Foray into Foraging
It is becoming a spring tradition at Maison Blum to forage for wild garlic, nettles and violets. Lu’s initial impatience at having to pick those tiny violets has given way, this year, to her own enthusiastic initiative. She made this simple recipe for violet sugar from Fare Isle: https://fareisle.com/wild-violet-sugar/ as well as the customary violet ice cubes we love to break out for picnics at the height of summer. She wanted to know what Sadie (our dog) made of her precious, amethyst-hued bounty, and I’m told it passed the sniff test. Pic above for proof!
I simply took some leaves from the wild garlic plants (aka ramps) instead of digging up the bulbs, partly out of laziness and partly because I’d like to encourage the expansion of the patch in our forest. Here’s a great resource for anyone looking to go “ramping” - https://www.wildedible.com/blog/foraging-ramps. It’s sad to hear that over-harvesting is causing a decline in these wonderful plants, harbingers of spring and the perfect post-winter tonic. The good news is that you can harvest more responsibly by following the directives given in the article linked above.
Lucky for us, nettle grows abundantly at the edge of our forest where it meets the shire, so I can go ham on that! Now, while the plant is young and tender, is the best time to harvest nettle to dry for tisane, which apparently provides a whole host of benefits to health. I’ll admit I’m not quite there with my wellness regimen - I prefer black teas - but I’m planning on introducing these sorts of gentle medecines to our family slowly as we all begin to grow older (found my first silver hair this month!) What I do adore is making a simple nettle and wild garlic soup each spring - a big batch - and freezing a few jars for later. The soup is an incredible emerald colour and you can feel the reinvigorating, cleansing power of it coursing through your veins like the earth’s own evergreen blood, I swear! Here’s how I like to make it:
EMERALD GREEN SPRING SOUP
INGREDIENTS
25 wild garlic leaves, roughly chopped
5 large handfuls nettle tops
4 small yellow onions, roughly chopped
2lbs. small yellow potatoes, whole
large bag of frozen spinach
2 tbsp. olive oil
2L homemade chicken broth
METHOD
sautée onion until golden
add wild garlic and heat through until bright green
add broth and potatoes, bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer until potates are soft, adding nettles once the potatoes are al dente and not quite soft yet
add spinach and cook another 5 minutes until it has softened and mixes through; do not overcook or else the soup will be a dull green instead of emerald!
using a hand-blender, purée.
season with salt and pepper and enjoy!
STINGING NETTLES
by Charles Goodrich
Murky water in the slough,
the oily sheen and bitter smell
of herbicides and sewage. That deeper stink
is the natural putridity of drowned fescue
decaying anaerobically, and it rouses me
like a whiff of sulphur from hell.
I’m here for nettles, for a spring
slumgullion of bitter herbs, and the edges
of swampy ex-river bottoms
are where to go with gloves on and rose snips.
The osoberry bushes
are leafing out beside heaps
of broken concrete. Shattered green
wine bottles wink among wild blue violets.
Winter’s gunshot possum has vanished, but now
here’s a rufous-sided towhee just back from Mexico.
Cottonwood pollen floats in long swirls
on the slack water. I sit on the muddy bank
snapping twigs. They say nettles
are richer in vitamins than spinach, but I’m
not Popeye. I steam them for a homeopathic dose
of poison. I may be chronically pissed off,
but I’m a singer of praises, to the end,
and I need those needles
lining my throat.
