Cooking with cannabis: Plant opens up a whole new world of culinary creativity

Parsley, sage, rosemary and … cannabis?

A growing number of chefs and home cooks alike are turning to the long-forbidden herb to add unique flavors and feel-good effects to create unconventional dining experiences.

More and more, they are infusing cannabis into their dishes, transforming the potential for what Western New York’s dining scene could be with innovative recipes that combine gourmet flavors and, sometimes, a buzz.

Consumers are already consuming cannabis via food with THC-infused gummies, tinctures and beverages popular in the licensed market.

The state has not yet licensed lounges, where foods prepared with THC can be consumed on-site, but private chefs have operated in a legal gray area for years, preparing decadent, high-inducing meals for private paying customers. Home cooks make their own cannabis-infused ingredients such as honey, butter, olive oil and ghee to be incorporated into recipes for personal consumption without worrying about legal repercussions.

In 2015, when “Hawaii” Mike Salman started his New York City lifestyle cannabis brand Chef for Higher, very few people were talking about the body’s endocannabinoid system, a network of receptors and enzymes that regulate many bodily functions and with which cannabis interacts to affect things like mood, pain and sleep.

“What better way to teach people than through food? How do you tell somebody back in 2015 we have an endocannabinoid system, and most people have no clue what you’re talking about?” Salman said at a cannabis conference held by SUNY Niagara Community College earlier this month.

Salman started to get the message out via his ultra-secret supper club, which served cannabis-infused dinners for $150 per plate. Salman, who had been an editor of The Source and Inked magazines, counted many A-list musicians and athletes among his clients.

The use of cannabis in cooking dates back thousands of years, with evidence of cannabis-infused food and drink in India as early as 1000 BC. Now, it’s making a mainstream comeback.

‘A huge wave of the future’

“Food is gonna be a huge wave of the future,” Salman said. “Everybody eats.”

SUNY Niagara is at the forefront of that wave locally.

Chef Nathan Koscielski, an associate culinary professor at SUNY Niagara, has just finished creating a certificate curriculum at the school that students can complete to specialize in the use of cannabis in cooking. Koscielski has been teaching about culinary cannabis since January 2021 − three months before cannabis was even legal in New York.

The culinary school does not use THC in any of its dishes − the psychoactive component that makes users feel high − but CBD. Though it teaches students how to decarboxylate cannabis into cooking form, students do not work with raw cannabis flower.

Instead, they use CBD isolate − a flavorless, water soluble powder. They also use vials of cannabis-derived terpenes, which are similar to bottles of vanilla. Terpenes are chemical compounds in plants that produce aroma and flavor, and have been linked to medicinal effects. One drop can flavor an entire recipe.

“It’s all about the terpenes,” Koscielski said. “I think that’s where the marriage of cannabis flavor and food are going to go. It’s like understanding how to serve the proper wine with the proper food.”

Koscielski and his family have benefited greatly from the use of cannabis, he said, and he wants to help erase the stigma associated with its use, despite it being legal. He also wants students to understand how to use it properly so they are not afraid of it.

“What hit me really hard when learning about cannabis for the first time is the endocannabinoid system,” he said. “We are all taught when we’re in grade school about our vascular system, our muscular system, our nervous system, our respiratory system. We’re all taught about the digestive system, but the system that we are never taught about in grade school, and that’s all you have inside of you, is the endocannabinoid voice system.”

Just as we’re taught to use our muscles to stay healthy, students should be taught how to use cannabis to keep their endocannabinoid system working properly, he said.

Students who understand the plant, its uses in food and its effects on the body will be ahead of the culinary curve in New York, he said. There’s no indication when the state will begin to issue lounge licenses but, when it does, it has the power to transform Western New York’s culinary scene, he said.

“Being safe and being profitable starts with having the proper education,” Koscielski said.

Beyond brownies

Reena Rampersad owns the Limin Coconut Caribbean restaurant and catering, which has locations across Ontario, including in Niagara Falls and Mississauga. She also has the High Society Supper Club, a cannabis catering and event group. She has been cooking with cannabis for 30 years, she said.

“I grew up with cannabis as part of my background. It’s in my culture. From my earliest memories, I remember seeing my father partaking, my grandmother, you name it,” she said during a cooking demonstration at SUNY Niagara’s Niagara Falls Culinary Institute. “So for me, my involvement in the industry is very personal. We talk about the war on drugs, and I personally have lost a lot of people from the war on drugs in my own circle.”

When she caters a cannabis-infused dinner, she never puts cannabis in the main dishes themselves, just in the sauces.

“So people can choose how much they would like to grab, rather than just putting it in something as a whole,” Rampersad said. She added later, “I really try to make an effort to put control into the hands of the consumer.”

Each course of the meal typically ends up containing 1 to 2 milligrams of THC, she said. She puts out stations containing black pepper or lemon water, which she said can help some people feel less high.

“It is important that you really listen to your body. I’ve had some dinners where people feel peer pressure (to consume more THC) and maybe later on, they’re a little bit quiet,” she said. “You have to allow people to experiment on their own.”

Cannabis chefs often encourage diners to “start low and go slow.”

Necole Hines, a cannabis chef and educator with her company Faded Living based in Vancouver, B.C., said eating and drinking cannabis can be ideal for people who live in apartments or condos, or who otherwise might get flack for the smell that would come along with smoking it.

“There’s still a huge stigma around the plant,” she said. “The whole reason I started Faded Living was to normalize the use of the plant through food, conversation and events.”