Wild Spring Plant Foods (Foxfire Americana Library)
Foxfire Fund Inc.
Language: English
Pages: 33
ISBN: 2:00217646
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A handy illustrated guide to the edible plant life available in Appalachia and other temperate areas during the spring. From sassafras to rhubarb, each entry includes instructions on where to find the plant, how to spot it, and the ways it is best eaten, often with recipes.
Plants include:
Morel
Asparagus
Wild onion
Wild garlic
Nettles
Wild radish
White mustard
Water cress
Horseradish
Chicory
Wild lettuce
Dandelion
on branches and tastes like tame mustard. It can be used as a tonic for old people in the spring,” said Harley Carpenter. “It’s a right tasty little weed,” said Delia Williams. “It will remind you of mustard quite a bit.” Greens: pick leaves. Cut up in bite-size pieces and wash thoroughly. Place in bowl, pour hot grease over them, salt and serve. A quart basket of leaves will make two or three servings. If desired, pour a little vinegar over them. Or cut up the leaves and put bacon gravy over
a red-brown, but becomes very crackled on old trees. The slender twigs smell like wintergreen. Catkins appear before the leaves in very early spring. Leaves are oval, tooth-edged, and deep green in color. Small seeds are eaten by many species of birds. Buds and twigs are favored “nibblers” for hikers in the mountains, and will allay thirst. Twigs and root bark are used for tea, and trees are tapped so sap can be used for sugar or birch beer. At one time, the sweet birch provided oil for much of
in salt water. Slice crossways in rings. Dip in egg and corn meal, and fry at medium low heat. Or put one pint of morels in pan with egg-sized piece of butter. Sprinkle on salt and pepper. When butter is almost absorbed, add fresh butter and enough flour to thicken. Serve on toast or cornbread. Stuffed morels: soak one-half hour in salt water; parboil lightly. Stuff with finely chopped chicken or cracker crumbs and butter or margarine. Bake at low heat for twenty minutes. Merkel omelet: let
they’ve been brought here, a kind of onion-natured thing, or garlic. A lot of people in the spring of the year, they go crazy for a mess of ramps.” And Harv Reid told us, “It is a sort of wild onion. They just grow around in certain places. It is sorta’ dark where they grow, like around the little streams where they come down. They grow up just like this little ol’onion they call multiplier onion. We used to gather them when we used to live back up yonder. They is plenty of them here.” In a
cultivated fields and low places, white mustard is a native of Europe naturalized in this country. Leaves are rough, hairy, and greatly dissected. Pale yellow flowers are followed by bristly seed pods. Rich in vitamin C and sulfur, young leaves are used in salads, greens, and in sandwiches, and seeds ground up for mustard or mustard sauce. Black mustard (Brassica nigra) (warlock) This is another native of Europe, very weedy in cultivated fields. Leaves are large and very coarse, and