Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire AMericana Library - Foxfire Students (2011)
SPRING WILD PLANT FOODS
RECIPES FOR MIXED GREENS
Many different kinds of greens can be combined in salads, or in recipes for cooked greens. Any mild-flavored green can be combined with the sharper tasting mustards and cresses, and add bulk.
Mixed greens:
Get together a mess of poke, dandelion, lamb’s quarters, violet leaves, and sour dock, and mix together. Cook, drain, and season with bits of fried salt pork, and a little vinegar.
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“When I was small, my people used to pick wild mustard, narrow-leaf dock, and lamb’s quarters. Mix it all together and fry in grease,” says Mrs. Al Webster.
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Parboil poke, then cook with ham hock like turnip greens. Dandelions are done the same way. Thistle, wild lettuce, whiteweed, narrow- and broad-leafed dock, pussley, wild violet leaves, wild mustard are all cooked like turnip or mustard greens.
Canned greens:
Most wild sallets can be canned. Mix mustard and wild turnip greens, or buff sallet and mustard mixed, or with creases. Fix and precook until tender. Put in jars, add water, seal, and cook thirty minutes in pressure cooker.
Mixed green salad:
Take equal parts of dandelion, shepherd’s purse, peppergrass, curly dock, poke shoots, and sorrel. Chop fine. Add wild onion to taste. (Poke shoots must be cooked first.) Make a dressing of oil and vinegar, and flavor with garlic, mustard, salt, and pepper. Serve on a bed of wild dock or lettuce leaves.
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Toss one cup chopped cress, one cup chopped dandelion, one-fourth cup ramps or wild onions together with French dressing.
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Three slices bacon, cut fine. Three tablespoons vinegar, dash of salt, one cup chopped cress, one cup dandelions, one cup wild lettuce. Fry bacon, add vinegar and salt, pour over greens, and toss.
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Mix water cress, sorrel, purslane, wild onion, and dandelion leaves, chopped fine. Fry bacon bits, pour bacon bits, grease, and vinegar over greens.
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Wash chopped sorrel, sour dock, dandelion. Put in pan with diced onions or ramps, pour dressing of vinegar, sugar, salt, pepper, and bacon over greens, and toss.
Wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) (family Rosaceae)
ILLUSTRATION 39 Wild strawberries
Wild strawberries grow in colonies, or beds, in open, sunny places, in old fields, along roadsides, or damp meadows. Stems are three to eight inches high, with three divided fuzzy leaves. Small, white flowers appear in early spring, followed by the delicately flavored, red strawberries.
Strawberries are rich in iron and in vitamin C. They have a wonderfully tart goodness for “eating out of hand,” or they can be used in jams, jellies, pies, preserves, desserts, cakes, or ice cream. Some people are allergic to strawberries and may get a rash from eating them. The berries are small and it takes a lot of work to accumulate enough for a pie, or a batch of jam, but they are well worth the effort, and taste better for it. Someone said, “If it is four o’clock by the time you get your clothes on, it will be light enough to pick strawberries.”
Strawberry leaves are used to make a delicately flavored tea, said to be good for bladder infections.
Jam: put a quart of berries in a pot, add a cup of sugar, and bring to a boil, stirring gently. Boil three minutes, add another cup of sugar and boil three more minutes; then add a final cup of sugar, skim off foam and put in jars and seal. Or boil for five minutes one cup strawberries and one teaspoon vinegar. Add one cup sugar and boil fifteen minutes; skim while hot. Set aside to cool all day or overnight before putting in jars. Or cook four pounds of berries in porcelain kettle. Boil juice first. Add two pounds sugar, and boil again. Skim and put in jars.
Wild strawberry preserves: To a quart of strawberries, add one cup of sugar and three tablespoons water. Boil slowly fifteen minutes. Let stand overnight. Next morning, bring to boiling point and pour in jars while hot. Or dissolve nine cups sugar in one cup water, add eight cups berries and boil fifteen minutes. Skim; seal in jars. Or boil equal weight berries and water for ten minutes. Set overnight. Pour in shallow pans, cover with glass. Set in sunlight until it thickens, then pour in jars.
Canned strawberries: fill hot jars two-thirds full with berries. Make a syrup of one quart of water, one cup sugar, and fill jars. Berries are not cooked.
Strawberry leather: mash ripe berries to pulp, spread on platters. When dry, dust with sugar and roll up like a jelly cake into pieces. Pack into clean jars.
Strawberry gelatin: use one package red fruit gelatin, one cup boiling water, one pint wild strawberries. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water, add berries, chill. Serve with cream, and garnish with whole berries.
Strawberry mallow: use two cups wild strawberries, one-half cup sugar, few grains salt, half pound marshmallows cut up, one cup cream. Mix together and chill. Top with whole berries.
Strawberry pie: use three cups flour, one cup lard, one teaspoon salt, one egg, five tablespoons cold water, one tablespoon vinegar, strawberry filling. Sift flour, mix with lard, salt, cold water, and vinegar. Mix well and roll out dough; put in greased pie pan. Bake fifteen minutes. Make filling of one cup crushed strawberries, one-half cup sugar, two tablespoons cornstarch, and one cup water. Cook into a syrup. Fill pie crust with fresh strawberries, pour syrup over top and serve. Or use one quart berries, one and one-half cups sugar, one tablespoon flour, one-fourth pound butter. Cook berries a few minutes, put in deep pie pan or dish, cover with a short biscuit crust, dot with butter, and bake until crust is brown. Or put a layer of strawberries in a pan, sprinkle with sugar, then a layer of biscuit dough; keep layering until almost to top of pan. Bake until top is brown.
Strawberries and pieplant (rhubarb): cook pieplant with sugar just before it is done, add a cup of strawberries, let cool and eat.
Strawberry leaf greens: the leaves of wild strawberries were sometimes eaten along with blackberry leaves, fried in grease, or boiled in water with fatback added.