Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) (6 page)

This mustard is very similar to white mustard, but the leaves are smooth and covered with a bloom. Flowers are bright yellow. The leaves are edible when young.

An annual weed, charlock grows to two feet high and is naturalized in waste places. Leaves are yellow-green, rough, coarsely toothed, and are very strong smelling. Bright yellow flowers are followed by hairy pods. The leaves are edible and rich in vitamin C.

Greens: parboil greens, drain, and cook again. When you cook mustard, the secret is to add some sugar to a big pot of greens to take out the bitterness. Add chopped onion, salt and pepper, or bits of fatback and grease. Another favorite recipe for mustard is to take three large ham hocks; two chopped medium onions; one quart water; three pounds greens; three tablespoons bacon fat; one teaspoon salt; one-fourth teaspoon red pepper flakes; and freshly ground black pepper. Boil the hocks and onions slowly for over an hour. Chop greens in small pieces; add to ham hocks; add seasonings; cover and simmer one hour until greens are tender. Then serve with cornbread.

Mustard buds: gather buds just before they open. Cook, drain, serve with sauce made of prepared mustard and mayonnaise. (Tastes like broccoli.)

Prepared mustard: grind mature mustard seeds; mix with flour, water, and vinegar. Serve with meat or fish.

Flavoring: add tiny young mustard leaves to sandwiches, or put in deviled eggs.

Mustard flowers: gather newly opened blooms. Cook in boiling water. Remove from heat, add butter or bacon fat.

Mustard-ramp soup: clean and wash leaves. Heat one quart milk, almost to boiling. Meanwhile melt bacon fat in skillet, add chopped ramps, cook until brown. Add salt, pepper, flour, and mustard. Cook five minutes. Add milk and simmer.

Water cress is a perennial, introduced from Europe and naturalized in cold, limestone-based streams. Stems grow to ten inches and recline weakly. The dark green leaves are small and scalloped and very pungent to taste or smell; they are often used raw in salads to give a
spicy, tangy flavor. Small white flowers appear in April and May. The whole plant is rich in iron and vitamins A, B, and C, and is prized for salads, sandwiches, or soups. Raw cress, chopped fine, mixed with mayonnaise and served on whole wheat bread, makes delicious sandwiches.

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LLUSTRATION 24
Dean Beasley with a clump of water cress she has just picked out of a nearby stream for noonday salad.

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LLUSTRATION 25
Horseradish

Horseradish, native to Europe, is planted in gardens, but it also persists around old house sites, or naturalizes in rich ground. It has large, rather crinkled roots, somewhat like those of dock, but pungently flavored and odorous. Flowers appear in midsummer on high branched stalks. The deep, white, very pungent roots are edible, and supposed to be an excellent spring tonic. They were once used for dyspepsia, rheumatism, scurvy, and hoarseness, made into a tea of one teaspoon ground roots to one cup of boiling water. Eating horseradish is a spur to digestion. It is also supposed to expel kidney stones.

Some people say the young leaves are edible; others say that they are not good to eat. They are extremely pungent and could probably be used only when very young and tender.

Relish: dig roots in early spring. Grate and cover with vinegar. A little salt and pepper may be added, or a touch of sugar. Beets may be added for color. Dill seeds or honey may be added if desired.

Horseradish sauce: three tablespoons butter, one tablespoon flour, one and one-half cups boiling beef stock and horseradish to taste are mixed together until smooth. Serve over meat or fish.

Mix very young leaves with purslane or pigweed. The liquid makes good pot liquor with corn pone.

Food preservation: “It looks quite a bit like mustard, but the roots are as hot as any red pepper you ever saw. You know, we didn’t have a lot of refrigerators to keep things in back then. They’d get it and wash it and slice it up and put it in pickles to keep them from having
that mold that comes over the top of them when they set” (Mrs. Selvin Hopper).

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LLUSTRATION 26
Jake Waldroop with a clump of young creases from his cornfield.

This cress grows to two feet high in damp ground, along streams, and in old fields. It is a common weed naturalized from Europe. Dark green, divided, basal leaves appear in late fall, and can be gathered all winter. In late spring the plant has a stalk of bright yellow, four-petaled flowers. Seed pods are one inch long, slender and slightly curved.

This plant was named for St. Barbara’s Day, December 4, for one could gather the green leaves from December on. The leaves are sharp-tasting, very like water cress, and can be cooked or used raw in salads. The Barbareas are sometimes cultivated under the name “upland cress.”

Mrs. Norton told us, “They bloom yeller all over a cornfield, that’s creases. They have the same seed on them as mustard.” The root is a tiny bulb but Ethel Corn says, “That part ain’t fit to eat.”

Greens: pick, wash, and boil in water with piece of fat meat until tender, cooking slowly. Or parboil them. Take out of water and put in frying pan with grease. Fry five minutes with a little salt. Pick more greens than you think you need, as they shrink. Serve with vinegar or dill pickles, or cook and season as you would spinach. When greens are older, cook in two waters, throwing cooking water away. Aunt Arie Carpenter likes to put in a piece of middlin’ meat in the morning to boil. Boil that for at least two hours, or as long as it takes to get it tender. Take the grease off the meat; add it to a pot of water and bring to a boil. Add cleaned creases and boil for thirty minutes. Mustard may be done the same way.

Cress salad: toss together lightly, two cups finely cut creases, one-fourth teaspoon salt, one tablespoon salad oil, one tablespoon salad oil, one tablespoon vinegar, one tablespoon French dressing. Or chop young leaves, mix with sliced radishes, oil, and vinegar.

Sandwiches: add chopped cress leaves and peppergrass seeds to sandwiches.

Fried creases: fry fatback meat in heavy pot, preferably old black dinner pot. Have creases washed. Take meat out, leaving grease in pot. Shake out creases and drop in hot grease, mixing thoroughly with grease. Add just enough water to keep from sticking to pot. Add salt, as desired, and cook about twenty minutes, or until tender. Stir often.

Cooked buds: gather buds of cress. Pour boiling water over buds. Let stand half minute. Drain. Cover with fresh boiling water. Boil three minutes. Drain. Season with salt, pepper, and butter. (Tastes like broccoli.)

Spring cress is found growing in all damp places, with a purplish stem, and many basal, finely cut leaves. The stem is topped with a cluster of very small, white, four-petaled flowers. Seed pods are very slender.

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LLUSTRATION 27
Spring cress

Bitter cress
(Cardamine pensylvanica)
is very similar, and is found in wet places, often growing in the water.

Bulbous cress
(Cardamine bulbosa)
also grows in wet places, with long round leaves and white flowers. It grows from a bulb-like root.

The foliage of all the Cardamine cresses can be used in greens or salads, and can be substituted in any recipe using creases. Leaves are especially good raw in salads.

A small plant with creeping stems, toothwort has three-parted leaves veined with white. Stems and underside of leaves may be purple. The white, four-petaled flowers grow in a cluster and are very showy. Both the leaves and the bulbous roots are edible. Turkey mustard
grows in rich woodlands, deciduous coves, and along mountain streams.

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LLUSTRATION 28
Turkey mustard

Dentaria laciniata
, crowfoot or turkeyfoot, has leaves divided into narrow segments. This grows in colonies in rich woodlands.

Peeled roots or young leaves add flavoring to salads, but a very little goes a long way. “You talk about something strong, it’s strong. It grows on branches and tastes like tame mustard. It can be used as a tonic for old people in the spring,” said Harley Carpenter.