Have you ever cooked an edible weed?

pinkcherrychef

pinkcherrychef

Senior Member
Joined
30 Dec 2017
Local time
4:50 PM
Messages
134
Location
Egypt
I'm a real tree hugger I love plant's and I love learning all about them. Back in America my neighbors knew me as the weird girl who went around the neighborhood digging up weeds to study and research lol. Botany is one of my favorite studies. I would also use them in my cooking. My favorite thing to do was to go in my backyard and grab a bunch of edible plants and cook them or make them into a salad. A lot of plants we call weeds are actually very delicious and nutritious for you. In some countries a plant we call a weed they call a delicacy.

For example purslane is common around the U.S and is known as a very annoying weed. Except in some countries it's used as a food source. I've seen it here in Egypt as a dried herb before. There also is another thing we call a weed which taste delicious and is a delicacy in some places. It's commonly known as pennywort. It's my personal favorite and it taste absolutely delicious. Unfortunately Egypt doesn't have pennywort:(. So my question for you is have you ever cooked an edible weed and ate it before, or would you be willing to cook one?

Please keep in mind if you ever do decide to cook a weed in your backyard please make sure it's 100% edible. You don't want to make a very bad mistake that could make you end up in the hospital.

This is Purslane
portulaca_oleracea_jacopo_venturagettyimages-crop.jpg


This Is Pennywort
1467271675_YyzLpWfxDipBzeYhaxnE.jpg
 
I guess it's down to your definition of "weed" but we do cook nettles here in Brittany as an early spring green: typically in nettle soup (I plan on adding some kombu to this next year and attempting a 'miso' nettle soup).
Yes, we've also used worts here in salads, though exactly which wort it was I'll have to check.
I might add to this list as I remember other things
 
Never cooked them, but dandelion green are great for salad. Although I don't consider them weeds, I've eaten elderberry flowers, cat-tail tubers and cabbage palm hearts.
 
Wild garlic - although I wouldn't consider it a weed. Ditto wild fennel. Foraged wild plants are very on trend (has been for some time) for use in high end restaurants in the UK.

Who is to say what is a weed and what is not?
 
A long, long time ago I used to cook this in omelettes.

weed.jpg


If I remember correctly.
 
When I lived in Oxford in the 1980s, I knew a girl who studied botany. Going for a walk with her was always amusing because she would suddenly dash off to pick some unprepossessing-looking plant and come back with a handful, saying, "This is great in a salad!" She was always right, too. Sadly, I never really got to grips with identifying what plants (or indeed fungi) were good to eat other than obvious things like wild garlic.
 
The photo of your pennywort looks a lot like dollarweed...do you think it is the same? It grows in my yard in the shade by the ditch. My sister hates it in her yard but i love it as it is so cool to the touch on a hot summer day of yard work, i will go sit on it to cool down.

When i was a kid we called a certain weed pickle grass cause it tasted like dill pickles, it looked like clover kinda but only three heart shaped leaves and yellow blooms. I think this is it https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_stricta it is also in my yard...i won't pull it like i do other weeds cause of the fond memories from childhood.
 
Not cooked, but as youngsters we used to often chew a leaf found in the hedgerows, it had a sharp almost bitter taste, I think it was a type of sorrel.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom