Wild Mint

Do not read while eating. If you do, be sure to have some Wild Mint on hand.

"the most useful sources of illumination are not always holy books, revered dogma… They might also be serendipitous anomalies that erupt into the daily routine and break the trance of ordinary awareness." –Rob Brezny, Astrologer.


Wild Mint is like dog crap in exactly seven ways, you will be surprised to learn:
1) When you step on it, the smell immediately fills your nostrils,
2) the smell is unlike anything else in this odiferous earth,
3) it can be discovered in convenient places the world over,
4) its history is intertwined with ours from the dawn of time,
5) in large doses, it could be dangerous to pregnant ladies,
6) it comes out when the snow melts, and&
7) accidental discovery can "break the trance of ordinary awareness."

That's a lot of similarities to dog crap for an herb that is among the world's most popular flavorings of all time!

You will not be shocked to learn that dog crap and wild mint don't have anything else in common.

For instance, dog crap is not named after a naiad, a river nymph who was transformed into a plant by Persephone just when the naiad Menthe was about to get it on with Hades and thereby inappropriately sweeten the odors of the netherworld.

In addition, dog crap is not globally known throughout all recorded history as a tea herb good for sloshy and icky stomachs and raw and painful throats, as is mint.

Dog crap attracts flies and rodents, whereas mint is said to repel these pests. 

A lover's mouth that smells like dog crap? Turn Off!  A lover's mouth that smells like mint? Turn On!  Apparently this is not a new concept.  Ms. Kershaw, author of Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies, notes that people have freshened their breath and bodies with mint since males began finding it necessary to seduce their females, as opposed to whatever went on before. 

I have stumbled across this herb in Deary, Cottonwood, and Pullman,  beneath our apple trees and along rail road tracks.  Each time, the place has been wet, with a magical feel.  If I were a water nymph, I would haunt these enchanting spots myself. 

There are three types of mint:   Wild/Field mint, Peppermint, and Spearmint.  Most of these have apparently circumnavigated the globe, co-mingling, procreating and naturalizing, likely due to their seductively smelling bodies.

Wild Mint grows 8 inches to 2 feet tall.  It's thin velvet leaves with sharp, toothy edges, grow in pairs on opposite sides of their four-sided stems.  Purple tinted flowers grow in clusters at the leaf axils.

Many plants may look like Wild or Field Mint when they are young: nettle, false dead nettle, and perhaps Wild Bergamot (none of which would be a deadly mistake).  However, only Wild Mint will smell like mint.  And I don't know of anything dangerous that smells like mint but isn't.  If in doubt, crush it between your fingers.  My apologies if it turns out to be nettle.

What to do with Wild Mint?  Eat it right then, take it home for fresh mint tea, dry it for tea later.  For drying: harvest before it flowers, hang upside down in a dry place with decent ventilation and no direct sun until dry yet still green, then store in a jar in the dark.  My favorite dinner recipe for my cache of Wild Mint is Moosewood Restaurant New Classics' Thai Eggplant and Tomato Salad on Pasta.  Mint and Pasta? Yes!

The flavor of Wild Mint is harsher than domesticated mint, and I would guess that intensity varies with location.  Experiments may be necessary to find your stash's best quantities.

Although bulk mint from the co-op is hardly expensive, Wild Mint holds the thrill of discovery, a connection to the wild earth beneath our feet, and a close encounter with the seductive naiad Menthe.  You could just buy some, but why cheat yourself?

Wild Mint is something I look forward to stepping on.  These refreshing leaves are the "serendipitous anomaly" I Want to stumble in to.  Your dog's crap? Not so much. 

Miner's Lettuce

You thought you knew her. For well over a decade you munched on her juicy green leaves while strolling in the woods. On spindly 3-12" stalks she holds her succulent leaves like a waitress. Clusters of delicate, white-flowers centered artfully upon the thick green platters. Her leaves seem to grow around the flowers in varying stages of circle, with possible points, like a square merging with a circle. You thought you knew her.

With an unimaginative name like Miner's Lettuce, she couldn't have been very complex, very interesting. You hear her name and the history is obvious: miner's ate it, probably 49'ers as those are the miners our imaginations stock. Why did those 49er's name this lettuce?

Whether you’re a miner, a sailor or some other unwashed, hairy, single male back in the day, you either got Vitamin C or scurvy, take your pick. In this purported favorite of miners, the Vitamin C is plentiful, whether fresh in a salad or boiled for a spinach "substitute". And that's it, end of story. "My darling Clementine, Miner's Lettuce is as simple as that," you say.

And then one March day, East of the Cascades where annuals actually die and are born again (rather than in the moist West where everything seems to live forever), someone points to some new weed in the alley and says, "Look! the Miner's Lettuce is finally out!" And because you are absolutely sure that you Know Miner's Lettuce and this is Not it, an argument ensues that ruins the sunny, muddy spring stroll, and leaves you angry and humiliated.

You wonder of the Miner's Lettuce, "How could she have deceived me for so long?" But the truth is that you never bothered to know the whole story, the whole plant. You made your assumptions early on and you were happy with them.

What you saw in the shady, wet alley was this: it was a flat plant, hugging the earth. The stem and leaves were brown, not the Kelly green of the Miner's Lettuce you know (but perhaps sometimes it Is green when it's new, you just don't know anymore). The stems were laid out like bike spokes, each individual one tipped with a spade shaped leaf. It looked like an ancient call to the four directions and all parts in between. It looked like a compass to find true bearings. It looked like a fancy clock saying it's time, all the time. It looked not anything like the slender late spring Miner's Lettuce, slouching beneath the Pines and Cedars, with thick square-round leaves along the stem. That's why you held your ground. That's why you refused to believe your eyes and your mentor, and everything else you take with you to make sure that you have the right plant before you eat it.

Eventually, maybe over the course of a year or a lifetime, you pry your mind open. Perhaps this is Miner's Lettuce, too. Perhaps it Is possible that a plant can look so completely different in early spring than it does in late spring. You didn't know it's secret name, Claytonia (or Montia) perfoliata, so perhaps there are other things you don't know about her. And perhaps, you don't know everything.

Indeed, this flat brown March weed is Miner's Lettuce. Once the pride is swallowed and the mind accepts this new information, the delightful surprise of learning brings a thrill to your spirit. You long to know more; you want the whole story.

You want to know if maybe spinach is the real substitute. Or if there are other miners involved from years other than 1849. But the trail's gone cold now. Everyone assumed the obvious about Miner's Lettuce; you haven't been alone. Information is lost. You will never know who else ate this lettuce, how they ate it, and what ancient names it was called by. "Indian" lettuce is the only clue left. The simplicity of the story lulled everyone into complacency.

Miner's lettuce is now more mysterious than you ever dreamed and it thrills you. The alley looks fresh and carpeted with adventure. The world is new and expansive. The earth holds secrets for you to uncover. Open up and come outside, again. Spring is here.

Just a Dandy Lion

"Whether the weather be fine
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold
Or whether the weather be hot,
We'll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not." –Anon

Spring on the Palouse is an unsettling series of steps and missteps, mixed in with a lot of winter, which, we pray, will eventually lead us to summer. The arrival and readiness of our wild spring greens is less a calendarial matter and more an event determined by weather, erratic and labile. The key to getting your spring greens is to wander outside, keep your eyes open, and pay attention to the earth beneath your feet.

Because you will not want to eat dandelion greens too late in the spring, I'll tell you about them first: Dandelions are the iconic, quintessential hippy edible green; the emblem, the family crest, of the VW bus, bell-bottomed set.

Identification review:
"do-you-like-butter?" yellow flowers, one tops each stem, during the warmer half of the year.

Break the stem and in-edibly vile white milk flows: a rumored wart remedy, applied topically.

Leaves, lobed like a variety of ocean waves: sharp teeth, deep curves, no curves. Hairless under-leaf, except for the spine, which is (depending on which source you turn to) either hairy or hairless.

You may have tried dandelion greens before and tasted something like you'd imagined poison: satanic bitterness. Whereas, they Are considered a bitter green, the key to getting your dandelion greens is to get them early and to use a flavorful salad dressing. The greens of dandelions are offensively bitter once the plant flowers. When you get used to the ferocious taste of Dandy-Lion greens, you'll know exactly when their bite is too harsh.

Dandelions should not be hard to find, despite civilization's best efforts at eradication. You will not need to go on safari in your hunt for these lions, just check in alleys, gardens, and yards. In early spring their yellow, lions-mane flowers are not yet out, so look for a circular spread of leaves in the grass. As always, identify your prey with certainty. Not all green growing things are edible.

Collect them by the handful from relatively clean places. If they look funky or diseased, don't pick them. One lawn expert recently told me that Round-Up was so safe, he could drink the stuff, and I thought maybe he should. Lesson: herbicides are an entrenched institution so keep an eye out, okay? At any rate, wash your healthy looking collection. Dry in a salad spinner. In the alternative, wrap in a dish-towel, go outside, swing your arm in a circle like a cartoon winding up for a pitch: the human salad spinner. Not only is it showy, it's also works! Sort out the yellow leaves and the grass.

Dandelion greens are perfect in a salad, mixed with other wild greens, spinach, or grocery greens and a honey mustard dressing. They are a good spinach substitute in pasta sauce, pasta noodles, green curry, lasagna, soups, etc., etc. They can be wildly bitter, especially in recipes calling for greens by the pound, so mix them with milder greens. You can store them in your fridge for a few days. Don't bother drying them.

Dandelion greens are considered very high in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, potassium and calcium. They are high in iron, B-vitamins, thiamine, niacin, and liver-lover choline. The leaves are also a filling 19-32% protein(Healing Wise by Susun S. Weed).

Susun Weed quotes William E. Dodge from 1870 noting that the Digger and Apache "scour the country for many days' journey in search of sufficient to appease their appetites. So great is their love for the plant (dandelion leaves), that the quantity consumed by a single individual exceeds belief."

I can't say I'm as madly in love with dandelion greens as the Digger and Apache supposedly were, but I do regard them with high esteem and reverence, devouring exhilarating quantities each spring. I'll be in my Birkenstocks, going no further than my neighborhood-nuisance lawn, gathering bowl-fulls of bracingly healthy dandelion greens, and thanking the earth for her persistent, under-appreciated Dandy-Lions.

Curly Dock

My love, My Dearest, Curly Dock,

As snowflakes pile around my door today, my house is warm and my tea is hot.  I should be happy, but you are not here.  I should curl up in a blanket, read a book.  Yet I pace the floors, thinking only of you.  My heart pounding, my blood racing, as I imagine our spring reunion.

         
You'd hate it in here, inside, so hot and soft. You are happy beneath your frozen snow, wedged between jagged rocks, and sleeping along roadsides.  When the time is right, you will rise up.  Soon we shall be together again. But I miss you now. 

         
How blind I was when we were first introduced!  I saw you around town and took you for decorations, adding your rusty red seed stalks to fall bouquets.  I heard gossip that your long, lance-shaped, rough, wavey-edged leaves were edible.  How I laughed, fool that I was!  

         
Secretly, I tried one.  I knew it was you, Curly Dock, by your stalk of rattling old seed pods, brick red, and rising 2-4 feet tall.  You were on a city trail, behind warehouses, along railroad tracks.  Do you remember?  I took one of your alternating leaves straight from the stalk.  No branches interfered.  But you were tough, and ridiculously bitter.  "Maybe, if it were the last food on earth!"  I ignorantly laughed. 

           
All over the Inland Northwest, plants hibernated for winter, but along the Snake River on that fateful day, you were there.  You'll remember the freezing night, the frosted sleeping bags.  Down in that canyon, the sun, like my love, was long in rising.  It seeped through the river fog, and climbed above the craggy buttes.  I climbed a little too and found a perch to watch the sun dance with the cold river as the fog slipped into nothing, like a specter finally satisfied.  I stopped shivering and melted into the lichen splotched rocks.

         
When I opened my eyes again, I saw you there, nestled by my side.  Yellow green, the gold sun shone through your newest leaves.  For the first time, I saw you, really saw you.  You were young and fresh, soft and juicy. 

         
I look your tender leaf into my mouth.  And the two became one.  You were lemony and light, the flavor of sunshine, with a refreshing bitterness, like the cold of early spring . 

           
That day gleams bright in my memory.  The day I first loved you for who you are: a beautiful, wild soul, sweet and sharp all at once.  Cities and roads make you intolerably tough, but this is where you shine, in the wild. 

         
 Surprisingly, we have similarities: both European introductions, long since naturalized. 

         
You're wealthy with protein, calcium, iron and potassium. With more vitamin C than oranges, more Vitamin A than carrots, I've found a diamond in the rough.  Rumors has it you're good for liver, blood, lymph nodes, sores, and joints.  Some say you are anti-bacterial and anti-fungal (Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw).  I love that strong vein of resistance in you.

           
More adventures await we two!  Member of the Buckwheat family, your seeds could be boiled for a thrilling mush or ground to deeply satisfying flour.

We might even boil you large leaves, changing the hot water as we steam the kitchen.

         
This is what makes winters so hard: being without you, unable to reach you, and waiting, waiting for early spring to find you.  You won't make me wait long, though.  I can trust that.  You'll be easy to spot too, because last years seed stalk will still be tall and red. 

         
I've noticed your cousins, Sheep and Mountain Sorrels, almost mistaking them for you.  They're fine, but what an embarrassing faux pas that would be! Before I pluck you again, I will know that you are none other than Rumex crispus.

         
When I am finally plucked from this world, I vow to return to you the nourishment and sustenance you have given me.  That is love: giving and receiving.

         
It sounds trite and simplistic, but it's the only way I know how to express it:  I love you, Curly Dock.  Happy Valentine's Day.

            -Yours truly and forever,  Sarajoy Van Boven

Shepherd's Purse

You have the questions, I can tell. You need to know something. Darlingk, come over here, sit down. What is it you need to know? I can tell you anything. Is it love? Maybe, okay. Is it career? No, okay. Me and the crystal snow globe know many things, just ask. It is about weeds, you say? Weeds?! Did I hear right? You come to the Madame Sauvage Farouche for the weeds? Oui oui, it is hard to see the ground beneath all the snow, it is. Soon it will be February, oui oui, it is true.

Well, let us ask the crystal snow globe. I have to turn her upside down, see, so that the snow comes off the bottom. What do I see? Hummmm. I hum a while, it will appear in the swirling snow.

I see a boy, a young boy in wool and fur. He is near a ditch, or maybe an empty lot; rocks, lots of rocks. A gravel driveway? No, but that does not make sense, because I see sheep, lots of sheep, grazing on patches of green between piles of the snow. In the city!

Oh, I must shake it again. There, now the boy and the sheep are leaving, but the boy drops something. Let me see: it is tiny, very tiny, and looks like a tiny bag, or purse. Very very tiny! If this is his money bag, he is a poor shepherd indeed.

The snow is settling again, I must shake. On the ground, among rocks or a ditch maybe, I see a rosette of leaves. They are random: some lobed like dandelion leaves, others oblong like chicory. But they are smaller. The difficulty would be to identify this plant now, but before the seeds come is the best time to eat these greens, I think. But you need to be very sure before you eat a plant, check the manual or expert.

Ah, the snow is disappearing and the stems are growing 3-12" tall. Along the stems are a few more leaves, oblong and narrow like blades of grass. Ah, and here come the small white snow-flake-like flowers, always staying at the tip of the stem, and leaving behind heart-shaped Valentine seed pods along the stem. It's March now it seems, and this plant is telling me it will stick around through June or so.

I'm getting flavor now: mustard greens mixed with turnips mixed with cabbage. Oh! So much more than bitter spinach, and it seems a good substitute: young leaves in salads and older leaves in soups. I see a Chinese woman in this Crystal snow globe telling me they are good in dumplings. She is saying something about gathering these with her mother in China when she was a child, and now she gathers them in here, in Eastern Washington.

I taste ginger now. But I am looking at the roots here. I see fresh roots and dried ones in carrot soup.

I also see a Native American woman, winnowing chaff from the peppery seeds and grinding the seeds between stones for flour. But this plant seems European in origin. (Edible and Medicinal Plants of The Rockies by Linda Kershaw.)

Oh! here's something terrible! I see the pregnant woman, sick and ailing. No, it does not look good. Ah! Now I see the woman in labor drinking tea. Now she is with a newborn in her hands and she is drinking a strong tea from the herb, and there is not too much blood. Oh, I see many people drinking the tea made from the dried stems and leaves: people with headaches, and stomach aches, and the hemorrhoids. Oh, dear! I did not want to see that!

Does the term Capsella bursa-pastoris mean something to you? I keep hearing the words: Box, purse, pastor. Do you recognize? There is only one species, I think.

Ah! So you do! Tell me what is this plant?

Shepherd's purse. I see. It does all make sense, doesn't it? Madame Sauvage Farouche see's the truth, does she not?

Chickweed

In the Miss Wild Edible contest, there are many runners up, but only one of these ladies has super star status.  Wearing the eternal crown and sash of Miss Wild Edible is Chickweed.  Chickweed's Latin name, Stellaria Media, means little star, in the midst.  She was born to wear the crown and sash.  Despite the biased judge, she's actually well qualified to be Miss Wild Edible.  Personality wise, she is the humblest of wild edibles, hanging low, around the ground in alleys and sidewalk cracks.  She's courageous, braving the cold of winter, jumping up every time the snow melts.  She's got charisma too, as the first wild green, heralding spring, lush and juicy.  And she's a good national representative.  I personally have snacked on her from New Orleans to Orcas Island.

           
She will be around in February, barring major snow accumulation.  Chickweed is always small, but especially so in February.  However, picking off the tops will give you more tops to pick off later.  I have not needed to venture any further than out my back door to find chickweed.  She loves shady, wet, and protected areas.   In my old alley, she grows around the water main, on a very old compost pile and under a hedge of lilacs.  In your days as an undereducated fool, you may have chucked her from your garden.  She would have been the one that was easy to uproot. 

           
Late spring, chickweed will be a 12" tall spindly mat of tan colored twine topped with incredibly green, little leaves and a constellation of small white asterisks.  Currently, the chickweed is about 4" tall.   Like myself, chickweed is Not a morning person, so her five, white, dual-lobed petals don't open until afternoons.  The leaves are the most encouraging green, ½" long usually, and shaped like shovels, but pointier at the ends.  There are two at a time from the same place on the stem.  With good eyesight, you can see one tiny, shifting line of hairs on the stem.

What to do with chickweed?  Eat the green tops by the bucket load, fresh.  There is a chamber of my heart dedicated to loving every moment I have spent eating chickweed.  It is the sweetest wild green I have ever tasted.  Add some wild to a tame leaf lettuce salad.  Temper the bitter greens that we'll gather later this year.  Munch as you hike.   You could also substitute it for spinach in a sauté, casserole or soup.  There is no need to dry or cook it, though some experts encourage this.

       
According Susun Weed (author of Healing Wise),  chickweed is very high in copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, silicon and zinc.  It is high in calcium, chlorophyll, phosphorus, potassium, protein, Vitamin A, and fat.  And it is a good source of Vitamin C, riboflavin, niacin, thiamine, and plant sodium. 

        
Certainly, we can be sure that the FDA has never investigated or verified the healing power of chickweed poultices.  However, Susun Weed advocates chickweed poultices be applied to every possible injury.  Anecdotally, I have used chickweed poultices to rapidly clear up physician-diagnosed pink-eye that would not respond to eye drops.  Here's how you make a chickweed poultice:  fill a small jar with chickweed.  Pour boiling water over it.  Pull the chickweed out shortly thereafter, place on a very clean, thin clothe.  When cool enough to handle, but still quite warm, place it on area of ailment until cool.  This whole process is rather hot.  Please be sure to not burn or scald anyone.  You could also drink the nutritious green water left in the jar.  Repeat it every few hours for success.

        
Warnings: Identify with 100% certainty. As it is low growing, you will want to beware of animal excretions.  I am careful to not pick chickweed growing near poisonous mushrooms. In Herbal Medications, D.G. Spoerke wonders if large amounts of chickweed infusion might have been responsible for a temporary paralysis.  He then assures us, "There is no recent evidence to indicate that chickweed presents a toxic hazard."

        
Therefore, it is my pleasure to crown her Miss Wild Edible!  Here she comes!  Waving her princess wave.  Down the red carpet.  Into your heart and belly.          

Peas and Butter O'DEATH

The English language wallows in a mire of obfuscation and fraudulence.  Knot only our are spellings laughably perverse, add homonyms, and mix with terms like Greenland, buttercups and sweet peas for a deadly cocktail of confusion.  With the whole world careening into this one language, global tragedies must ensue, mark my words!

In the ethos of "Think Globally, Act Locally,"  let's resolve this year to prevent global calamity by straitening out a few linguistic kinks in the local Wild Edible realm. As has become my New Year's tradition, I commence upon this newest addition with a study of Wild In-Edibles as a vital counterpoint to Wild Edible practice.     

Buttercups are Not made of butter.  English's "Buttercup" is the mangy mutt bastard of French's "Button d'or," (Golden Button) and Anglo-Saxon's "cop" (head).  Somewhere along this twisted family tree Buttercup meant "Golden Button Head,"  which sounds like something to choke on rather than a fattening dairy creation.  (Plants of the Southern Interior from Lone Pine).

Buttercups grow tall or short, creeping or upright, margarine gold or fresh butter mellow.  Their green leaves are usually deeply lobed into three, sometimes two, sections of often frilly points.  Their shiny, five-petaled simple flowers, cheery yellow cup'o'toxins, spring up early in the year. 

Do Not pat these upon your morning toast, for all buttercups will bring you are the blisters and burns of poisonous alkaloid compounds.  They do not taste like butter, but are so bitter that before ingesting too much of it we tend to notice that something is seriously amiss.  Reportedly, buttercups pose greatest risk to dozy-eyed cows.  However this does not bear out with personal experience, not because I am a cow, but because my first 15 years were shared with steers who Never ate the buttercups carpeting our field.

             

This hurtful and useless plant's legends are thickly spread across the globe.  The nearby Nlaka'pmx (now there's a language!) poisoned arrowheads with it.  Okanogan's warned children to not touch it.  (Plants of the Southern...)  The English believed the smell could drive one to madness.  Beggars, following buttercup's lead of deception, slathered themselves in its blistering juices to gain sympathy (hey, everybody's got to make a living!).  Roman scholar Pliny "noted" that buttercups induced maniacal laughter ending in death (Edible and Medicinal Plants of the Rockies by Linda Kershaw).  On May Day, Irish farmer's rubbed the flowers on cows' udders to increase milk production (or was that puss?).  Buttercups have also historically soothed the rheumatism, arthritis, and neuralgias of the desperate. 

Soon we will marvel at this bright flower's chutzpah as the Sagebrush Buttercup is among the first natives to shrug off the Palouse winter.  Despite your admiration, do not bring them home.  Do not drink from this cup.  Do not melt them upon the following Peas.

            

 The pea family creates confusion via appearance, classification, and nomenclature.  Some wild peas are edible, some are deadly poisonous.  In the Pea family are these poisonous relatives:  lupines, goldenbeans, locoweeds (no confusion there), timber milk-vetches (churned into buttercups, no doubt), pea-vines and American vetch.  This family grows garden-pea-like flowers giving way to pea pods which look like something to pop open and eat as impromptu trail-mix.  A more experienced Wild Eater could select peas that won't leave you vomiting or paralyzed.  But I will not take my slim chances.

            

Example: Timber milk-vetch, a pine-forest-loving perennial, upright, clumping, white or lilac pea-flowers, thin pods. This vetch's milk collects selenium, causing its digesters depression, diarrhea, balding, and heart and lung failure (AKA: death), molybdenum for poor growth, brittle bones and anemia, locoine alkaloids for locoism (which is apparently English for Spanish for Insanity) and last but not least, miserotoxin, a well christened poison causing either rapid or slow-acting deaths from nerve damage, brain bleeding and lack of breath (L. Kershaw). I do not believe you get to take your pick from the miserotoxin's bag of goodies.  As my young daughter says, "You get what you get and you don't make a fuss." 

            

 Above are several of our language's more unpalatable fibs.  If you do get served a nasty dish of Milk-vetch peas and buttercups in the 12 months looming ahead, don't make a fuss, and better luck next year.

Bellyaching aside, Sarajoy does love her native tongue.