Know what I hate about weeds? They live and grow and make it look easy. They stick out their little green tongues at me as I paw in the dirt, planting my prissy vegetable seeds. The seeds may, if it’s not too hot, too cold, too dry, or too wet — and if they’re in the mood — deign to live and perhaps even produce something edible. Snotty little prima donnas. Meanwhile, the weeds guffaw, thumping their chests and scaling my raised beds with a cutlass in their collective teeth.
So how do you defeat such bold brigands? Serve them up for dinner, of course. It’s a funny fact of human nature that we will knock ourselves out to grow fussy, climate inappropriate vegetables, while many common garden weeds are not only impossible to discourage, but delicious to dine upon.Chickweed is a personal favorite of mine, and I often nibble its delectable little leaves as I rip it out by the roots. There are two types of chickweed, common and “mouse-ear,” so named for its fuzzy leaves. I’ve never tried the fuzzy kind — preferring not to eat anything remotely mousy — so can’t attest to its edibility, but the common variety is quite nice with a fresh, springy taste.
Other uninvited yet commonly encountered comestibles in my Kingston garden include miner’s lettuce, lambsquarters, purslane, shepherd’s purse, sorrel, shot weed, and, of course, dandelion. Each makes a nice addition to a salad. Sheesh. Now that I see the whole list, I wonder why I bother at all with spinach and Swiss chard (as does my family).
But the rascal I’d really like to put on your plate is the prickly and pernicious nettle. This spring I expanded my dietary “fear factor” with a class on the harvesting, cooking, and consumption of these well-armed weeds. The class is one of many adventures in foraging offered by the Bainbridge Island Parks and Rec (www.biparks.org). These “Bounty of the Land” classes include the Oyster Hatchery Tour (with samples), Shellfish Foraging, Foraging for Chanterelles, and several Wild Foods and Medicines workshops with subjects ranging from cedar and salmonberries to horsetail.
Although seriously tempted by the seafood, I decided it was only sporting to stalk the quarry best able to bite back; so nettles it was. The day of class dawned drippy and dismal, typical for late March. No matter. Nothing focuses one’s attention like the threat of thousands of hair-fine needles eager to inject a tingly mix of formic acid, histamine and serotonin into your delicate skin. Lesson one is that nettles should be harvested March through early April, after which they become unappetizingly fibrous. (Actually, lesson one is “wear gloves,” but that seems painfully obvious.)A basketful of nettles equals a colander of leaves, which, when dipped into boiling water for a minute, emerges as a fresh, fragrant bolus of culinary and nutritional goodness. The greens are now completely disarmed and may be chopped barehanded and used in place of spinach in any recipe.
Langdon Cook, our fearless class leader and author of Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager, guided us through the making of nettle pesto — one of many wild and wonderful recipes found in his book or on his blog of the same name. The pesto was served both as an appetizer with cheese and toast rounds, and as a main course over pasta. The reaction was a unanimous YUM! One of the participants, Earl-why-are-we-eating-nettles?, became the class hero by providing wine, and the class ended as an impromptu party with a bill of fare that any of us would be proud to serve.
My conclusion: locavores, gourmands and the health-conscious alike have an excellent outlet in the locally abundant patches of stinging nettles that appear at winter’s wane. Once cooked, the vagile vegetable can be kept in the freezer, or made into pesto and frozen in individual servings in ice cube trays. The nutritional load of nettles is reportedly extremely high, with lots of vitamins and minerals and an unseemly amount of protein for a plant.
Need even more reasons to dine upon nettles and other weedy wildlings? There’s no risk of over-harvesting. Even better — and I’m really stretching to see the bright side here — being weeds, the plants come right to you.
Bon appétit!
— Contact Wendy Tweten at wendy@wendytweten.com
