Happy March, food & foraging friends!
They’re heeeeeere…
And by they, I don’t mean the beloved cherry blossoms that drives tourists to DC in droves this month (though I’ll tell you more about them in a minute), I mean the delectable spring weeds! I can already count ten in my urban neighborhood: chickweed, wild onion, purple dead nettle, speedwell, henbit, cleavers, dandelion, poor man’s pepper, mallow and mugwort.
Today I’ll focus on chickweed (Stellaria media), since it’s so prolific this time of year in yards and gardens. Chickweed is easy to identify, with tiny tender curly leaves that grow at intervals along its stem, growing in dense mats that blanket the soil. It also has teeny white ten-petaled flowers. Each chickweed plant can produce thousands of seeds and the seeds can lay dormant in soil for up to 10 years, so if you have chickweed in your garden, better make friends with it.
Chickweed is a literal multivitamin: it contains vitamins A, D, B complex, C, rutin (a bioflavinoid), calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, sodium, copper, iron and silica
So, what to do with this cool-weather wonder of a weed? Most folks like to throw it in salads, sandwiches or smoothies, stalk and leaves both. There’s also the spring green standby, pesto (I just made a vegan batch with hazelnuts and preserved lemon). One of my fave recipes is a spicy fermented chickweed paste – a complexly flavored condiment you can find in Pascal Baudar’s book Wildcrafted Fermentation.
If you’re ready to go a little wild with chickweed, check out some more experimental recipes, like chickweed wine, Kenyan-inspired chickweed-coconut chutney or chickweed hummus. Chef Alan Bergo’s blog also goes into detail on how he likes to prepare chickweed.
Left/top: There are many varieties of cherry blossoms (this is Okame, from my community garden); all are edible and can be salt-pickled to add to a variety of sweet and savory dishes, or used for tea. Right/bottom: Many spring weeds are delicious and nutritious! From top left, clockwise: chickweed pesto, mallow, speedwell, spicy fermented chickweed paste, purple dead nettle, dandelion, and poor man’s pepper (center with author: chickweed).
So, back to the cherry blossoms. The answer to the FAFQ (frequently asked foraging question), “Can I eat this?: Yes! There are minute trace amounts of cyanogenic glycosides (aka cyanide), but these are concentrated in the leaves and seeds. Just like an apple seed contains cyanide but won’t kill you to accidentally swallow one, toxicity is all about concentrations. (For the record, you’d have to eat hundreds to thousands of well chewed apple seeds to poison someone, so you might choose a better murder weapon).
Salt pickled cherry blossoms are a beloved Japanese delicacy, used in sweets like mochi, rice balls, tea, liquors and more. It’s a very simple process, and just requires some salt, vinegar and time. I’m going to do some sakura shortbread this season, and if I have more leftover, some cherry blossom rice.
When you hear from me next month, I’ll hopefully be bragging about bagging mountains of morels (something that has happened to me exactly never). If you want to up your cooking game for the coming mushrooming season, join me for a cooking demo by Chad Hyatt, chef and author of The Mushroom Hunter’s Kitchen, this Wednesday March 16 at 7pm via Zoom! It’s sponsored by the Mycological Association of Washington but open to the public.
Wildly yours,
April