Chickweed: mmm-mmm good!
I Fed My Mother Weeds, and Lived!
by Robin Wheeler
Image courtesy Dean Swan
My mom's nickname is "Sarge", and I didn‘t think it would be easy to feed her weeds.
It was in front of company from the city. Mom noted that I hadn‘t bought salad fixings to feed her friends, and I explained that I‘d be picking it from the garden. She pointed out that I didn‘t have any lettuce in the garden. I told her we wouldn‘t be having any lettuce in the salad. She looked dubious. She has been fed “weird” things in the past.
Now, Dad and I are not picky eaters. We‘d scrape berries off the sidewalk if we had to. But Mom is made of different stuff. Salad ingredients come from clean, well lit metal bins at the grocery store. If they’re proper food, that is.
Naturally, I had to drag Mom out to the yard for a reality altering experience.
Now, I knew better than to just stuff any old weed down my precious Ma’s throat. I’d have to tread carefully if I wanted to convert her. No strong arugula or fuzzy cicely leaves for her.
First, to throw her off, I harvested some silky beet tops and some very baby pea pods. Then I picked a couple of leaves off the violets and nasturtiums along the path. She was still nodding. We reached the weed patch, and I plucked some nice big tufts off the healthiest of the chickweed. Her eyebrows went up, but I kept picking. I showed her the Siberian Miners lettuce and pulled away the spent flowers (edible, but a bit stringy to the novice) to expose the little leaves. It’s a bit tedious to pick, but grows all year round in nice big clumps.
Next, I picked the big leaves off the corn salad, another plant that will reseed itself once it’s started. I picked my only remaining purslane, and a few leaves of woodsorrel and goosefoot. On the way back to the house, I plucked a bit of kale here, a sorrel leaf there and a few young broccoli leaves. Now, just a dash of colour for my dear old mother’s discerning eye. Some monarda petals are truly wonderful, and a spent day lily flower, chopped fine, makes a faint burnt orange against the green. A bit of fennel, a touch of oregano, some perennial green onions and we were all set. There are more adventuresome things out there, but I didn’t want to scare the little dickens... I mean, Sarge.
Now, why was I feeding my mother weeds? She wondered, too. I explained to her that I didn’t have to drive to the store as much now that I knew which plant parts I could eat from the garden. Not only was I saving fossil fuels for myself, but avoiding supporting a delivery truck on the road as well, and the refrigeration costs, too. Plus, these garden greens are frequently higher in nutrients than their commercial siblings, and because they’re picked fresh, they’re even higher again than stored foods. And it’s organic, man! Garden salad is free, because even the beet and broccoli leaves are just a byproduct of the veggie you&rsqou;re waiting for. And speaking of waiting - see any line ups in that yard? I don’t think so!
And once you’ve got someone converted to garden salad, you can start adding stronger stuff like arugula, mustard greens and cicely. After a careful acceleration like this, plain old lettuce will taste dull, and they’ll wonder what’s missing. That’s how it happened for me.
Mom watched the tossing of all this crazy stuff with a detached eye. But she ate it all, as did the unsuspecting company. Mom gave me a sideways look, and didn’t tell them till the end that we were eating weeds. She looked quite pleased with herself.
I think she’s on to something. I wiped the sweat from my brow, and headed off to get dessert. She looked afraid again. Goodness knows why.
Edible Fowers
(with a brief list of ideas)
- Basil: flowers good in tomato dishes
- Begonia: dessert, garnish
- Borage: candied, frozen into ice cubes for summer drinks
- Calendula: edible and medicinal, used to colour eggs and rice, scattered into salad
- Chives: salads, oil and vinegar
- Daylily: (orange) chop into salads
- Dianthus: herb butters, salads. Remove white “heel” – it’s bitter.
- Dill: salads, eggs, potatoes
- Geranium: scented waters for jams and vinegars
- Hibiscus: stuff with mangoe bits, eat fresh in salads
- Lavender: vinegars, tonic waters
- Lemon Verbena: teas, to flavour jellies, ice cream, garnish.
- Marigold: see calendula
- Mint: teas, desserts, bathwater
- Nasturtium: salad, sandwiches
- Rose: syprups and waters, pickle the rosebud, cook into fruit pies (remove white heel)
- Rosemary: infusion for the face, put in salads
- Sage: salads and teas
- Squash: stuff with food mixtures, make into soup
- Viola: good garnish, salads, icecubes and fruit desserts
- Yucca: remove bitter centre part. Eat raw or cooked in salads or stirfrys