Burdock Root--A Satisfying Wild Edible Plant

Harvesting burdock roots with a shovel. 

I love the idea of eating burdock (Arctium lappa and A. minus).  It's just the type of plant food that could play an important role in a completely wild diet.  It has a thick, starchy root.  It's not that much work to gather if one finds the right spot where the soils are loose.  And there are enough calories to give proficient foragers a good return on their energy investment.  When we mow the lawn, we mow around any burdock in hopes that it propogates well. (I know what you're thinking.  What self-respecting cave man mows the lawn?  I hang my head in shame.)  



Following the roots deep underground. 



As spring began this year, we watched a healthy patch of burdock rosettes tightly clumped in the soft soils by our roadside.  So Yub-yub and I (Thag) set out with shovel in hand.  Despite my enthusiasm, my experience with burdock was limited.  But I'd dug a few roots before, and the key lesson I had learned was this:  Dig deep.  This was no job for some hastily chosen digging stick.  We  went at these puppies with a full-length garden shovel.  Even the small rosettes had roots that penetrated two to three feet into the ground.  And despite my conviction to dig deep, I still did not dig deep enough.  The tip (puportedly the tenderest and tastiest parts--I wouldn't know) broke off every time.  



One meal's worth of roots, cut and scrubbed. 



Even so, we took home a hefty shopping bag full of plants after 20 minutes of easy work.  The burdock grew closely together, and we were able to dig one big hole and pull a number of plants into it rather that having to dig seperate holes for each root.  



We cut off the bitter leaves and the rough, wrinkled, and woody top sections of the roots.  Then we peeled them like carrots, and cut them into coins.  We decided to roast them, and that was where we went wrong.  The product was tasty, but the fast-tapering roots were hard to roast evenly.  The smallest sections dried into hard nuggets when the largest ones had just cooked.  Next time, I think we'll try them in a stew or some other dish where they can be boiled instead of getting a dry heat.  

This was not a culinary triumph, but I still love burdock.  It's flowers are beautiful.  It's velcro seed heads are ingenious.  Its flavor is mild and pleasant.  And it takes wild food beyond just being a garnish, side dish, or salad.  It's real food that could sit at the center of a hunger-satisfying meal.  It is a plant worth practicing. 



Peeled, chopped, and ready to cook. 



The Score: 45 down, 55 to go

Our fridge is full of baggies containing edible odds and ends we need to cook up. Our front porch hosts a few baskets containing edibles we find in the yard. On our trip to Connecticut this weekend, we weeded Thag's mother's ivy specifically to collect the edible weeds growing in it. We stopped the car to collect on the side of the road. We are busy with edibles and are still having trouble keeping up with all this season has to offer.

So...

31. Morel mushrooms--absolutely divine--5

32. Dryad's saddle mushrooms--pungent and chewy--Thag--4, Ooga--1

33. Cattail rhizome flour--labor intensive to process, but sweet and nutty in flavor--5

34. Mint--no description necessary--5

35. Jewel weed--slightly slimy and a bit limp after all the boiling, but mild in flavor--3

36. Sheep sorrel--sour and lemony--easy to use in a variety of recipes--4

37. Wood sorrel--lovely little heart shaped leaves, tastes very similar to sheep sorrel, easy to find--great salad green--4

38. Clover greens--easy to find, hide well in a salad, tough if old--3

39. Milk weed shoots--easy to gather, should be peeled, cook like green beans, get 'em young--4

40. Thistle stalk--use like celery--deep, yet subtle, in flavor--good in sauces--4

41. Black locust flowers--sweet and fragrant, utterly heavenly--5

42. Thistle petiole--use like thistle stalk, but more work intensive--3

43. Burdock petiole--a pain to process, requires two boilings, gentle flavor, easy to incorporate into any veggie dish like a stir fry--3

44. Sumac shoots--we don't think we did these right--supposed to be sweet and juicy--we found them slightly bitter--until further notice, 2

45. Chickweed greens--easy to find, nice lettucy flavor, can be cooked or eaten raw--4

Burdock Root

Wild food is not just a garnish! Yes, the vast majority of edible plants offer nutritious but low-calorie supplements to the otherwise domesticated palatte. They are greens or flowers, tasty but often unsatisfying as a whole meal on their own. Not so the burdock root, or roots in general. Roots and tubers can be organs of energy storage for plants. This is especially true for plants that are biennials, plants that live for two growing season. These plants have an elegant evolutionary strategy. They spend their first year packing away energy the way that a college student might put away money during a summer break. Then the plant will spend all of that energy in a bid for reproductive success, usually by sending up a tall, potent flower. You've no doubt eaten plants that use this strategy, plants like the carrot.

When you eat a carrot, you are basically robbing the college student on their way to school; you are taking the plants stored energy before it can spend it. (This mercenary activity is the way that your ancestors got enough calories to bear offspring.) My metaphor is made with tongue in cheek, but it does serve two purposes. First is a reminder about how important it is to gather roots mindfully. They have a big impact on a plant population. Roots should be taken with gratitude and moderation. Second, biennial roots are best gathered at the time after the energy has been stored but before it has been spent. That means after the first growing season, but before the second.

We had not eaten burdock roots before, but our good friends Rebecca and Ben have. Rebecca showed us the ropes. She prefers to dig them from the loosened soil of a fallow garden with a turning fork. We found that both the inner and outer parts of the root were edible (Sam Thayer again). The sweet and nutty flavor was excellent, and I found that I prefer them, like my carrots, well cooked.