I hope I'm not boring you too much with my recent dandelion obsession, but we enjoyed yesterday's dandelion green salad so much that I figured I'd post it now and give the other wild plants a little more time to grow before I start messing with them.
Since I'm referring to dandelions as "wild plants" here, it's probably a good time to mention an interesting bit I read yesterday in Samuel Thayer's book, The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, & Preparing Edible Wild Plants (2006) in a section about "The History of Foraging and Wild Food Literature." Thayer explains the way in which much of the Native American knowledge about edible wild plants was lost in the early days of European settlement, in part due to the fact that to eat wild plants was stigmatized as "savage" among European settlers. The few plants that were acceptable to eat in times of food shortage, he explains, were "dandelion, chicory, plantain, stinging nettle, curly dock, sow thistle" (and the list continues)--plants that the settlers brought with them. Thayer makes a distinction between these "quasi-wild, human-dependent agricultural tag-alongs that came from Europe" (which he says dominate the wild plants literature), and true, native wild plants.
The distinction is interesting to me so I thought I'd mention it. But nonetheless, those original "tag-alongs" have been for the most part forgotten in our collective consciousness as healthy food sources on which one might depend. Tag-along or not, I'm pretty thrilled with the little yellow-flowered weed of late. Anyway, let me quit blabbing and get on to the recipe already.
This is my recipe, although loosely based on various sources I've read. It's a green salad, so it's important to wash the leaves thoroughly. I put them through a couple changes of water, agitating the water with my hand like a human dishwasher before running them through the salad spinner to dry. It makes a dense, hearty salad that both Gregg and I thoroughly enjoyed alongside our leftover potato/leek/dandelion soup of the night before. (I called it "Japanese-style" owing to the ginger and soy-based dressing.)
The Salad:
4 big handfuls of dandelion greens, chopped medium fine
2 small handfuls of spinach, chopped medium fine
2 carrots, grated
1/2 a yellow pepper, chopped medium fine
3/4 cup raw tofu, cubed
sunflower seeds or finely chopped nuts (optional)
The Dressing:
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp finely chopped pickled ginger
2 tbsp liquid from the picked ginger jar
Mix veggies. Toss thoroughly but carefully with dressing so as not to break the tofu. Top with sunflower seeds or finely chopped nuts as desired.
And that's pretty much it. It's a salad, so you could really add anything you wanted. But if I could give you a little piece of advice while I'm at it--be sure to get out there and get yourself some dandelion greens before those plants start a-flowering because it's totally worth it.
Post edited & republished 6.1.10.
Left: Samuel Thayer's book is a good read so far--less plants than most guides, but at first glance, a thorough coverage of everything you need to know about identifying, harvesting, and preparing those plants based on the author's first hand experience. Also, I find the writing to be quirky and interesting... but more on that later when I finish reading the book.
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