Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) Read online

Teresa Tyler with asparagus.

  Asparagus is a cultivated vegetable that frequently escapes and runs wild along roadsides or in old fields, or persists around old farm sites. The mature plant looks like a miniature evergreen, with needle-like, finely appressed leaves. Small yellow lily-like blossoms appear on the ends of the branches followed by bright red berries containing the seeds. These seeds in ancient times were sometimes roasted as a coffee substitute.

  The edible part of asparagus is a green-purple, thick shoot, used before the leaves or branches appear. Pliny the Elder urged eating them for good health, and they are equally valuable for good nutrition today.

  Asparagus is most flavorsome if cooked immediately after it is gathered. A favored potherb, it should always be cooked in as short a time and with as little water as possible. Add butter, or hard-boiled egg and serve on cornbread, or add vinegar and olive oil, salt and pepper, and put on parsley or chives, if desired.

  Wild onion (Allium cernuum) (family Liliaceae)

  (nodding wild onion)

  This is a small plant with grass-like leaves, but with a strong onion odor. It grows in colonies in grassy places, usually in open fields or low spots. This wild onion has a nodding flower head with white, cream, or bright rose-colored flowers. If often forms top bulbs.

  Meadow onion (Allium canadense)

  (meadow shallot, meadow garlic)

  A small plant, the meadow onion measures eight to twenty-four inches high, with flattened, grass-like leaves and star-shaped white flowers. It also forms top bulbs. The whole plant has a strong onion odor. It is found in meadows and open woods.

  ILLUSTRATION 8 Allium canadense (meadow onion, left) and Allium cernuum (wild onion, right).

  The young leaves, bulbs, and top bulbs of both of these wild onions are edible, and can be used in the recipes, either separately or combined. Leaves and bulbs can be used to flavor soups, or top bulbs can be pickled.

  Wild onion sauce: gather wild onions and cress. Chop fine. Mix with vinegar and a little sugar. Let stand several days before using.

  Pickled onions: gather the little onions that form on the flowers. Put in jar and cover with vinegar. Add spoonful of sugar. Let stand several days before using.*

  Fried onions: cut wild onions in pieces, dip in flour, fry in fat until brown.

  Ramps (Allium tricoccum) (family Liliaceae)

  (wild leeks)

  Ramps grow to twelve inches high, with broad, lily-like leaves. They grow from a small, strong-scented bulb. After the leaves die down, stalks of greenish-yellow flowers appear. Ramps grow in rich woods, ravines and coves, usually under maple. There is a great deal of disagreement as to their tastiness; it seems people either love them or hate them. One gentleman said, “They’s not for ladies or those who court them.”

  ILLUSTRATION 9 Lake Stiles took us into the forest in search of ramps, found some, dug them with a hoe he had brought, and cleaned one off for us to try.

  Maude Shope said, “Ramps, well to tell you the truth, I’ve never been where they’ve growed. They grow out here in these mountains. But I’ve seen them; they’ve been brought here, a kind of onion-natured thing, or garlic. A lot of people in the spring of the year, they go crazy for a mess of ramps.” And Harv Reid told us, “It is a sort of wild onion. They just grow around in certain places. It is sorta’ dark where they grow, like around the little streams where they come down. They grow up just like this little ol’onion they call multiplier onion. We used to gather them when we used to live back up yonder. They is plenty of them here.”

  In a discussion on ramps:

  Mrs. Norton: “I never could stand’em. I never did gather’em. There was plenty of wild onions in there just a mile off, but you can boil’em and they just nearly make you sick they’re so strong. They say ramps is lots worse.”

  Mr. Pennington: “I’ve had ramps from North Carolina; a friend brought me some down one time and we ate’em for about a week. I like’em.”

  Mrs. Norton: “Yeah, lots of people just love’em. They go ramp-hunting every spring.”

  Mr. Pennington: “You know they have a festival up here for them; it’s a big deal up here.”

  Mrs. Norton: “Everybody goes out in the spring of the year and hunts in these coves for ramps. Now you can smell’em all over here.”

  Fried ramps: parboil three minutes, drain, throw water away, add more water, cook until tender, drain. Season in frying pan with melted butter. Serve covered with bread crumbs. Or fry in grease along with tuna fish and/or eggs, or add potatoes, salt, pepper for flavor. Clifford Connor says, “Most important, go into solitary in the woods somewheres, stay for two or three weeks, because nobody can stand your breath after you’ve eat’em.”

  Ramp soup: cut one pound of beef in small pieces, add salt and water, and boil. Skim. Add ramps, carrots, and potatoes cut in small pieces. Take out meat and eat separately. Put vegetables through sieve and serve hot. Or cook beef or venison and add celery leaves, bay leaves, three cloves, and thirty-six ramps. Take meat out and serve separately. Lift out ramps and serve broth with rice. Or add fried ramps to beef stock. Season with black pepper and serve.

  Ramp salad: chop up young leaves into tiny bits. Eat raw, or cook and add vinegar when ready to eat. Or add a little to any salad; or chop fine, parboil, drain and cool, and mix with mayonnaise and serve with trout.

  You can also add one-half cup chopped fine to mashed potatoes just before serving.

  Wild garlic (Allium vineale) (family Liliaceae)

  (wild onion)

  Wild garlic is common in fields, along roadsides, and in lawns, where it emits a strong odor when being cut. Leaves are slender, round, and hollow. The wild garlic seldom flowers but when it does it has pale pink or white flowers. Stems usually set top bulbs. This is an evil-smelling weed, troublesome in pastures where it causes the cows to give garlic-flavored milk.

  ILLUSTRATION 10 Kenny Runion pulls a wild garlic and shows the students how to clean it.

  All parts of wild garlic are edible, and said to be very good for you, especially to ward off germs. If used at all, a little bit goes a very long way. Gather tops in winter or very early spring when young and tender.

  Seasoning: wild garlic can be used fresh. It is sliced and put in with food, especially meats, while they are cooking. To preserve, dry the bulbs, powder, and store in closed container. Or grind the garlic and mix with salt. Very powerful!

  Garlic vinegar: peel garlic bulbs. Stand in one pint vinegar for ten to fourteen days, tightly covered.

  Nettles (Urtica dioica, U. chamaedryoides) (family Urticaceae)

  Both species of nettle are very similar, with minor botanical differences such as numbers of stinging hairs. Both are rather coarse plants, growing to three feet tall, in rich woodland coves or along streams and river bottoms. Stems are hollow, ringed with sharp, needle-like hairs. Leaves are oval, toothed, and opposite on the stems. Greenish flowers appear in the leaf axils.

  ILLUSTRATION 11 Nettles: Urtica dioica (left) and Urtica chamaedryoides (right).

  The stinging hairs can cause a painful smarting, followed by a red rash. Nettles were once used to cure scurvy, to treat gout and ague, and for the “stings of venemous insects.” Nettle greens are rich in vitamins A and C, very high in protein, and make delicious greens. They must be gathered with stout gloves. Repeated cookings, pouring off the water each time, washes away the stinging hairs.

  Nettle soup: gather plants in early spring. Cook a long time to destroy the sting. Strain through colander. Add milk, chopped onion, and black pepper. Or pull nettles out of ground. Cut pinkish shoots that grow below surface. Cook in soup. Thicken with butter, flour, and two egg yolks. Season with salt and pepper. Also add shoots to chicken soup.*

  Baked nettles: cook nettles a long time. Strain off liquid. Chop fine. Add ground beef, rice, and seasoning. Bake at low heat until firm.

  Dock (Rumex crispa) (family Polygonaceae)

  (pike plant, curled dock, yellow dock, white dock)

>   Dock is a common weed that grows in fields, yards, and around barns. It is about knee-high, and has leaves six to eight inches long. Leaves have crinkled edges. Flowers appear in a green spike in May and June, followed by seeds that turn dark brown and look like tobacco.

  ILLUSTRATION 12 Dock

  The closely related patience dock (R. patientia) and the speckled dock (R. obtusifolius) are common in waste places. Patience dock has reddish, or red-veined leaves, while speckled dock has narrow, spotted leaves. Swamp dock (R. verticillatus) is found in very wet, swampy places. The leaves of all dock species are edible when very young and tender. They are very rich in vitamins A and C. The long yellow roots of dock are used for medicine, boiled into tea and used as a bitter tonic. Dock greens eaten in spring will thin and purify the blood. Cooked with meat, dock leaves are said to make the meat cook more rapidly. Seeds can be munched for a snack.

  Greens: leaves of dock are sometimes cooked by themselves, but more often in combination with other leaves, such as horseradish, mustard, or turnip greens. Wash thoroughly. Parboil until leaves turn a lighter green. Pour off water, wash two or three times. Then either fry in hot grease and salt for three to five minutes, or bring to a boil in fresh water, season and serve.

  Hot greens on toast: to one pint of cooked dock, add one tablespoon chopped onion, two tablespoons horseradish, and one cup sour cream or a little vinegar. Season with salt and pepper. Serve on toast and top with fried bacon.*

  Stewed dock: to several cups of cooked dock, add two cups tomatoes, and onions browned in fat. Simmer and serve. Top with cheese, if desired.

  Dock soup: cook young leaves, drain off water and strain. Add milk, onion, butter, and two tablespoons flour. Cook slowly one-half hour.

  Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella) (family Polygonaceae)

  (sour grass, sour dock, redtop, sourweed)

  I LLUSTRATION 13 Sheep sorrel

  Sheep sorrel is a common weed of fields and roadsides, with reddish stems from six inches to two feet tall, and creeping roots. The leaves are arrow-shaped and often red-tinged. Flowers and seeds appear in reddish spikes. Pale sheep sorrel (R. hastatulus) with pale green leaves and pale pink flower heads is common along roadsides in the Piedmont. Sheep sorrel leaves were once used to bind up boils or carbuncles. Leaves are edible and rich in vitamin C but should be used sparingly after they are more than several inches long. Sorrel leaves are used as a potherb, as a sauce, and mixed with other greens in salads.

  Sorrel soup: one pound bruised leaves, one-fourth cup butter or margarine, two egg yolks, dash of salt and pepper, one-half cup chopped onion, one cup cream, three cups chicken broth. Chop sorrel and onion together (or ramps, if available), simmer in butter until wilted, add eggs and cream. Bring to a quick boil. Serve.*

  Or dice three potatoes and one onion. Fry lightly in fat. Chop one handful of sorrel, lamb’s quarters, and creases. Combine. Cover with water, simmer until potatoes are soft. Put through sieve. Add salt, pepper, and milk. Heat and serve.

  Or wash sorrel leaves, cover with water, simmer thirty minutes. Strain. Add milk, chopped onion, butter, and flour. Serve hot.

  Sorrel omelet: wash and dry young leaves. Chop fine. Add to eggs, with some onion. When omelet is cooked, sprinkle more fresh sorrel leaves on top.*

  Sorrel sauce: cut leaves fine. Steep in vinegar, drain, mix with melted butter. Serve on fish, scrambled eggs, or potato salad.

  Sorrel stuffing: chop sorrel. Mix with crumbled cornbread, salt and pepper. Stuff large fish. Bake until tender.

  Rhubarb (Rheum rhaponticum) (family Polygonaceae)

  (pieplant)

  Rhubarb is a cultivated plant that will persist for years around old house or garden sites. It has ribbed stems, red or bright green in color, topped by large, broad, deep green leaves. Leaves are said to be poisonous. Flowers are white in terminal racemes. The stalks are gathered in early spring and cooked into sauce, or used for pies or conserves.

  A dried rhubarb root on a string around your neck will ward off the stomach ache.

  Sauce: peel the bark off the stalk; cut it up and stew it like applesauce with sugar.

  ILLUSTRATION 14 Rhubarb

  Rhubarb pie: cut stalks just above ground. Slice into half-inch pieces. Cook with a little water over low heat in uncovered pan, stirring often, until rhubarb is the consistency of applesauce. Sweeten with honey or syrup. Layer in large flat-bottomed pan with half inch of rhubarb sauce, layer of split biscuits, layer of rhubarb, etc., finishing with layer of biscuits. Chill and eat with milk or cream.

  Pan dowdy: combine rhubarb sauce with crumbled, left-over white or yellow cake. Place in pan and bake slowly at low heat. Nuts or raisins can be added.

  Turk’s delight: gather rhubarb flowers. Soak one-half hour in salt water, drain and dry. Dip in batter and fry in hot fat. Drain. Dip in sugar and eat hot.

  Rhubarb jelly: Wash and slice three pounds rhubarb. Add one cup water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer ten minutes. Strain through cheesecloth. Add three pounds of sugar (about seven cups) and bring to a rolling boil. Add one bottle liquid pectin. Cook, stirring, one more minute. Pour in glasses. Jelly should harden in three to four hours.

  Pigweed (Amaranthus hybridus) (family Amaranthaceae)

  (red-root pigweed, careless weed, soldier weed, wild beets)

  ILLUSTRATION 15 Pigweed

  Pigweed is an annual, one to eight feet tall, found in waste places everywhere. Like most of our common weeds, it is a native of Europe. Opposite, oval leaves are often tinged with red, and stems and roots are bright red. Flowers and seeds appear in a green spike. Green pigweed (A. viridis) and spiny amaranth (A. spinosus) are also common in waste places. Green pigweed has green stems and roots, and spiny amaranth has spines at the bases of the leaves. Pigweed has a very mild flavor. Young leaves of pigweed are delicious cooked alone, or mixed with stronger mustardy greens. Wash, cook lightly, drain, and add butter, salt, pepper, and a dash of vinegar. Or cook like turnip greens with fatback. In ancient times, pigweed seeds were gathered and cooked into mush, or sprinkled on rolls instead of poppy seeds.

  Lamb’s quarters (Chenopodium album) (family Chenopodiaceae) (goosefoot, pigweed, wild spinach, fat-hen, frost-blight, baconweed, white goosefoot, mealweed, meldweed)

  This is a two-to-six-foot annual weed, a native of Europe, common in waste places. Stems are succulent and ridged, sometimes red or purplish in color. Leaves are scalloped and frosted blue-green, or rarely red-tinged. Flowers are greenish and insignificant.

  Good king henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus), also known as blitum, smiddy, or markery, is sometimes cultivated as a potherb, and has become naturalized in many places. It is very similar to lamb’s quarters in appearance, but reddish in color. Leaves are very mealy.

  ILLUSTRATION 16 Lamb’s quarters

  Young leaves of lamb’s quarters are used as greens, and as someone said, “If they think it’s spinach, they think it’s good.” It is very similar to spinach in texture and taste, and like spinach very rich in iron and potassium. The whole plant can be used if it is under six inches high, or just the leaves picked from older plants. In Europe at one time, seeds were ground into meal, or used on top of rolls.

  Lamb’s quarter greens: cook in a little water. Drain off water and cover with white sauce made of flour, milk, salt, and pepper. Add lemon and butter, or bacon bits and vinegar, if preferred. Or gather one gallon greens (lamb’s quarters and dock), wash and boil for ten minutes. Drain and add one cup water and four tablespoons grease. Cook covered until tender. If preferred, cook with a streak of fat and streak of lean.

  Baked lamb’s quarters: cook, drain, chop fine. Put in baking dish, top with egg and grated cheese. Cook until cheese is melted.*

  Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) (family Phytolaccaceae)

  (poke sallet, gorget, pigeonberry, cancer jalap, inkberry, scoke)

  Pokeweed is a large, handsome plant, a native American, that grows to eight feet tall in disturbed soil. Stems are large
, often red-tinged. The narrow, alternate leaves may be red-tinged. Drooping white flowers are followed by shiny, wine-red berries on bright red stems.

  ILLUSTRATION 17 Poke, young (left). Poke, mature (right).

  ALTHOUGH THE BERRIES LOOK VERY PRETTY, THEY ARE SAID TO BE POISONOUS AND SHOULD NOT BE EATEN. Pokeweed shoots are edible when very young and tender but should be avoided when stems become red and plant is over a foot high. Berries were once used for ink or dye. ROOTS ARE ALSO POISONOUS AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED.

  Poke shoots resemble asparagus. They are probably eaten more frequently than any other wild food in the mountain area. Dr. Neville said to be sure to eat at least one mess of poke each spring. It was “worth all the medicine you could buy. Don’t eat poke sallet raw; if you do, you’ll get poisoned. The antidote is to drink lots of vinegar which will kill the poison, and eat about a pound of lard. Poke sallet eaten in the spring revives the blood.”

  Dr. Dover said, “Anybody that gets sick from eating poke, I’ll treat them free.”

  Mrs. Carrie Dixon said, “Poke sallet is the best spring tonic you can find. My ma used to send us young’uns looking for it as soon as the frogs started croaking in spring.”

  Poke is rich in iron and vitamin C. Pansey Slappey writes that “it is rich in iron from the red clay of Georgia, but also has phosphorous and other minerals.”

  Mrs. John Hopper doesn’t like poke. “It’s just not one of those things that I eat. People’ll tell you without a seasoning it’ll kill you, but it won’t do it, ’cause Miss Hambidge never eats seasoning on anything and she eats it. It ain’t never killed her. The berries won’t kill ya either but I wouldn’t advise ya just to eat’em. I seen a woman whip her little kid because it wet the bed, and they told her to make it eat ten pokeberries every day for ten days, but I don’t know what success she had. I’m not whipping anybody and making them eat pokeberries.”