The humble dandelion turns out to be
a superfood and stinging nettles make a premium pizza topping.
Dandelion tart |
You
might not be a master gardener, but odds are you grow one of the world’s
healthiest vegetables in your yard every year. It’s a superfood
that packs more calcium, iron, magnesium, and Vitamins C, B6, E, and K than an
equal amount (by weight) of spinach. And, if you notice this amazing vegetable at all, you probably
get annoyed by its uninvited presence in your lawn.
I’m
talking about the humble dandelion.
Yes, the very weed my dad used to pay me a penny apiece to remove from our lawn when I was a kid. Instead of tossing them out, we should have brought them into the kitchen and had them for dinner.
Stinging nettles |
For
me, the biggest surprise came from stinging nettles. Several years back, I
ordered stinging nettle pizza at a fancy restaurant. It took me a while to
connect the gourmet delicacy I paid top dollar for with the nasty, stinging
weeds I swear at in my garden. Eating them feels like the ultimate revenge for
the stings they cause in the garden. And no, they don’t sting once they are
cooked or dried. But until then, handle them with gloves or tongs.
Lamb's quarter |
Sadly,
we usually overlook this plentiful food source. Even worse, homeowners and
farmers douse these weeds with poisons that pollute our waterways.
So
how do you start taking advantage of the free food that appears in your yard
each spring? Step one is identifying your weeds. The Internet is handy for
this. In addition to dandelions and stinging nettles, some of the most common
edible weeds across the nation are chickweed, plantain, mallow, lamb’s
quarters, purslane, clover, and filaree.
Most
taste best before they flower. An easy way to distinguish dandelions from
similar plants is that dandelions have only one flower per stem whereas many
similar plants have several flowers on each stem. But once you positively
identify a dandelion, learn to recognize its leaves. That way, you can find the
less bitter plants that haven’t flowered yet.
It’s
also good to know if any potential edibles you find have poisonous lookalikes.
Although dandelions have no
poisonous lookalikes,
you might mix up purslane — a delicious green chock full of healthy omega-3s — with poisonous spotted spurge. To tell
the difference, break off a piece of the plant. If a milky sap comes out of the
stem, it isn’t purslane.
Once
you’ve found edible weeds growing in an unpolluted place where you know no one
has sprayed pesticides, all you need are recipes. And there are plenty of those online.
I
like to mix dandelion greens with basil in pesto and use nettles in
tomato-based Italian dishes. I’m waiting for the day when I have enough
dandelion flowers handy to cook up a batch of dandelion fritters.
Fresh,
healthy, organic vegetables can be expensive, but the superfoods we call
“weeds” are free. See what they can do to spruce up your favorite salads.
OtherWords columnist
Jill Richardson is the author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and
What We Can Do to Fix It. OtherWords.org