Dandelion Marmalade

Last week, we went visiting in Boston, and while our friend nursed her baby under a perfectly blue sky, Baby Yub Yub and I collected dandelions in the field. It was an idyllic moment. Our hands were left bitter tasting and colored yellow, but we had a bag full of dandelion flowers.

Back home, I carefully separated the flower petals from all the green parts. This was easy but time consuming—and the baby was very helpful—carefully placing her own flower heads in a Tupperware bowl and stirring them with a spoon. I was on a mission. Making jam is one of my passions, and as soon as I saw a recipe for dandelion marmalade, I got excited.

The following recipe is my own:

3 oranges
1 lemon
1 cup dandelion flowers—no green parts
½ box suregel, lower suger recipe
2 ½ cups sugar
1 ¼ cups water

Peel oranges and lemon. Chop peel into tiny pieces. Combine with water in a pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer 20 minutes.

Peel and discard the rest of the white rind.

Chop oranges and lemon into small chunks. Add to rind. Cook 12 minutes.

Mix suregel and ½ cup sugar.

Add sugar/suregel mixture and dandelion flowers to citrus. Cook until boiling. Stir often.

Add sugar. Stir constantly. Return to full boil. Boil 1 minute, stirring the whole time.

Ladle into hot sterilized jars. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

This recipe is a 5!

Cattail Rhizome

Samuel Thayer said it could be done, so we went out and tried it. And boy was this fun! The starchy core of the cattail rhizome can be processed to retrieve a flour. The gathering required a mucky walk into the cattail marsh. I tread carefully. Beneath a soggy lattice of cattail leaves and fallen branches was a sucking mud that I wondered if I could eject myself from if I got stuck.

The process took a bit of finesse. I started by finding an old stalk and following it by hand through the cold, opaque waters and into the sulpherous muck. Feeling around, I would eventually grasp onto something that felt more like a rope than the surrounding sticks. Then I'd reach beneath with my knife, careful to cut the rhizome and not my fingers. Then I gently pulled on the cut end. Somewhere, several feet away, the few tentative early leaves of an early cattail stalk would dunk below the surface like the tail of a duck. A few gentle tugs and it would emerge in my hand at the end of a foot or two of alien-looking tentacle.

When done, I was mucky, smelly, and happy.

The next day we were leaving for Boston, and I was unprepared for the time that processing the bagful of uneartly things would take. I mangled the first few roots, losing most of the starch as I fumbled with the technique of pushing off the spongy rind with my thumb. It was one o'clock in the morning when I finished with the sticky pile and set it to dry on a baking sheet. The house was quiet and I felt at peace. It was the end of a week of break from school. The work-a-day world felt far away. I had spend every hour of the last week with my growing daughter and wife. I had gathered wild plants every day, taken long woodsy forays finding fiddleheads, wild leeks, and hawthornes. I was tired, but my whole body felt light anyway. I imagined what a life like this would be like.

I still can't see how to feed myself exclusively off the wild. But these starchy roots made me feel a little closer. Here was something that promised real caloric value. I've eaten so many tasty greens. But, they've been just that--greens. Not something that could keep a family alive for months on end. If there were a giant swamp to camp by like some of the ones over by Keene, maybe one could survive off of a stew thickened the starch here. I feel like I am learning myself closer to my own emancipation from civilization, one plant at a time.

How do cattails taste? They taste like freedom.

The Score--21 down; 79 to go

Well, we seem to be on track to meet our goal of 100 wild edibles this year. Wow does it keep us busy! It's a lot of work to keep track of so many plants, where they are on the landscape, and when they are coming into their edible stage. We haven't missed any plants yet, but red tide will probably mean no shellfish gathering of any kind this year. Next stop is to gather cattail rhizomes for flour. Following is a synopsis of our adventures so far.

Edibles We've Tried with Brief Descriptions and Ooga's Rating

(for a reminder of our scale see our entry at http://foragingfamily.blogspot.com/2010/04/recipe-rating.html)

Winter

1. pine needle tea (Pinus strobus)—more of a tonic than a tea; recommended for those with scurvy—2
2. eastern hemlock tea (Tsuga canadensis)—another scurvy remedy, but even less palatable than pine—2
3. black birch tea (Betula lenta)—pleasant wintergreen flavor—3
4. maple syrup (Acer saccharum)—fit for the gods—5
5. black birch syrup (Betula lenta)—interesting; probably an acquired taste; lots of work—3

April

6. dandelion greens (Taraxacum officinalle)—bitter greens that must be carefully prepared to be good; don’t judge wild edibles by this green—2
7. orpine greens (Sedum purpureum)—mild and tender; reminds us of Boston lettuce—4
8. day lily greens (Hemerocallis fulva)—a staple salad green when tender—4
9. violet flower jelly (Viola papilionacea)—fun; the wild edible to show off to your grandmother--4
10. garlic mustard greens (Alliaria officinalis)—yes they are distantly reminiscent of garlic; no that does not make them tasty (at least not in our hands)—2
11. stinging nettle greens (Uritica dioica)—uber-healthy superfood that also taste great; their bark is far worse than their bite; skip your supplements today and eat these greens—4
12. Canada mayflower greens (Maianthemum canadese)—a tasty abundant green that somehow escaped the wild food literature; we’ve never seen it written up in a guide, but it in our salads every year—3
13. wild onion greens (Allium vineale or A. canadese)—strong flavored herb; good for cooking but not a choice salad green—3
14. wild leek greens and bulbs (Allium tricoccum)—here’s another reason for living—5
15. ostrich fern fiddleheads (Pteritis pensylvanica) —otherworldly, wonderful texture, reminiscent of asparagus—5
16. Japanese knotweed shoots (Polygonum cuspidatum)—supposedly edible; would love to have a reason to harvest more of this pesty invasive, but have not yet found a way to stomach more than a serving or two—1
17. trailing arbutus flowers (Epigaea rapens)—sweet, fragrant, beautiful; please gather gently—5
18. spring beauty roots and greens (Claytonia virginica)—tiny little tubers are one of the best-tasting root vegetables I’ve ever had; alas their small size and rarity; harvesting feels like killing a songbird for its meat; is it worth extinguishing that spark of life for such a small morsel, however sweet?—4
19. trout lilly roots and greens (Erythronium americanum)—ditto—4
20. wintergreen berries (Gaultheria procumbens)—you’d never survive off of these delectable little treasures, but I still never pass up eating one—5
21. partridgeberries (Mitchella repens)—beautiful but bland; a garnish—3