Friday, March 14, 2008
In many ways we've lost touch with that desperate springtime longing for fresh green things that only living an agrarian life based on self sufficiency engenders. If we want a salad or fresh greens, we just go to the supermarket and buy them. Consider what it is like to have nothing but cabbage, because that stores well buried in the root cellar, for the entire winter. Some time in late February, the creasy greens get large enough to cut. By this point your body is craving the vitamin C punch these things carry and no matter how old you are, you are eager to have your first plate of greens.
Greens are almost always cooked here. Green salads don't seem to be as common and the old timers almost always saute or wilt the black-seeded Simpson lettuce they grow in the gardens.
Creasy's grow low to the ground and are a many lobed wild mustard green that is distantly related to water cress.. You can tell when you taste them in the field by their hot bite. You find them in unploughed fields and fallow areas. You cut them with a knife, leaving the root system intact for the next year's growth. They self seed very nicely and will even grow indoors well. The seeds are available from several heirloom seed sites if you'd like to sew you a patch. They'll grow just about anywhere.
Traditionally, you blanch the greens in boiling water for a few minutes, then drain them. Then you fry up some chucks of bacon and smother onions and ramps(if they are available). Saute the drained greens in this mixture, tossing all the ingredients well.
If you want to fancy this up, substitute prosciutto for the bacon, smother your onions in clarified butter, toss all together and top with feta or goat cheese.
I like them chopped raw and spicy in my salads--I fancy a mess right about now.
That does sound like a good meal! We have our ramps festival every year here in April--good stuff!
LI is too coastal--they only seem to grow in the mountains.
I do quite a bit of wildcrafting, since there is so much here to enjoy.
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