Stinging Nettle

"Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle,
And it soft as silk remains."
– Aaron Hill, early 18th century,

The Sting by which we know this nettle is shot from tiny hairs on the underside of its leaves. Upon contact, these ferocious hairs shoot poison darts of uric acid into your skin, provoking a persistent sting and red welts. Stinging Nettle's Latin name is Urtica Dioica (medical name for hives: urticaria). The sting is a rumored therapy for arthritis and is apparently an aphrodisiac for some.

Three centuries after Mr. Hill's poem, the debate is ongoing among eaters of the wild plants: can you pick nettle without getting stung? The other side claims: pluck with intention, connection and permission of the plant. With one afternoon of such psychologically demanding nettle picking, my hands were uselessly swollen and painful; perhaps because I am a woman, rather than a "man," of mettle. Based upon other passages by Mr. Hill (quoted above) about women, as well as my personal painful experiences, this poem is obviously pure, male-chauvinistic metaphor. And since when is Not getting stung more manly than getting stung?

I realize I've said nothing thus far to cause any sane person to seek out this plant, much less pluck and devour it. But once you've experienced the powerful energy and rich flavor of this oft-feared, moist-land plant, she will become a coveted spring time treat.

In our arid prairie, nettle congregates along rivers and streams. I wonder what affect pollution of our local streams has upon nettles and subsequently myself.

Identification shouldn't be too hard; just reach out and touch it! The green leaves grow two at time up the stem, are mint shaped, with pointy ovals and toothy edges. When they are too old to eat and 3-9 feet tall, seeds dangle like elegant earrings beneath the leaves. Baby wild mint and baby red dead nettle look similar to baby stinging nettle. However, the mint is soft and red dead nettle has a purplish tinge to the leaves, under which emerge pink flowers. Whereas red dead nettle and wild mint aren't poisonous, indubitable identification is still a good idea. I once mistakenly picked red dead nettle, rejoicing that I had finally mustered the required mettle for a manly stingless forage. Then a Real nettle stung my hand and ego.

I choose to collect my nettles using a few basic tools: two plastic bags. I cover my sinister, incredibly dominant, left hand with one bag and hold the other bag open with my nearly useless right hand. I pluck the top few inches of each little baby plant (plants less than 10" tall) with my plastic-bag-gloved hand, dropping the tops in my other bag. Although less quaint than a basket and less dashing than leather gloves, this method was developed with a lot of passionate debate and experimentation.

Rest assured, most men and women of varying degrees of mettle do not Eat nettle raw. You have nothing to prove here. Steam or boil them for 10-15 minutes, after which time they cannot hurt you. Warning: don't use your bare hands to guide fresh nettles into their pot. They will continue to sting until they are cooked or dried.

I plop my lumps of steamed, phenomenally green nettles on noodles and marinara sauce, on rice with soy sauce, in soup, even in a lasagna layer. Any where cooked greens go, cooked nettles go too.

Dried nettle also works in soups, sauces and curries. Perhaps dried nettle is best as a nutritious infusion: pour boiling water over nettles (and whatever else), cover, steep for 4 hours. For the last 10 minutes, I toss in mint for flavor. Add honey when still warm. Strain/drink or strain/refrigerate/drink.

The nitty gritty on nettle nutrition (from Healing Wise, by Susun Weed): Very high calcium, magnesium; High iron, potassium, zinc, Vitamin B's and A;supply niacin, protein, vitamin C, D and K. Excellent for the liver, low back and anemia.

"Grasp it with a bag of plastic,
No test of mettle! It's fantastic!"
– Sarajoy Van Boven, early 21^st century, Palouse

Plantain

Plantain is an unusual type of banana sold in stores. Somewhere, sometime, those plantains were wild edibles, needing only to be deep fried in coconut oil for palatability. But not in these parts. The plantain of which I speak today is related as homonym only to the above.

Latin Plantago major does not mean Major Plant, or even God of all Plants and does not harken from the word Plant (from the Latin plante, meaning plant: Webster's Unabridged, 1954). Rather it means "foot-sole" for it's round flat leaves that hug the earth like the soles of gravity bound earthlings.

Some Native Americans referred to Plantain as White Man's Foot because it followed in the foot step of settlers (Growing and Using the Healing Herbs by Weiss and Weiss). The immigrant and one-time genocide harbinger, Plantain, is also called: Waybread, Waybroad, Snakeweed, and of course #@%!!! by obsessive lawnistas. Plantain overtakes a lawn in short order, which is lucky for us. If you don't have a lawn, visit your closest park. It will be there. A favorite place for plantain is the green slope at Gladish Community Center in Pullman. My six-year-old daughter has, perhaps unwisely, taught her pals to identify and devour the playground plantain at "recess". She claims it eliminates the need for packaged snacks.

You too can eliminate the need for packaged snacks by seeking out this earth-hugger.  It's rosette of ribbed, green, round, papery, juicy leaves grow on the ends of fleshy stalks. Pick plantain with rounder leaves as the kind with the narrow leaves is less tasty. From the center of the rosette, a tall thin stalk with cream-colored wispy "flowers" will eventually grow to almost 12". Hundreds of small seeds, suffused with lawn-conquering potential, will then hug the length of the stalk.

With certainty, identify this plant, far from any signs or signage indicating "this area just poisoned." Gather the young leaves before the seed stalk grows. Age causes the leaves to toughen unpleasantly and become a stringy gagging hazard, though not poisonous, per se.

The fresh spring leaves taste of mild mushrooms, though some claim a Swiss chard flavor. Use as salad greens, sandwich dressing, soup additions, and roasted side-dish. If you're hesitant about that "wild" flavor, this is your baby.

For your insignificant effort, you will be rewarded with Vitamins A, C and K. You will devour a mild mucilaginous laxative, anti-bacterial flavenoids, allantoin (good for tissue) and mild tannins (Edible and Medicinal Plants…). The FDA has not examined, approved, nor disapproved of these claims, nor is it expected to.

For the tiny additional effort of drying leaves, you will gain year round access to a tea with several centuries experience is soothing sore throats, bronchitis, coughs, etc. (Edible and Medicinal…)

Externally, Plantain poultices have been used the world over for rheumatic joints, insect bites, sunburns, poison ivy, blisters, and other skin irritations. Poultice: mash fresh leaves or dip fresh leaves in hot water and place them on area of concern. In the Wild West, fresh plantain treated snake bites, if they couldn’t be avoided. Ms. Weed, if that is indeed her name, recommends Plantain leaves for perineum support during labor, diaper rash, and hemorrhoid help (Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year).

A cousin of colon-cleanser Psyllium seeds, Plantago major seeds (available beginning mid-summer) similarly exfoliate the colon. Additionally, soaking the seeds in a little water produces a gelatinous salve for thrushy nipples or a natural hair gel, or both, if you have really hairy nipples.

Plantain roots have been recommended for toothaches, headaches and bad gums (Edible and Medicinal…).

It exhausts me just to think about it all. Clearly, if you ache, Plantain wants to help. This plant offers basically everything under the sun, even it's own earth-hugger energy. Although Plantago major does not even loosely translate into Major Plant, it should.

Plantain invites you to take off your shoes and plant your plantars in the dirt with him. You're soles easily remember how to hug the earth. In Remembrance, Take and Eat this scrumptious hugger. Plantain is the Waybread-wafer of redemption, as we return to the free gifts of this world: heaven is earth.

Pineapple Weed

Who will be the next Miley Cyrus? Who? A question, generated by internet news engines, which burns deep in the minds of the Palouse's more cosmopolitan residents.Will Hannah Montana be replaced? Can she be?

As a po-dunk, hokey resident with a strained relationship with the information age, my big question is: who would want to be the next anybody? Bob Dylan, Shakespeare, Judy Blume: would you be the Next? In my fuzzy dream of this world, no one should want to be a sorry copy of anyone else. Nobody sings their soul to be a second rate substitute.

And that is why our sympathies and understanding should be accorded Mr. Pineapple-weed. "Experts" compare Mr. Pineapple-weed to chamomile without flower petals. Mr. Pineapple-weed's Latin handle Matricaria discoidea is just one off from Chamomile's Matricaria recutita. The affects of Mr. Pineapple-weed's tea compare favorably to the mild, soothing reputation of Chamomile tea. And his English name, Pineapple-weed, announces his odiferous likeness to the spiky, tropical fruit.

How would you like to go through life with people saying things like, "Oh, I do know that Sarajoy. She's looks just like Sally and talks a lot like Arthur." No Thank You! Or perhaps you're name is Sally-esc or Arthur-itic. Compare and Contrast.

Therefore, I will refer to the edible, frilly, silly-looking plant of Pineapple-weed by a different name that hopefully doesn't compare it to something else: Mr. Weed. Admittedly this new "unique" name sounds much too generic and/or as if I'm comparing it to another plant with which, I assure you, there are no similarities aside from their propensity to photosynthesize and grow roots.

Unfortunately, in order to describe a new plant to you, I will need to do the dreaded comparing and contrasting on Mr. Weed anyway, whether I want to or not. His leaves are alternating and ferny, growing up the stems to the plant's height of a foot or less. The chartreuse flowers are like coney domes. It really does look just like Chamomile without the white flower petals and with more pronounced heads.

Where will you find the next Chamomile Pineapple? I have never looked further than my front walk. On second thought, perhaps I have looked as far as my gravel driveway. Unless you are missing the sense of sight, you've seen these around. Once mowed, Mr. Weed hunkers down with lawn, especially in municipal parks.

When will you find Mr. Weed? Barring the return of our over-zealous Warden Winter to imprison us, Mr. Weed should be hanging out in inauspicious places from May to July or beyond.

For such a humble and goofy plant, it's uses are many and mild. Mr. Weed can be steeped into a relaxing tea. The fruity floral heads are also passively nibbled by my young as they meander about the yard seriously attending to the business of play. Once Mr. Weed was introduced to the "New" world, Native American children also enjoyed grazing on the flower tops.

Apparently an insect repellent, dried Mr. Weed was sprinkled upon food to keep away flies by the Flathead of Montana. Mr. Weed also has a history with the Ktunaxa and Stl'atl'imx as air freshener (Food Plants of Interior First Peoples by Nancy J. Turner). And others used it as baby bedding and pillow filler. (Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw).

Ms. Turner notes that Mr. Weed's scientific name means "mother-care". Ms. Kershaw concurs with a list of uses for pre-, mid- and post- natal care.

If you have an aster or ragweed allergy, use caution with Mr. Weed.

Mr. Weed may look and smell like many things, but the combination is ironically unique: looks like Chamomile without white petals but smells like pineapple. Nothing else really matches this description, although I can imagine a messed up scratch-n-sniff sticker.

Who will be the next Miley Cyrus? Nobody, not even Mr. Pineapple-weed.

As with any consumable, be sure you've got the real thing before you partake.