Quote of the Day: Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd
Around Rome, where wild greens have been valued for over two thousand years, sophisticated diners consider themselves cheated if their salad of wild greens, misticanza, does not contain at least twenty-one separate varieties. Do they count them, we wonder, shape by shape and texture by texture and taste by taste?
Still, the point is well taken, for part of the pleasure of any wild salad is composing the dish outdoors, clipping a bit of this or that, a throwing in this texture or flair or color to balance or add variety to al the others. No wild salad ought to be of any one thing, unless, indeed, of dandelions, when one is really hungry for them; rather, it should be a sort of edible bouquet, at once as varied and beautiful as it is salubrious.
Joe Eck & Wayne Winterrowd in Living Seasonally: The Kitchen Garden and the Table at North Hill
A lot of you mentioned yesterday that you were enjoying dandelion greens and we are too, though they’re getting big enough that they’ll need cooked now instead of eaten raw in salads. The garlic mustard is also perfect right now, we’ve been eating a lot of it as well. The wild violets are also blooming and we eat the leaves and flowers in salads as well. I also need to start picking the blossoms to dry for winter teas.
Is there anything wild on you plate this season?
Filed under Around the Garden | Comments (4)
Lots of lettuce, arugula, and mustard greens here. I just pickled a batch of mustard greens to add to pho and last night we used lettuce from the garden for ssam bap. We love salad – but greens can do so much more!
to Victoria's comment
Dandelion jelly (already made 6 half-pints), violet jelly, and garlic mustard greens, although they are very bitter this year. Maybe tonight’s SNOW will mellow them out a little!
to Annette's comment
I noticed the garlic mustard greens were very bitter earlier this spring. They seem to have mellowed out a bit, perhaps it was the freezing weather we had. We’ve been cooking them in omelets and haven’t noticed them being quite as bitter, but the first batch we ate WOW they were quite bitter (I guess that means they were extra healthy right?).
to Susy's comment
The first post I ever read on your blog was two years ago and a picture of greens with violets made me subscribe. This post reminded me of that. :-)
to Alyse's comment