May 1st is May Day or Beltane, significant to some as a festival of fertility, flowers, sensuality and delight. I like to recognize this day of “flowering life” by planting seeds in my garden, placing hawthorne branches (traditional) and boughs of apple blossoms at my front door (see left). Last year we went to the beach, lit a fire, made a wish, and jumped over it. If this interests you, don’t be stupid about it. Jump when the flames are low! Some couples like to make love outside as a blessing to Mother Earth. I think this is a lovely idea, but it’s still too cold for this where we live, plus, um, we have neighbours… It’s also a nice idea to pick flowers and deliver them to friends and/or neighbours. I like to do this with my daycare kids as a way to learn about community and kindness.
The thing I like about earth-centered spirituality is that it finds the sacred in all things natural. I think it is one of the reasons I revere breastfeeding. After I birth a baby my breasts make milk. If I wasn’t supposed to breastfeed then why would my body do this? It’s the simple things that hold the greatest significance.
Another thing I like to do on May 1st (besides celebrate my wedding anniversary), is go wild crafting, as I discussed in last week’s post: Foodie Fridays: All About Nettles! It’s so much fun to discover edible plants. Besides nettles, there are lots of other “weeds” you might even find in your own backyard! If you don’t know the names of plants, grab yourself a guide to your local wild edibles, and make a scavenger hunt out of it.
I decided to take inventory (and pictures!) of what is growing in my backyard and this is what I found:
Cleavers – has a sandpaper-like feel on your tongue but a nice sweet green flavour. I put young cleavers sprouts sparingly on salads. Medicinally, cleavers is said to be an excellent lymphatic tonic, assisting in the detoxification of tissues and the immune system.
Dandelion - the leaves have a bitter taste but are nice cooked or cut finely and added sparingly, to salads. Dandelion greens are one of the most detoxifying herbs, they have a laxative and diuretic effect. They also tone and strengthen the liver and may increase the flow of bile. The leaves are rich in calcium, potassium, iron and Vitamin A.
Plantain - the young leaves are edible raw in salad or cooked as a pot herb, and they are very rich in vitamin B1 and riboflavin. I have used plaintain in a poultice to relieve bee stings and it can be used in this same way to treat bleeding. A hot poultice of crushed leaves can be placed on a wound to help draw out splinters and inflammation. It is a cooling herb, good for tired eyes and rashy bums.
Miner’s Lettuce – has the best taste and goes great in salads! Use lots! You can also boil it like spinach. You can usually find it growing at the base of trees (so make sure there’s no dogs around who might be peeing on it!)
Chickweed - is an excellent source of vitamins A, D, B complex, C, and rutin (an accompanying flavonoid), as well as iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, sodium, copper, and silica, and tastes great on salads. You can also cook it like spinach. You can usually find growing it in rich fertile soil, like on the top of unturned garden plots and lawns. It is a soothing substance, which when taken internally soothes and protects damaged or inflamed tissue and applied externally (finely cut and squished into a “paste”) promotes the healing of wounds.
When I was little my friend Jen and I used to pick chickweed and eat it sprinkled with packages of McDonald’s salt that we’d find in the back of my uncle’s truck bed. Don’t do this. It doesn’t taste good and ‘found’ packages of food are shifty. Sharing this childhood tidbit with you has no purpose whatsoever. Except maybe to warn parents of 7 year olds to monitor what your kids are eating. I also used to eat dog food and drink vinegar from the bottle – maybe this is why I’m a bit of a foodie now. Those things just don’t taste good. There I go digressing again (but it’s so much fun!).
So out you go, pick some weeds and make a yummy wild salad for your dinner tonight. A nice vinegarette will go beautifully.
What grows locally where you live? What wild edibles did I miss? Share the wild edibles you like to eat by leaving a comment.
Related posts:
- Foodie Fridays: Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad
- Foodie Fridays: Wild Blackberry Coffee Cake
- Vegetarian Foodie Fridays: Vietnamese Rice Noodle Salad
- Vegetarian Foodie Friday: 3 Bean Salad
- Quinoa & Soaked Mung Bean Salad with Wilted Greens and Cherry Tomatoes
Tags: Foodie Fridays, wild crafting
When it comes to wild edibles I pretty much stick to berries. Salmonberries, blackberries, huckleberries, salal, Oregon grapes, and even wild strawberries. I’m working up the courage to try dandelion greens, though. My friend told me that if you boil them they actually become sweet. Who’d have thought?
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My kids think putting dandelion greens in salads is the greatest thing. Good think I have so many I guess!
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@Heidi isn’t that wonderful? It slays me that people feel dandelions are weeds. When I studied horticulture in college (needed a wee break from the computers), they taught us that a weed is just a plant that someone says is in the wrong place.
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[...] the insects we find and which ones benefit the garden and which ones don’t. They pick the wild edibles that grow on the periphery of our property, excitedly identifying the plants to me before popping [...]