Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) (3 page)

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.

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.

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

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.”

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LLUSTRATION 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 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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.

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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.
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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 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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.
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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.