photo: wide eyed lib
Later this week we’ll mark the Summer Solstice, when the sun turns from its annual march toward the north and the days start getting shorter. The first day of summer, when our Victory Gardens start producing real food, the swimming hole looks very inviting, and families start heading for the hills to enjoy cool nights and summer fun.
If you live somewhere outside the inner city – or are just planning a vacation somewhere near the fields and forests, there are some wild foods you may wish to try that are now at the peak of their flavor and nutritional value. In addition to other installments here on wild and/or otherwise free foods [], knowing something about how to obtain necessary nutrition when available never hurt anybody.
First off, those of us who live south of the Mason-Dixon line are only too familiar with an introduced Japanese legume so invasive that it’s taken over 12,000 square miles of territory. We call it Kudzu, and it’s everywhere. It was introduced by the railroads to control erosion on steep banks, and quickly overtook everything in its path. It grows a foot a day, covering hillsides, fields, forests and telephone poles, abandoned houses and cars, and even (as is a joke around here) late-sleeping campers and slow-moving cows.
Kudzu is a soil-enriching, fine compost producing legume that could be very high quality animal feed if it weren’t a vine that binds almost every machine that could possibly harvest it. Goats love it and will keep it under tight control, but fire just makes it meaner. Its deep taproots provide a medicinal and nutritional starch and its pretty wisteria-like flowers make a nice jelly. But it’s the high-protein leaves that are most useful as food. If you harvest, take the smaller, new leaves at the ends of vines. They’re very tender, so steaming is much better than boiling. They make a tasty mess of greens to go with corbread. They aren’t particularly tasty steamed, but flavor is much improved by simmering about 5 minutes in broth. We like kudzu much better than poke, which has to be cooked twice and is as mushy as spinach, not nearly as tasty as collards, kale or turnip greens. But it’ll definitely keep you going, has more protein and vital nutrients than most any other wild green you could cook, and nobody will ever miss the leaves you gather.
If you harvest roots, roast them like potatoes, slice or cube them for stews. They’ll pick up the flavors of the other ingredients. The dandelions are pretty tough and bitter by now, but are still an excellent source of nutrients and can be mixed into stews or pot-greens with that are not bitter and things will even out. Other wild greens are best eaten raw, as in salads or added atop a sandwich. And many of these are more packed with nutrients than anything that grows in a domesticated garden. The delicate foliage of sourgrass doesn’t stand up to cooking at all, I usually just pick a bunch as I’m walking or gardening and consume it leaves, flowers and stems immediately. the bright yellow-flowering garlic mustard leaves and flowers make a spicy addition to salads as well, and they’re everywhere.
Purslane, chickweed and lamb’s quarters are all great in salads, as are the buds and flowers of day lily. I slice the buds for salads, but they’re also good dipped in beer batter and light-fried like squash blossoms. Another edible flower is Lady’s thumb (redshank, pictured above), and these grow in dense stands to make it easy to pick quite a lot in one place. Another flower that can add color and substance to salads is nasturtium, and the younger leaves are delicious raw as well. don’t be afraid of those now-tall and seeding wild onions/garlics either, just be aware that they’re strong so you don’t need that many. Dandelion flowers are always good, and if you happen upon a thicket of blooming wild roses (white or pink), pop off some and add the petals to your salad.
Summer fruits are beginning to ripen now as well, and these are always a treat. Elderberries, blackberries, blueberries and such can be encountered almost anywhere out in the country. Elderberries need to be made into pie or jam, but black and blue berries seldom make it back to the kitchen before getting eaten. If they do, cobbler is easy to make and a summer favorite around here.
Check out wide eyed lib’s series on foraging if you want more info, and as always, be absolutely sure you’ve got the right plant before you eat it. Now that the abundant season is upon us, take advantage of some of nature’s offerings!