The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-03-22
SPRING GREENS.


When city horses and cows poke their
heads out of stable windows and sniff the
March air as if wild to get into the fields
and woods, then sunbonneted women and
little girls take tin pals and old knives to
hunt greens" on the few vacant lots
around town. Creme sawce'' is of great an
tiquity and is divided into salads and
pot herbs" The value of spring green's is
long and poetic chapter. Samphire. of
Shakspeare's day-"dreadful trade TO
gather 1t from Dover's cliff-was an aro-
matte leaf, to be boiled and eaten with
vinegar. Kali, Walter Scott tells us, was
"a pottage of cabbage, or other green's"
Addison defines greens as leaves and
stalks of young plants used, when cooked,
for food"
Jordan Hall says that people somewhat
resemble cows; they will go a long way
for greens" In the old days, greens, or
pot herbs were called garden green's"
or wild green's and many green things
growing were then held edible which are
now seldom heard Of Dandelion greens are
as old as the hills. Hecate served Theseus
with dandelion salad The old-fashioned
garden greens were spinach, kale, lettuce,
mustard, turnip greens, beet greens, cab
bage green's; later came caulifower broc-
coli, endive, brussels sprouts and many
others. Lettuce was sometimes cooked
with bit of onion; and lettuce and peas
were also cooked together. Collards, as
well, were an old-time garden greens. But
dandelion green's hold sway in March. One
hundred dandelion-green seekers are al
lowed ION the grass In the New York
parks, in the spring; they are called lawn
trimmer" the authorities welcome
their help. When Elijah Fletcher-of hon.
ored memory-was preaching In New AL
bany, in the late fifties-he used to leave
his sermon-writing and go about in the
neighbor yards with a little tin bucket to
gather dandelion greens for Kate" He
loved nature and human nature, and car
ried fine scholarly talk-still remembered
wherever he went
Black white and wild mustard were good
old-fashioned green's they were in high
favor with our forefathers, and the mus
tard patch flourished beside the lettuce
patch or cabbage patch" Six mustard
seed in spoonful of molasses, Jordan
Hall says, was a pioneer boys dose for
chills and fever. People used to pound their
coffee mill-to be mixed with vinegar and
eaten on bacon meat" Mustard, 1t is said.
is a good tonic for the memory. Table
mustard, by English and French epicures,
used to be mixed with sherry, madeira or
champagne. Another old-time wild greens
was plantain, of a certain kind; also an
acid dock, called in earlier family botany,
'sour dock" Sorrel, too, had great value as
a dietetic pet herb" For a mess o.
green's" the old-fashioned cooks would mix
all homely wild tender sprouts-"a very
compound dish"-when no one could be
gathered in sufficient quantity. Wild lettuce
was another good spring dish, boiled and
garnished. Another precious product of the
fields was lambs quarter" mountain
spinach. During the revolutionary war,
near jamestown, soldiers eager for spring
greens, died from eating cooked "datura,"
then an unknown plant, now corrupted into
jimson weed Young and tender poke
shoots, not a finger high, were once eaten
as green's and the first tender sprouts
of the blackberry vine, soft prickles and
all. went into the pioneers spring dinner
pot.
Roots and tops of young beets made "a
good dish in the spring. and "all green's"
says the old English cookbook, should be
gathered before the dew is off," Spinach
used to be boiled in a net, or coarse muslin
bag: and poke sprouts were tied up in
punches, to be served like asparagus.
fowl, or jole and green's Is an old-time
gastronomic classic seldom mentioned in
the cookbooks. but kept in recollection by
all word mouth annals On all old farms
the jowl of the hog-smoked in the old
fashioned smokehouse-was sacredly set
apart for the feast of spring green's. "Jowl
and green's" with Johnny-cake or ash-pone,
cooked by an open fire, Jordan Hall says.
would make a man sing old Virginia songs.
So, after Easter Sunday, the good Catholics
baked ham, garnished with bread stuffing,
boiled eggs and turnip greens, would make
all neighbors who were partakers think
most highly of the good Pope at Rome.
Few garden greens came to market in old
days, and they were not discussed in the
agricultural records. Now, their improved
varieties are wonderful and numerous
Mustard green's are "creole. giant Southern
curled and Bloomsdale; Chinese giant os-
trich plume: black. white, brown and yell
low London" There is ''ever-ready spin
ach." also "prickly seed" Victoria" New
Zealand" broad-leaved CHAMBERS and
round Savoy" Dendelion greens-in Guilt
waited type, the daffodil of vegetables-is
known ''cabbaging dar ielion'' and
French garden" 1t prevents malaria, and