Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) (8 page)

Chicory is naturalized from Europe and found along roadsides. It has dandelion-like basal leaves, and stems that exude a milky juice.
Bright blue flowers open every morning and close again by noon.

Young leaves are eaten like lettuce or endive, and roots are also edible, often added to coffee or used as a coffee substitute. Leaves are extremely high in vitamins A and G and in calcium.

Chicory with mustard sauce: cook young leaves until tender. Cover with a sauce made of one-fourth cup sugar, one-half teaspoon salt, two egg yolks, one cup scalded milk, two tablespoons vinegar, one tablespoon mustard. Blend until thick in a double boiler. Serve over the drained chicory.
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Panned chicory: melt two tablespoons fat and add chopped chicory greens. Cover and steam for fifteen minutes. Add one tablespoon flour, a small amount of cream, salt and pepper. Let simmer five minutes more.

Chicory coffee: wash and peel roots. Grind and roast in oven. Add to, or use instead of, coffee.

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LLUSTRATION 36
Ral Henslee with wild lettuce.

Wild lettuce is a tall plant, found in open woods, and in damp places. Leaves are dentate, usually a bright blue-green color, and very smooth to the touch. Small, dandelion-like flowers open briefly in bright weather. They may be blue or whitish or pale violet.
Lactuca hirsuta
and
Lactuca canadensis
are very similar, differing slightly in leaf shapes, or in flower color, for flowers may be violet, white, or yellow. Tall lettuce
(Lactuca floridana)
grows to six feet tall, with a hollow, leafy stem, and white or pale blue flowers. Leaves of all species of wild lettuce are edible when young and tender. Every species will emit a milky juice when leaves or stems are broken.

Wild lettuce must be gathered and eaten in the early spring when the plants are young, as the older plants get tough and wormy. Ethel Corn told us, “It grows mostly in poor ground where it ain’t tender. When you get it, it has a flavor like tame lettuce, only it don’t look much like it, and it’s a whole lot better.”

Mrs. Keener said, “It’s slick when it first comes up, the leaves are. And it don’t resemble lettuce at all, but it tastes like it. It’s a little bit tougher. You find it all along fence rows, or anywhere. It comes up in early spring, that’s when you get it; when it grows up tall, it’s too tough.”

Mrs. Norton said, “You break a leaf off and if it’s kinda milky, that’s wild lettuce.”

Salad: cut up greens and wash. Cut green onions in it and pour hot grease over it. Also good with vinegar, oil, and salt. Mrs. Irene Gray says, “It sure did taste good!” Try frying bacon until crisp and crumbly. Add brown sugar and vinegar and pour over chopped wild lettuce leaves. For extra flavor, add chickweed or mustard.

Greens: pick young leaves (before they are eight inches high). Wash, and cook with very little water. Add butter, salt, pepper, and bits of bacon and bacon grease.

Dandelions are common on lawns and in fields and along roadsids Stems grow three to fourteen inches and are hollow. Dark green, dentate basal leaves emit a milky juice as they get old. The golden yellow flowers are one to two inches across. Dandelion is a native of Europe, naturalized all over America.

Edible parts include the young leaves, the flower buds, and the
scraped roots. Dandelion greens are very rich in iron and vitamin C. Frederic Klees says a Dutchman has to eat dandelion salad on Maundy Thursday to stay healthy all the year. Some authorities say the roots are inedible, and all traces of root must be cut away when preparing greens for cooking. Gather much more than you think you need, for they cook down. Some cooks add a pinch of soda when cooking Dandelions. Mrs. Norton says, “You can use dandelion in tossed salads, the kind with feathery leaves; it makes what you call a wild salad.”

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LLUSTRATION 37
A clump of dandelion.

Greens: gather when young, wash, and boil about twenty minutes in water with fatback added; or drain and fry in grease. Season with salt and pepper. Or after cooking, drain off water, and heat with small amount of vinegar. Add small chunks of fried salt pork, heat, and eat. Or cook lightly in salted water. Drain. Mix milk, butter, one egg, and vinegar together. Cook to just a boil and pour over greens.

Hot greens on toast: cook greens slightly; drain. Add bits of fried bacon and bacon grease. Serve over toast.

Dandelion bud omelet: gather one cup dandelion buds before flower color shows. Fry buds in dab of butter until they pop. Add four eggs, salt and pepper. Top with raw leaves, finely cut before serving.

Salad: wash and pat dry one-half cup unopened flower buds and one bunch tender leaves. Fry two strips bacon, toss buds in hot bacon grease until they open. Drain. Mix with leaves and bacon; add three tablespoons oil and vinegar. Or wash young dandelion leaves and chop fine. Add salt, vinegar, and olive oil. When mixed, add one tomato cut in pieces, or cooked lima beans. Toss. Or mix chopped dandelion with chopped ramps or wild onion; top with bacon, bacon fat, and vinegar.

Green drink: cook chickweed and dandelion, each alone. Put through a sieve, add cider vinegar, and drink for a tonic.

Coffee substitute: gather dandelion roots. Peel. Roast until dark brown; grind. Use as substitute for real coffee.

Dandelion wine: pour one gallon boiling water over one gallon dandelion flowers. Let stand until blossoms rise (twenty-four to forty-eight hours). Strain into stone jar. Add juices of four lemons and four oranges, and four pounds of sugar, plus one yeast cake. Stir four or five times a day until it stops fermenting. Keep well covered. In two weeks, strain, bottle and cork tightly.

Tall coneflower grows in wet places, with finely dissected, smooth green leaves, and later in the season, tall stems of yellow, daisy-like flower heads with green, cone-shaped centers. This is a close relative of the brown-eyed susan, and the wild ancestor of the garden golden globe.

Leaves are edible when young and tender. Mrs. Ethel Corn told us, “You find it along branch banks. It looks like golden globe flowers, and it will run up when it goes to seed. You have to watch when picking it, for the wild parsnip looks similar to it, only it’s more whitish-leaved than that.”

Mrs. Hershel Keener said, “There’s a plant that grows along this branch called coachie-ann; now I don’t know how you spell it, and it’s got such an odor when it’s cooking. You can boil it just like you do poke, and season it real good, but I don’t like it.”

Greens: pick when tender and parboil until tender. Wash until water is clear, squeeze water out. Put in pan with grease and fry.
Or after cooking, chop fine and add salt and margarine and top with chopped boiled eggs.

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LLUSTRATION 38
Kenny Runion with cochan from a neighbor’s cornfield.

Many different kinds of greens can be combined in salads, or in recipes for cooked greens. Any mild-flavored green can be combined with the sharper tasting mustards and cresses, and add bulk.

Mixed greens:

Get together a mess of poke, dandelion, lamb’s quarters, violet leaves, and sour dock, and mix together. Cook, drain, and season with bits of fried salt pork, and a little vinegar.

  (or)

“When I was small, my people used to pick wild mustard, narrow-leaf dock, and lamb’s quarters. Mix it all together and fry in grease,” says Mrs. Al Webster.

  (or)

Parboil poke, then cook with ham hock like turnip greens. Dandelions are done the same way. Thistle, wild lettuce, whiteweed, narrow- and broad-leafed dock, pussley, wild violet leaves, wild mustard are all cooked like turnip or mustard greens.

Canned greens:

Most wild sallets can be canned. Mix mustard and wild turnip greens, or buff sallet and mustard mixed, or with creases. Fix and precook until tender. Put in jars, add water, seal, and cook thirty minutes in pressure cooker.

Mixed green salad:

Take equal parts of dandelion, shepherd’s purse, peppergrass, curly dock, poke shoots, and sorrel. Chop fine. Add wild onion to taste. (Poke shoots must be cooked first.) Make a dressing of oil and vinegar, and flavor with garlic, mustard, salt, and pepper. Serve on a bed of wild dock or lettuce leaves.

  (or)

Toss one cup chopped cress, one cup chopped dandelion, one-fourth cup ramps or wild onions together with French dressing.

  (or)

Three slices bacon, cut fine. Three tablespoons vinegar, dash of salt, one cup chopped cress, one cup dandelions, one cup wild lettuce. Fry bacon, add vinegar and salt, pour over greens, and toss.

  (or)

Mix water cress, sorrel, purslane, wild onion, and dandelion leaves, chopped fine. Fry bacon bits, pour bacon bits, grease, and vinegar over greens.

  (or)

Wash chopped sorrel, sour dock, dandelion. Put in pan with diced onions or ramps, pour dressing of vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and bacon over greens, and toss.

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LLUSTRATION 39
Wild strawberries

Wild strawberries grow in colonies, or beds, in open, sunny places, in old fields, along roadsides, or damp meadows. Stems are three to eight inches high, with three divided fuzzy leaves. Small, white flowers
appear in early spring, followed by the delicately flavored, red strawberries.

Strawberries are rich in iron and in vitamin C. They have a wonderfully tart goodness for “eating out of hand,” or they can be used in jams, jellies, pies, preserves, desserts, cakes, or ice cream. Some people are allergic to strawberries and may get a rash from eating them. The berries are small and it takes a lot of work to accumulate enough for a pie, or a batch of jam, but they are well worth the effort, and taste better for it. Someone said, “If it is four o’clock by the time you get your clothes on, it will be light enough to pick strawberries.”