The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-04-30
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WILD GREENS AND SALAD PLANTS
Dandelions Form Perhaps the Most I'm
portant

| pUllaHl.
Many of the wild plants that accom-
pany the advent of spring can be used
advantageously in the household. Be-
fore modern methods of marketing, stor-
ing, and preserving made it possible to
have vegetables throughout the year
these plants were eagerly sought for by
housekeepers to furnish relief from the
monotonous winter fare. Even now they
will form welcome change, and, above
all, they may be had for the trouble of
picking, as substitutes for purchased
greens.
Foremost among these plants is the
dandeion. Its use as a vegetable is so
common that it is sold in many city
markets. Occasionally it is cultivated
by market gardeners, but much more
frequently the plants sold are wild ones
and ought to cost less than cultivated
greens. When one in the family can dig
| them near home, there can be no doubt
as to the economy of using them. If
| they are taken from the lawn, there
is the further advantage of removing
! troublesome weed--proyiding always
that the digging is carefully done. Only
the dandelion should be pulled, not the
grass around it, and the root should be
removed, not broken off at the top, else
several crowns OF leaves may grow in
the place of one. As in most stem and
leaf vegetables, the texture and favor
are both best when the plants are young.
Growing as they do close to the sur
face of the ground, dandelion greens are
likely to be full of earth and grit, and
must be carefully washed and rinsed in
several waters. The water in which
they have just been rinsed should never
be poured out of the pan over the
greens, but the greens should be lifted
out of the water so that the dirt which
has settled to the bottom may not get
back on the leaves, and for the same rea-
son the cooked greens" should be lifted
out OF the water in which they are
boiled.
The most common way of using dan
delicious is as potherb or greens. As
with most green vegetables, it is a mis-
take to cooked them more than needed to
make them tender. Ii they are boiled |
with "a teaspoonful QeveD of cooking
soda to each quart of greens used, they
will keep their color better Young dan
delions may also be used uncooked as
salad, custom less common in this |
country than in Europe, where the ten
der plants are sometimes blanched like !
asparagus. Ii more dandelions are avail |
L. L. l,1 -
fresh, they may be preserved for flu
ture use. They may be canned by the
method used by the canning clubs for
spinach, or they may be put down" in
salt according to household method. |
In many homes it is a common practice
to preserve dandelion greens with salt
in stone crooks, putting in first a layer
of greens, then layer of salt, then more
greens, and so on, until the crock is
filled. The dandelions are then covered
with close fitting plate or board, on
which a weight Ia clean piece OF marble
or stone) is placed to keep the greens
packed solid.
Other wild plants used as potherbs
are curly dock, pigweed or lambs quar-
tiers, chickweed, mustard shoots, purple
milkweed shoots, young horse-rsdish
leaves, marsh marigold sometimes called
American eowslipsl, poke sprouts, pep
per cress, purslane or ''pusley," and in
the southwestern states some sorts of
cactus leaves and stalks. If the bitter
or acrid flavor is to- strong, as is fire.
quently the case with horse-radish leaves
or poke sprouts, for exs pie, it may be
Iessened by changing the water once or
twice during cooking. Rightly cooked,
all of the plants mentioned are harmless.
Marsh marigold is sometimes said to be
harmful, but this is not the case with
the cooked greens. /,
A little later in the season a few other
potherbs appeal which, though cult :
waited rather than wild, are so seldom
utilized that to use them means as much !,
saving as if no care had been spent to ,
-aise them. Among these are the tops !
IF turnips, radishes, beets, and onions, !
al OF which may be cooked like spinach !
,r dandelion. The onion tops should be ,
.ut up into inch lengths before cooking. .
They are excellent served, on toast :
cabbage sprouts are also favorite when
hey are obtainable. =
There are also a few salad plants TO !
De had for the picking. Like all food !
eaten without cooking, they :
must be very carefully washed before n
lsing Water cress is perhaps the most
generally known. IL is also cultivated. I
[ should never be eaten if il has been /,
rrown where there is any chance of ;
from typhoid fever or D
'ther disease. This is true of any veg I
table that is unlocked, but must be re- a
uembered especially in connection with G.
,lants growing near water, since the Ii
after may have carried the disease germ q
long way from the place where the G.
llness was. Pcppergrsss or peppercress d
5 another wild plant useful for flavor Ii
ng other salads, if too sharp to use p
lone. Sorrel may also be used to give h
pleasant acid taste to lettuce or other 81
Mild favored salads, though the ordinary 2
lid kind is too sour to use IN quantity
5 a potherb Ike the varieties Guilt e,
ated for that purpose. "
OF plants cultivated in the flower gar Ii
en- the leaves and unripe seeds Of mas ri
urtium may be mentioned as a season Il