eating weeds: damn nasty unless you have a good cook

I cover this a bit in this podcast:

http://www.richsoil.com/permaculture/373-podcast-055-gaias-garden-chapter-6/

The idea is that a lot of weeds taste lousy when picked fresh.  But in the hands of somebody who really knows how to cook, weeds can be part of a path to a far tastier meal!

there is little in this world that a pinch of salt and a big dollup of butter can't fix :0)
with this one hit wonder recipe for any vegetable My 3 and 6 year old boys happily eat beets, asperagus, broccoli, cauliflower, zuchini....etc.....

whether vegetable or greens or weeds, they do tend to taste nasty cooked. for me anything that is pallatable must have some sort of salt and fat for my tongue to taste it.

Your totaly right,  food is not healthy if it tastes bad... cause no one will eat it. Food also has to look good. no one will eat a plate full of slimey, green/brown, gritty, steaming, earthy smelling, slop! you have got to put some grated cheese or chopped nuts or bacon crumbles or cream sauce on top. 

Although I do consider my sauteed lambs quarters with carmalized onions f@#$&%g awesome!

Lambsquarter with amaranth and arugula is bad to the bone as the "lettuce" in a BLT sandwich.

Hi Folks!

I am quite new in town.
I registred today.

Weeds are nothing else but plants. Crops are our favourite ones and they were selected to be so since the very begining of the farming.

You are right. We can also consider the others and find out if they can be eaten.

Here in france, some people eat Portulaca oleracea (I do not know the word in English) and dandy lion.

Catch you later!

Paddy67

Isn't that what we call purslane?

Some. weeds are pretty good raw.. wood sorrel and dock come to mind.. Some things get much better after a frost -  like clover.

Sauteeing with bacon, onions, and balsamic vinegar is pretty foolproof!  Did that to a batch of dandelion and beet greens the other day.

Like tame plants, it's all in the timing. Many greens are sweet and tender in the spring or when young and tough and bitter when older. Or you can pick the new, little leaves. In the winter I eat chickweed, and dandelion, purslane and flat-leved dandelion in the fall, everything else in between:  young grasses, chiso, dock, garlic chives, plantain, shorrel, lambsquarters - and flowers of dandelion, shamrock, daylillies, chickweed. I'm talking about raw. Anything can be sauteed with onions and garlic at any time. Don't eat anything unless you know what it is for sure.

Lambquarters and dandelion grow happily in my wicking beds, so they get added to my green smoothie breakfast. Sow thistle grows aplenty, so must try that.

My dad read “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” back in the 70s (?) and came to the conclusion that the author enjoyed any weeds with garlic and butter.

Carmelized onions, sautéed greens, garlic, then eggs scrambled in, cheese grated on top….

Smoothies

Soups

And PESTO if you like the flavor of the herb….  Olive oil, “weed” leaves, nuts, hard grating cheese optional. Salt. Substitute nuts with sunflower, pumpkin or sesame seeds.  Blend into a thick paste.

Spread on bread or toast or eat with pasta or add into a sandwich.  Add a dollop to soup.  Might make a good addition to salad dressing in small amounts.

A few weed leaves can be added to a pesto of arugula or basil or parsley or cilantro.  

Came to second the “pesto” idea and share books. We do more Chimichurri around these parts, but same basic idea: throw a bunch of leaves in a blender with oil, acid, and an allium. Other herbs/spices if you’re feeling jazzy. Add nuts or seeds for “pesto.”


Recommended reading:
An outstanding book for beginners in wild edibles: Wild Wisdom of Weeds by Katrina Blair

Highly recommended reading
A little more advanced, a lot more thorough: Foragers Harvest by Sam Thayer

(Not directly weed related, but Ratio by Michael Rhulman has been useful for getting out of the habit of using recipes for every single meal. If you want a free copy of these books, message me directly or see if they’re floating around in annas-archive.org or libgen.rs)

Anyone who says weeds taste bad is poorly informed, doesn’t know how to cook, or just had a bad experience. When I was bartending I had dozens of people tell me they don’t like gin(or tequila, whisky, etc) and then I make them a 3 ingredient sour and they flip a tit seeing that they had been unduly prejudiced since that one bad experience. Please, if you just “don’t like weeds,” wait around for someone who knows what they’re doing to prepare them for you(or do more research). Chances are you just don’t know what you don’t know.



Study cures ignorance like food cures hunger.

I'm fortunate to have mostly weeds you could eat in a pinch, Bidens alba, commonly known as shepherd's needles, beggarticks, Spanish needles, or butterfly needles and dollar weed, also called penny wort are the two major players on edibility.

The Bidens Alba tastes pretty good as is, the pennywort is passable tasting raw, and both respond well to the butter/garlic/bacon treatment cooked.

Here's a great local site for things to eat in the "weed" category.

https://www.eattheweeds.com

He's local but a lot of what he describes is found all through the SE USA.

And just by itself it makes a great, healthy salad.

Chad Ellis wrote:Lambsquarter with amaranth and arugula is bad to the bone as the "lettuce" in a BLT sandwich.

Well.... a deep subject indeed. But I've heard it said: "All Generalizations are BS" So: does chickweed taste bad? Is Chicory a weed? Do Dandelions taste bad? (myself, I can't go by a blooming dandelion W/O popping a bud in my mouth.) Roasted dandelion root "coffee" is something I crave- but that's perhaps a Hepatitis survivor  craving- Dandelion coffee seems to make my liver smile. People hate nettles! but are they ever nutritious, whether as cooked greens or tea. (just cook the tender tops eh? And my arthritic aches disappear if I brush the back of my hands on the nettles. But fess up: Isn't life pretty dismal if you DON'T HAVE A GOOD COOK. And if I do say so myself, I generally have a good time, and I like to cook and have been told I'm a good cook. (Momma raised me right) If this ain't got you convinced yet, that it's an old English tradition that the cook on a pirate ship did NOT have to participate in boarding parties, but still got a share of the loot, which shows valuing a good cook is a fine tradition.

I know many who enjoy nettle s, eaten raw (fold the leaf spiny side in and pop it in your mouth,  chew without letting it unfold!)

Lots of people put a layer of nettle leaves in their lasagna 😉