Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) (4 page)

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

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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.
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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.
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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 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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.

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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.
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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.

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LLUSTRATION 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.”

Poke greens: collect tender young shoots of poke six to eight inches high, in the spring. Do not cut below surface of ground as root is poisonous. Wash and cook leaves and stems together, parboiling two times (pouring off water each time after boiling a few minutes). Boil in third water until tender, salting to taste. Drain and top with slices of hard-boiled egg. Or put three tablespoons grease in iron fry pan, add salt. Fry greens. You can scramble three eggs in it, or cook with a streak o’fat and streak o’lean. Or add little spring green onions. Or add pepper sauce or apple vinegar.