Mention the word “marijuana,” or better yet pull out your stash, and the first thought that springs to most stoners’ minds is rolling a joint, packing a pipe, toking a bowl, hitting a bong, or putting a flame to some other smoking accessory. But it wasn’t always that way.
Ancient people almost exclusively ate their cannabis, saving seeds for food, and using the resinous flowers for medicinal, recreational, and spiritual use. One of the oldest recipes for cannabis-infused sustenance comes to us from India. Called bhang, this legendary cocktail of cannabis, milk, almonds, and garam masala adds a potent punch to a Hindu religious festival called Holi, celebrated each spring in honor of the cannabis-loving deity Lord Shiva (see Shiva’s Sativa Bhang). Meanwhile, One Thousand and One Nights, the classic text of ninth-century Islamic literature, includes a story about two hashish eaters—a practice gratefully emulated by Paris’s legendary Club des Hachichins of the nineteenth century, which saw Baudelaire, Dumas, and other leading lights of French literary society mixing their hashish into coffee for a truly inspiring elixir.
In the Western world, cannabis tinctures, which dissolve the plant’s active ingredients into an alcohol solution, would remain widely available in pharmacies until the late 1800s, offered over the counter as a treatment for melancholia, pain, stomach cramps, and other common maladies. But the concept of smoking pot didn’t become fashionable in the United States until early in the twentieth century, when migrating Mexican workers introduced the practice to the Southwest, and traveling jazz musicians subsequently spread it to the rest of the continent.
So while smoking herb boasts a long and impressive pedigree in the modern world, never forget that eating cannabis is a hallowed human tradition that’s literally older than history. Understanding Cannabis sativa as simply another nourishing, healing, helpful flower is key to removing much of the fear and misunderstanding heaped upon a hapless public and a largely harmless plant by decades of government propaganda.
Pot brownies, a mainstay of counterculture cuisine since the 1950s, remain the most common way modern people first ingest cannabis. Usually these “dope desserts” arrive as a rite of passage—eaten with your stoner circle in order to enhance summer concerts, 3-D sci-fi movies, camping trips, or backyard “potlucks.” Senior citizen and tireless activist Brownie Mary earned the ganja brownie new respect in 1992, after her third arrest for distributing her famous chocolate medicinals to AIDS patients in San Francisco made her a cause célèbre for the early medical marijuana movement (see recipe).
In the ‘60s and ‘70s, the food revolution became a part of the general countercultural lifestyle, as hippies went vegetarian and investigated ethnic foods previously unheard of in the United States, such as tofu and seaweed, falafel and hummus, curries and lentils, burritos and arepas. More than anything, they sought something authentic to eat in a country quickly surrendering its culinary heritage in favor of fast food and plastic-wrapped, frozen, prepackaged TV dinners. And while the unfair stereotype of stoners as junk food junkies persists to this day, the fact remains that counterculture cuisine championed by ganja-loving hippies and health foodies has provided a parallel food movement based on good nutrition and organic farming that our increasingly unhealthy society sorely needs. Indeed, the emergence of the local-food movement and embrace of seasonal, sustainable cooking by chefs nationwide owes its roots to a hippie sensibility that’s green in all senses of the word.
In 1996, the historic passage of California’s Proposition 215 effectively legalized medical marijuana in California, opening the door for more and more people to realize the benefits of eating their stash instead of smoking it, which include preserving the health of the respiratory system, reducing the smell of pot smoke on hands and clothes, and the ability to discreetly medicate in many places where smoking would be inappropriate—not to mention illegal. Cannabis also produces profoundly different effects when ingested through the digestive system, rather than absorbed by the lungs, with most users reporting a longer-lasting experience that provides a high for both the body and mind.
So why has the humble brownie remained so popular, when cannabis can be infused into any food or drink that contains butter or oil? Partly it has to do with “tradition,” but perhaps it’s also because chocolate very effectively covers up the flavor of marijuana, rendering it more palatable for those who are unaccustomed to the taste. Hopefully, as marijuana becomes popular as simply another culinary herb, we’ll see increased appreciation for its unique flavor profile and cease attempting to hide it.
Cannabis as a whole plant is extremely versatile as an ingredient. Lately, the medical marijuana “edibles” industry has been the key to moving beyond brownies, expanding our pot palates astronomically, as creative canna-chefs in a now competitive field have infused the herb into just about any dish you can imagine. You can find prepared, herb-infused salad dressings, savory dips, powdered drinks, sodas, smoothies, baked goods, and sweets in many dispensaries, not to mention topical lotions, massage oils, and soaps using cannabis as an active healing ingredient.
The newly emerging medical cannabis edibles industry is a recent phenomenon, but hemp foods and body-care products have been a mainstay in many health food stores for decades. Hemp and cannabis are related plants but different in a few important ways. Hemp contains little to no detectable THC, and so it is not psychoactive in any form. But while hemp intrinsically lacks the chemicals that make humans euphoric, it still contains many healthful amino acids and antioxidants. Hemp also contains cannabidiol (CBD), an important cannabinoid with many medicinal effects. Hemp flour, oil, protein powder, seeds, and milk are staples of a healthy diet. Natural food companies have started using hemp seeds and flour in frozen waffles, granola bars, breakfast cereal, and other food items.
Hemp can also be found as an ingredient in many soaps, lotions, and balms, while the fibers of the plant create durable paper and textiles. Even though hemp is the sober botanical cousin to cannabis, growing a hemp crop in the United States is still illegal due to the misguided war on marijuana, and so America continues to import hemp from Canada and China to use for food and clothing.
Recently, the archetype of “stoner chef” has gained traction in pop culture, and when you watch these cannabis-friendly cooks ply their trade, it becomes pretty obvious that they find their inspiration by taking breaks from the heat in the kitchen to go outside and spark up a jay. And why not? Cannabis is a sensual enhancer that fits seamlessly into the foodie lifestyle, heightening the entire experience, from selecting produce to cooking, plating, and eating (and maybe even washing the dishes).
But what is stoner cuisine? The mainstream media would jeer that it’s nonstop gorging on low-quality snack foods like cheesy poofs, potato chips, and candy bars, but in reality these stoner chefs most often express themselves by reimagining traditional foods and fusing formerly foreign flavors together in new, fun ways. Sometimes stoner cuisine is simply stuff you eat only when you’re stoned (grilled Nutella and banana panini), but at the highest level, it’s really about the recipes that are created while stoned, including unusual food combinations that sound strange at first but then turn out to be wonderful.
In The Official High Times Cannabis Cookbook, we’ve attempted to present all facets of this new “stoner-style cuisine,” a lifestyle that balances healthy choices like raw juice and meatless meals with occasional decadence in the form of melted cheese and rich desserts. Since marijuana is “the healing of the nations,” all manner of ethnic recipes have been adopted as our own, such as Time-Warp Tamales and Psychedelic Spanakopita. And of course, we’ve infused all these dishes with a little bit of cannabis essence.
Measure your dosage, and your intake, carefully when making or serving pot treats.
Medical marijuana patients use “medibles” for a variety of reasons. Some patients need to avoid smoke, while for others, it’s simply another tool to use to treat chronic pain, insomnia, wasting syndrome, nausea, or seizures. People dealing with serious health issues often need a higher dose of cannabinoids, and so we sometimes recommend two dosing levels, one for medical patients and another for recreational consumers.
The primary psychoactive components of cannabis are fat-soluble, meaning the molecules that produce highness bind onto any sort of lipid, including whole milk; butter; cream; or coconut, olive, or vegetable oil. In these “phatty” forms, THC and other cannabinoids can most easily absorb into the bloodstream, thus providing you with the strongest possible psychoactive effect from your stash. It also means you should never, ever, simply add your precious cannabis directly into some brownie mix and call it a day. Without binding the THC to a fat molecule in a compound like cannabutter (see recipe), most of the effect will be lost, leading to wasted time, wasted herb, and bunk brownies.
The key chemical reaction involved in doing it right takes place when cannabis is combined with your chosen fat and heated at a low temperature (122°F–145°F) for no less than twenty minutes, and ideally up to an hour or more, stirring often. Long-held hippie wisdom dictates simmering the butter or oil for up to eight hours, but this is difficult to accomplish without a Crock-Pot. Anyway, after sixty minutes you can rest assured that most of the THC molecules will have left the plant matter and migrated to the butter or oil. The process is called “decarboxylation,” which describes a chemical reaction that converts non-psychoactive THC acid found in the raw plant into psychoactive THC. Cooking cannabis over high heat for too long will degrade the THC, hurting potency, which makes using a double boiler or Crock-Pot vital.
After you’ve infused your butter or oil, strain it carefully to discard all the cannabis fiber and particulate matter—it’s no good for anything but compost. Cannabis fiber in the form of fresh raw leaf or crispy cooked leaf will irritate sensitive stomachs and may be difficult to digest due to microscopic hairs on the surface of the leaf called cystoliths.
The biggest difference between eating pot and smoking it is the intensity and type of high that results. Eating cannabis brings on a more physical sensation, or “body high,” which soothes sore muscles, eases pain, aids relaxation, and fights insomnia, while providing feelings of warmth and pleasant tingling. Edibles can also produce a powerfully psychedelic euphoria, which can last far longer than the typical high from smoking.
Always keep in mind that everyone’s tolerance is different, and individuals respond to ingesting cannabis in different ways. Usually, you will not feel any results immediately after eating cannabis, since it needs to be digested to take effect, a process that can take anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours depending on how much you ingest, and whether it’s on a full or empty stomach. So start with a small serving and do not eat any more pot food for at least an hour after the first serving.
Those who’ve eaten too much cannabis may feel panicky, anxious, agoraphobic, uncoordinated, or on the verge of a total “freak-out.” Fear of “losing it entirely” has also been reported. Should this happen to you, retreat to a safe place to lie down, dim the lights, breathe deeply, drink plenty of fluids, eat non-pot food, and distract yourself by listening to your favorite music or watching a movie you like. Most probably, you’ll end up napping, and in a few hours all the uncomfortable feelings will have subsided.
Keep in mind that it is humanly impossible to fatally overdose on cannabis, even if you’ve just eaten an entire birthday cake frosted with cannabis buttercream. It’s estimated that the amount of THC required to cause a fatal overdose would be four million milligrams, or about nine pounds of pure hashish—and you definitely didn’t eat nearly that much, or you wouldn’t be able to read this sentence.
Always clearly label and securely store cannabutter or pot foods to avoid accidental ingestion by a roommate, family member, neighbor, or pet. And never feed anyone cannabis without their knowledge, since this could result in a very unpleasant experience or even a potentially dangerous one! Do not drive or operate heavy machinery after eating pot foods.
If your pet accidentally eats a cannabis edible or a bud and is acting strangely, contact your veterinarian immediately, though they will very likely recover just fine once the effect wears off. And remember, cannabis isn’t fatal to pets, but chocolate can be, so if your dog scarfs down a brownie, respond quickly and seek a vet’s help right away.
Marijuana can be easily divided into two subspecies (indica and sativa), with countless genetic variations called strains. Each individual strain, whether indica or sativa, has unique properties that affect its psychoactive and therapeutic properties. For our purposes, any strain of cannabis bred and grown for smoking will also work for making edibles. Extremely potent varieties should be used with caution, and perhaps reserved for smoking, since the active ingredients can just as easily be extracted from less prized (and less expensive) varieties.
Cannabis sativa is the equatorial form of the plant, bred in the tropics to reach heights above ten feet tall. Sativas take a long time to mature and produce small, wispy buds. This combination of a long growing season and a low yield makes cultivating purebred sativas impractical for most growers, which is a shame. Sativa plants have a higher THC-to-CBD ratio than indica plants, producing a high that’s energetic, creative, and daytime-appropriate. CBD, one of the many cannabinoids found in the plant, has a confounding effect on THC, balancing the psychoactive effect and inhibiting the high.
The indica species originated high in the Kush mountains of Afghanistan, where a short growing season and high altitude resulted in a more compact shrub of a plant. Indicas contain a higher ratio of CBD-to-THC levels, producing an effect that’s sedative and relaxing, perfect for a nightcap.
Almost all modern cannabis is a hybrid combining both sativa and indica characteristics, so it’s important to research the genetic backgrounds of individual strains you’re cooking with, especially if you’d like your pot foods to have a specific medicinal effect. Scientific analysis of the cannabinoid profiles of different strains has so far been largely stymied by prohibition, but visionary medical cannabis dispensaries in California and Colorado have recently begun testing their cannabis with gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to discover which cannabinoids are most effective at treating different maladies.
The same laboratory techniques that reveal the different genetic profiles of various cannabis strains can also examine their chemical composition. No matter what the variety, marijuana contains more than four hundred active compounds (called cannabinoids), the most well-known being THC. These cannabinoids are the subject of much excitement and groundbreaking research in the United States and abroad.
The latest buzz in the medical marijuana community involves emerging evidence that CBD has identifiable medicinal properties, including cancer-fighting ability, immune system support, and anti-inflammatory powers. CBD also mitigates the psychoactive effects of THC, taking the edge off the high and reportedly lessening the anxiety that can accompany large doses.
Since marijuana rich in CBD doesn’t get a smoker as high, generations of bud breeders have, over time, selected plants with increasingly smaller amounts. As a result, CBD has been virtually bred out of modern marijuana, a process that Project CBD is attempting to reverse. Thousands of samples from dispensaries have been analyzed as part of the ongoing project, a handful of which have been identified as having CBD levels high enough to serve as the building block for a new generation of CBD-rich strains.
Terpenes are a group of chemicals found in plants that determine smell and flavor, among other things. Different terpenes give cannabis strains their distinctive aromas. For example, if your ganja smells like citrus, it is because of a terpene called limonene, also found naturally in lemon peels. Rich, ripe, fruity aromas emanating from your bag of herb come from a terpene called myrcene, also found in lemongrass and mangoes. Hints of pine needles come courtesy of terpenes alpha- and beta-pinene, also naturally present in rosemary. Peppery-tasting marijuana contains sabinene, a terpene also found in tea tree oil. Mint-flavored cannabis has alpha-phellandrene.
This field of knowledge should expand considerably in the coming years, as chefs learn to pair different strains of cannabis with specific foods. The possibilities are dazzling: for example, pairing a Haze strain rich in sabinene and myrcene with foods containing the same terpenes, such as a Thai-style soup with mango and lemongrass (like Tom Yum Ganja). Savory dishes like rosemary roasted potatoes would sing with the addition of cannabutter from a strain containing pinene. And naturally you’d have to finish up with a chocolate dessert infused with a minty cannabis strain high in alpha-phellandrene.
The entire cannabis plant is suitable for cooking, but the various parts vary widely in potency, flavor, and efficiency. For all you freegan stoners who abhor wasting any part of the plant, there are recipes out there utilizing hoarded stems, trimmed leaves, and scraped-out pipe resin (gross!), while on the other end of the stoner spectrum, well-heeled heads will likely get hedonistic and choose to cook with connoisseur-quality cannabis flowers or sifted trichomes. Either way, never forget to mind your dosage carefully.
In general, if you have access to trimmed leaves, such as the large fan leaves or smaller “sugar” leaves trimmed from the cannabis plant just after harvest, this material will prove the most affordable and efficient way to include cannabis in your cuisine. If you don’t have any pot leaves, then the powdery “shake” from the bottom of a stash jar will work best without breaking your bud budget.
When a recipe calls for commercial-grade cannabis, this simply means a medium-quality type of bud. Much commercial-grade cannabis comes from Canada and is also called Beasters—a slang term for B.C. bud. The lowest grade of cannabis is referred to as schwag, and this is typically compressed, imported Mexican brick weed. Either of these types is suitable for cooking.
The many methods of making hash are beyond the scope of this book, but the most popular way today is to use a cold water extraction. Water hash is created by immersing leafy trim or cannabis buds into icy cold water, then agitating it with an electric mixer. The oily trichomes break off, and the water is then filtered through a series of mesh bags which collect the trichomes in increasingly finer grades. The wet mess of trichomes is then dried on cardboard or a screen. This unpressed hash is very useful in a variety of recipes, and when we call for unpressed food-grade hash, we mean the trichomes from the largest micron bags. This is the coarsest grade of hash.
No matter what kind of kind bud you’re cooking with, begin by shredding, chopping, or grinding your buds or dried leaves as finely as possible. A coffee grinder reserved especially for this purpose works well, or you can use a simple herb grinder or a sharp pair of scissors.
The science of edible cannabis is in its infancy, so stoner chefs use anecdotal evidence to gauge the effectiveness of their recipes. One common question is, which type of fat is best to use when cooking cannabis: saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated? Most underground food chemists believe that the bigger the fatty acid chain, the better, and so saturated fats are believed to create the most potent pot foods. Saturated fats are often solid at room temperature and usually come from animal products, such as beef fat, lard, butter, and cheese, but tropical oils such as coconut oil and palm oil are also saturated fats, as is cocoa butter. Many chefs feel that THC is most soluble in saturated fats, giving their savory dishes and baked confections a more potent punch. However, too much saturated fat is considered unhealthy and should be used in moderation, since it can raise your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol.
Unsaturated fats of the poly- and mono- varieties have gained popularity in cannabis cooking as more healthful alternatives and include olive, canola, avocado, safflower, sesame, and sunflower oil. Olive oil has a particularly large oleic acid molecule that may help THC dissolve, and so it is a fine choice as a base ingredient for cannabis infusions. If using margarine, seek out a high-quality, non-hydrogenated brand from the health food store.
Along with any type of fat, cannabis is also soluble in alcohol, vinegar, and glycerin. When using butter, choose salted butter for simmering on the stove top, and unsalted butter for baking or for use at low temperatures.
Given all the different ways to make cannabis-infused foods, and the literally unlimited forms and varieties of cannabis available to work with, you’ll obviously need to plan your dosage carefully, not to mention test each new batch under controlled conditions before sharing with your friends.
Start by assessing the potency of your secret ingredient before calculating the ratio of cannabis to butter you’ll need to use in a recipe. Just five to ten grams of the best hashish made from a highly potent strain is enough to thoroughly infuse a pound of butter, but if you’re using low-potency trimmed leaves, you’ll need two ounces or more of leaf to equally infuse the same amount of butter. Dried cannabis buds or shake fall somewhere in between, with a good rule of thumb being about an ounce of pot to a pound of butter.
If you’re fortunate enough to have access to a consistent supply of cannabis, a little trial and error will let you dial in the appropriate dosage. For best results, make the biggest batch of “budder” possible, and store it in the freezer. This will help you to maintain a consistent dosage from one recipe to the next.
If a recipe you’d like to make calls for a larger amount of infused butter or oil than you deem wise, simply dilute the potency of the cannabutter from your freezer by adding non-infused “straight” butter. Keep in mind that medical patients may need a more potent dosage than the rest of us, depending on their condition.
While you won’t get high, freshly harvested cannabis buds can also be used to make food, as in the infamous story of a Jamaican goatherd, related to me by an old man from the island. As a boy, Padi told me, he lived in the Blue Mountains, near some Rastas whom his parents had warned him to stay away from. One day, he snuck up into the hills to spy on the Rastas and was surprised to see an old man, who by the length of his dreads must have been seventy or eighty years old, nimbly chasing after goats on a hillside.
Padi greeted the Rasta, saying, “Old man, how you run after dem goats all day?” The Rasta replied with this simple recipe: “Wake up in the morning, you milk the goat. Take the milk, put it in a pot, and add two handfuls of fresh ganja. Let it simmer, then take a tin cup, dip it in, and drink from that all day.”
When Padi, now an old man himself, related that story, he didn’t know why or how that ganja-infused goat milk could help keep an old man so spry, but recent scientific studies have confirmed the youth-retaining properties of not only fresh, raw goat’s milk, but also of cannabis, which is anti-inflammatory. Important acidic cannabinoids such as THC acid and CBD acid are found in raw cannabis, and these acidic cannabinoids are destroyed at high temperatures.
If you are using fresh cannabis buds or leaves to cook with, be prepared for an unpleasant “grassy” taste that results from the breakdown of chlorophyll. If you’d like to avoid this, then dry your fresh buds or leaves by hanging them upside down in a dark, cool, well-ventilated space for a few days. While curing buds in glass jars results in a smoother, tastier smoke, this is unnecessary for cooking ingredients.
Or you can always just go get a goat, and do like the old Rasta told you.
For the basic recipes in Chapter 1, you’ll need a heavy saucepan or frying pan. Avoid aluminum and Teflon-coated cookware whenever possible in favor of cast iron or stainless steel. A double boiler is also very helpful, and if you don’t have one handy, it’s really just a matter of finding one pot that will nest inside another, so that you can boil water in the lower level as a way to precisely and evenly heat the butter or oil in the upper level. Also, find a glass or Pyrex measuring cup and a metal fine-mesh strainer. Don’t use a plastic strainer, as hot oil may melt it. Finally, it’s helpful to have a coffee grinder or blender dedicated to breaking up your cannabis, but scissors or a hand grinder will suffice. And you’ll also want a precise scale for measuring your valuable hash, buds, or leaves.
Crock-Pots prove very useful when making large batches of cannabutter, as well as for several other recipes in this book, and can be found cheaply at garage sales nationwide. Blenders, food processors, juicers, and ice-cream makers are also fun kitchen toys that can be picked up easily on the secondhand market. Other basic kitchen utensils you’ll need include measuring spoons, spatula, ladle, wooden spoons, mixing bowls, baking pans, cheesecloth, and a meat thermometer for cooking food safely. A candy thermometer is essential for making caramels and hard candies. If you don’t have these things, better find a bud-loving buddy who does and invite yourself over for a “bake-off.”