Garlic Mustard

Another book that we find useful in our research is "Invasive Plants: Guide to Identification and the Impacts and Control of Common North American Species" by Sylvan Ramsey Kaufman & Wallace Kaufman. It very precisely describes where the plants grow and what they look like. It provides some interesting information on where the plants originated, and when they were introduced to North America. Coincidentally, many of the plants in the book are edible. Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is in the book along with ways to eradicate it, such as pulling up the plant and poisoning the plant, but we like to eat the plant. Garlic mustard will completely overtake areas, crowding out the native plants and producing compounds that discourage growth of other plants in the area.

Garlic mustard is a biennial, meaning the plant lives 2 years then dies. The first year plants form a rosette of scalloped, kidney-shaped leaves with long stalks. The leaves emit a strong garlicky scent when crushed, and are too bitter and tough to eat. In the first year, we dig up the white taproot to use like horseradish.

The second year plants produce a long flower stalk in early spring. Several racemes of small, four-petaled, white flowers open at the top of the stalk, and these flowers will soon produce 1-3 inch long, skinny green seed pods. The pods will dry out and turn brown and papery, and the black comma-shaped seeds will fall and spread.

The flower stalk is edible before the flowers open, picked and leaves removed then lightly sautéed. The flowers are edible in salads, adding a garlicky bite. When the seeds are black and dried, they are easily separated from the papery sheaths, and we add them to toasted spice mixtures and sprinkle them onto breads. The smaller, triangular, irregularly toothed leaves growing along the flower stalk are tender enough to eat sautéed or lightly boiled. Our new favorite is gathering the green seed pods from the top, and lightly boiling them about 1 minute, then serving them with butter and salt. Other popular uses for the tender second year leaves is making a pesto, and stirring them into risotto at the end of cooking. We also add them to soups.

Foraging Report 05/09/2010

Do we spend all of our time foraging? No, I go to the grocery store every week, Robert works, Gillian has preschool, and we letterbox, too. If we are lucky, we manage to squeeze in a bit of foraging everyday, though.



We took a trip down to a beach one day, and came across some Mayapple plants. They were blooming, one pretty white flower each, and will produce one fruit for each singular flower late in the summer. Unfortunately, this is a landscaped, high-foot traffic area, and we are thinking they will not survive until then. There was an enormous bunch of winecap mushrooms, also a bunch of enormous winecap mushrooms! We are still not totally confident with identifying mushrooms, so we only gathered one to take home to make a spore print and to study further, we did not pick or eat any more. We saw the bay laurels making their flower catkins, and saw some sumacs growing new shoots. Robert went out looking for some edible seaweeds, but didn't really find any. I found some pretty beach roses blooming pink and white, and we are looking forward to the tasty rosehips for tea and jelly in early autumn.



While out letterboxing, we picked another bagful of nettles for soup. Jewelweed, a wonderful remedy for nettle stings and poison ivy, is growing nicely in the same area. The old farmstead field contains some thistle, and curly dock. We gathered the flower stalks of each to (carefully!) peel and eat raw. We saw the wild black cherries are flowering, and a few black locust trees will flower very soon. Wild strawberries and dewberries are also flowering.



At another letterboxing site, we came across Solomon's Seal and Solomon's Plume. Robert dug a few roots from each to taste and compare. I picked and peeled some black birch for Gillian to chew on, she loves the wintergreen flavor. We noticed the grapes have leafed out, and picked a few of the curly tendrils to snack on. I noticed a small clearing off trail where there were some very large autumn olive shrubs growing in what used to be a field, and planted Foraging Autumn Olive in the vicinity. We also saw the lady slippers and trilliums blooming, such pretty flowers.




Finally, at our favorite open area very close to home, Robert stopped to pick some second-year garlic mustard tops, with the green seed pods and small leaves. Most of the flowers have gone by, and the plant is producing long, green seed pods that will soon dry out, turn brown, and release many small, pungent black seeds. The leaves are still good to eat, and we experimented with the green seed pods. We will gather the seeds to add to toasted curry spices and sprinkled on breads in the summer. He gathered some more orpine to eat raw, and to try sautéed. We also tried some milkweed shoots, lightly boiled and served with butter and salt--delicious!

Solomon's Seal, False Solomon's Seal

Which came first, letterboxing or foraging? In our case, it was foraging. I learned about letterboxing from a friend, and figured it would be a good hobby since we were already walking around in the woods being very observant. Our week usually consists of seeking out foods in known spots, and letterboxing in a new area hoping to get lucky with some edibles. We went out to find a box, found some Solomon's Seal and False Solomon's Seal along the way. This is a new edible for us, so we took some photos, gathered the edible roots, and came home to try some. There are similarities and differences between the plants.

On the Solomon's Seal (Polygonatum biflorum, or Polygonatum commutatum), the stalks are singular, arching and smooth, and it's leaves are alternate, elliptical, without stems, and the veins run parallel from base to tip. The plants grow very slowly in colonies, so you should only dig a few from each area at any time, since taking the rhizome will kill the plant. Beneath each leaf axil grow the flowers, which are white, bell-like, and tubular. It's root is white once dug and scrubbed. Each flower will later become a dark blue fruit in late summer. They are not edible, but useful for identification purposes later in the season when you can dig for the roots, although they are supposedly sweeter in the spring.

On the False Solomon's Seal, or Solomon's Plume (Maianthemum racemosum), the stalks and leaves are very similar to the Solomon's Seal. The visible difference lies in the flower stalk, or plume. The white flowers grow in a terminal panicle, clustered at the end of the stalk. Each flower is tiny, with 6 petals. These flowers will become spherical red fruit in the autumn, and are edible, but not really palatable. These plants also grow very slowly in colonies, and need to be carefully and selectively harvested. We dug a few rhizomes, and they are a light tan color, with many small roots coming from the rhizome.

The roots were about as thick as a marker. The rhizome only grows about 1-3 inches a year, and you can see where last year's stalk grew along the length of the rhizome. We scrubbed the roots, and tasted then raw. They were very fibrous, and a bit sweet and nutty. Robert then cut them into 1/2 inch sections and boiled them briefly, and they seemed softer. Both ways, the roots were tasty, although not a favorite of ours. The shoots of both plants are also edible in early spring, and we will return to this area to try some next year. It was a nice surprise to find them on our walk today, and a good tasting experience for us.

Violet Recipe - Violet Jelly

I had tried to make violet jelly last year, but it did not work. It never set, and I had 2 jars of violet syrup. I made a teeny batch again this week, just to try another recipe, and it works great. We don't make a lot of jellies in our house, mostly jams. We purchased a food mill last year just for jams, and it removes seeds wonderfully, while retaining pulp from fruit. Jellies are clear, almost like looking through colored glass, while jams are opaque, filled with fruit pulp. This violet jelly is the prettiest shade of electric lavender, it almost looks artificial, but it's all natural.

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Violet Jelly makes about 5-8oz. jars

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2 c. violet flowers

2c. boiling water

1/4 c. lemon juice

4 c. sugar

1 3oz. pkg Certo liquid pectin

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1. Pour the boiling water over the violet flowers in a heatproof glass measuring cup. Allow the violets to steep at least 2 hours. Strain out the solids through a coffee filter.

2. In a large saucepot, stir the lemon juice and sugar into the violet infusion.

3. Bring the infusion and sugar to a rolling boil. Add the liquid pectin, and boil for 2 minutes.

4. Pour the hot jelly into hot, sterilized jars, cover, and process in a water bath for 10 minutes.

Foraging Report 05/02/2010

We picked some more of the same spring greens this week, along with some violet flowers for jam, sassafras root for tea and jam, and more ramps. The ramps are just starting to wind down here, and will soon send out their flower stalk to bloom. We found a teeny bit of watercress to munch on, and tried a few trout lily leaves too. Their yellow flowers have already passed, so they are not in the best season to eat the leaves, but we can now wait for the foliage to pass and dig some bulbs soon. We spotted tons of orpine around, and it is great as a trail nibble, tasting just like raw green beans. Robert gathered a big bag of young yarrow leaves to dry for tea, and he transplanted a few plants here in the yard. He found a big patch of sheep sorrel, also called sour grass, and grabbed another big bag of that. Cattails are putting up shoots already, and the blackberries and wineberries are leafing out. Wild blueberries and huckleberries are flowering, and Gillian likes to make yellow resin prints on her fingers from the huckleberry leaves.

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We ordered a new book by Samuel Thayer called "Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants". It has some great photos, and some super, in-depth information on one of our favorite edibles-autumn olive. It also has a chapter on trout lily which we have in abundance in our area, and which we were previously unfamiliar with as an edible. This book will join his previous book "The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants" on our ever-growing bookshelf of reference material.

Ramps Recipe - Ramps Pickles

What is this? A jar of pickled pink worms? No, pickled ramp bulbs. I found a few recipes online and sort of tooks bits of each and put them together to make something that sounded good to me. The taste is very sweet/sour, and the aftertaste is a little bit oniony. Might be good for martinis, we'll just eat them on the side of everything! These are not processed in a water bath, but are kept in the fridge. I got the spices at the local Indian grocery, and the peppercorns from a peppercorn blend.

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Pickled Ramps makes 1- 1 quart jar

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2 pounds ramps bulbs, cleaned, trimmed

Kosher salt for blanching

1 c. white wine vinegar

1 c. sugar

1 T. salt

1 c. water

1 tsp mustard seeds

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 tsp red peppercorns

1 tsp white peppercorns

1 bay leaf

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1. Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil, and blanche the cleaned and trimmed bulbs for about 20 seconds to retain the color and crunch. Drop the bulbs in ice water to quickly chill. Shake off the excess water and stuff the bulbs into a clean 1 qt. jar.

2. Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, and water in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Add the spices and bay leaf.

3. Pour the hot vinegar brine over the ramps in the jar and cover and cool. Refridgerate.

Foraging Report 04/25/2010

Gillian and Robert both had the week off, so we did a lot of driving this week. We ended up in several assorted areas of the state, from the Litchfield hills to Hamonassett Beach. We managed to find a few letterboxes, and attended a small gather at the Audubon Society in Glastonbury where we hiked the trails with fellow letterboxers.

We saw more of the same this week, when it comes to edibles. Dandelion greens, nettles shoots, chickweed, and wild garlic. We are still eating the ramps greens we picked last Sunday, and I keep peeking at the pickled roots wondering when I can open up the jar and eat them. Japanese knotweed is getting too tall to pick, it would be too stringy for recipes. Second year garlic mustard greens from the top of the flower stalk are good for gathering for pesto, and the white flowers are all open. We did come across some cattails big enough to gather a few hearts as a trail nibble, and are looking forward to an abundance soon. Evening primrose roots and wild carrot roots also were dug and boiled to eat.

Wild grapes are just starting to send forth leaves, and autumn olive bushes are opening flowers. It is nice to see the wild fruit trees in flower in the woods since most trees have not leafed out yet. Jewelweed sprouts are up, along with the first pokeweed shoots. Plenty of orpine to be found in a local park, along with some rather tough burdock roots.

My knotweed wine has really slowed it's fermentation, but the dandelion flower wine is still bubbling away. The knotweed wine is about a week older, and the color has mellowed out and cleared a bit to a light pink. I hope to have this drinkable by September, along with a wild grape wine I started last fall. We are willing to drink them "young" and rough, since our winemaking is mostly for fun, and just to see if it works!