of food down in front of him. I guess Clive thought he was in heaven. When we met up in the autumn, Clive remarked on this wonderful salad he had on a number of occasions and I remembered it because of the juniper.
This is the only vegetarian dish I have heard of containing juniper apart from gin, which I suppose isn't really a dish, though I assume it really is vegetarian.
I don't think juniper berries are so widely available in the shops. I've never seen them for sale, but my mate Paul, a helicopter pilot I met in Kuwait, used to buy them, so you can get them. He used to make gin from flash, a potent distillation of rice, sugar and water. He would mix the flash 50/50 with water and leave it in a large jar with juniper berries and coriander seeds until the flavours infused into the spirit. Paul would also make bourbon by soaking Jack Daniels oak barbecue chips in the flash and water mix. The gin was bad but the bourbon was disgusting. We drank it all the same.
The next time I saw juniper berries was in the Tien Shan mountains in Central Asia. I picked a handful, dried them out and stashed them in a film canister at the back of my spice cupboard where they were completely forgotten. A year or two later when I found them I remembered Clive's salad and Paul's booze. I decided to go for the salad. I really was surprised by the outcome. The flavours of the olives and juniper compliment each other perfectly.
A bowl of finely shredded hard white cabbage
Half of a small onion, chopped
Half a tin of pitted black olives
Half a teaspoon of dried juniper berries
A tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
A pinch of salt
Chop the olives roughly but not too small - into halves or quarters. Crush the juniper and mix everything together. Serve on a bed of crisp green lettuce leaves.