is for Weeds in the Salad Bowl–

So you say Aunt Gertrude is coming over for Sunday dinner? How about fixing up a mess of weeds for the salad bowl? Don’t be surprised if she ends up showing you a thing or two, smarty.

Many wild plants are good to eat in a salad. You might want to add them to freshly washed lettuce to get your taste buds used to their unique flavors. The following are some of the most common, available, and easy to identify. Many of these weeds you are undoubtedly familiar with; others you probably know by sight but didn’t know you could eat. Make sure you don’t pick from places where herbicides have been used or where there’s a lot of automobile traffic.

Chickweed (Stellaria media) is a pretty little plant with small, pointed leaves on short stems and tiny, white starlike flowers. The whole plant is trailing and found in sun or shade, sometimes under a hose bib or in gardens as ubiquitous weeds—it can spread like crazy and become a bit of a pest. To use, simply cut a handful of young chickweed (the older stems get stringy), wash and dry (a salad spinner is a Goddess-send), then chop and add to salads, on sandwiches, or as a last-minute addition to soup or pasta, sort of like parsley. I like to include it in frittatas (see page 124 of “E is for Eggs”). The taste is very mild and agreeable. Chickweed leaves pounded into a paste can be used as a poultice on any type of injury, especially slivers.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is likely the most well-known weed. I’ve even seen the leaves sold in the organic produce section at the mega-mart. Like your grandparents, many people still eat wild dandelion greens, and if you pick them just new in the spring, their bitterness will be refreshing. Use in salads along with milder-tasting greens or make it like a wilted spinach and bacon salad. Dig up the root, scrub, slice thinly, and add this to the salad as a great liver tonic. Dandelion root and greens make an excellent herbal vinegar (see page 277, “V is for Vinegar”).

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is a sprawling plant with small, succulent, spoon-shaped leaves alternating along many-branched stems. It likes to grow in gardens and is available from spring well into summer. Many years ago, purslane was commonly grown and sold as a salad herb, but it is not often cultivated on purpose now. It is sour and tasty, mucilaginous but not unpleasantly so. It can also be steamed or added to soups. Purslane is similar in taste and texture to nopales (cactus) and is very good on tacos.

Sheep Sorrel (Rumex acetosella) is usually boot-high, thin, and spindly, with odd leaves that somewhat resemble arrowheads. The inconspicuous flowers turn red when mature, and you can often see soft, hazy patches of it at a distance in dry fields. Like rhubarb, to which it is related (and buckwheat too—see page 182, “K is for Kasha”), it also grows in gardens, sometimes to the disgruntlement of the gardener weeding the blueberry beds. When picked young, the leaves of sheep sorrel are delightfully sour, not unlike the domestic garden or French sorrel; in fact, they are small/large mirror images of each other. Sheep sorrel leaves are delicious in mixed green salads. The plant contains oxalic acid, which means don’t eat them in very large quantities—a cow’s serving, for instance—use just a handful of leaves in the salad bowl. Sheep sorrel, like garden sorrel, is also used in omelets and soups.

Violet (Viola odorata). While most people are familiar with violets in the garden, they probably don’t know that violets, and their wild North American relatives, are edible and nutritious. The looks on the faces of your kids—“Flowers in the salad!?”—will make it all worthwhile. See page 134, “F is for Flowers,” to learn more about other flowers you can, and can’t, eat.

Other wild plants are used in salads too, such as pigweed, or amaranth (Amaranthus spp.); lamb’s quarters, another plant sometimes called pigweed (Chenopodium spp.); miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata); watercress (Nasturtium officinale); wild onion (Allium spp.); and others. Be sure to make a positive identification first, using one or more of the sources listed below and a field guide suitable for your region. Make cross references. Be sure to pick from friendly sites. Get Auntie Gert to show you too. Once you are certain, enjoy.

Edible Native Plants of the Rocky Mountains by H. D. Harrington, illustrated by Y. Matsumura (excellent drawings)

Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons

Wild Edible Plants of the Western United States by Donald R. Kirk

Healing Wise by Susun S. Weed