When we talk about fireweed, most think about the tall, bright, fuchsia flowers ubiquitous in the Alaska landscape.
The fireweed flower is often said to mark the beginning and end of summer.
However, long before the flowers appear, fireweed is one of the first vegetables from nature's garden.
In the Alaskan spring's increased daylight, a gradual warming of the soil allows the young shoots of several edible plants to surface.
Fireweed may be the first of these, and the young shoots can sometimes be found coming up through the snow.
Growing between the 25th and 70th latitude, fireweed shoots are referenced in the
culinary traditions of many cultures. Indigenous Alaskan cultures welcomed and
harvested these shoots, in many times the first fresh food after a long winter.
I'm Leslie Shallcross with the University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension Service.
This module provides guidelines on the use of an edible wildflower
found extensively throughout Alaska -- the tall, showy, fuchsia-colored fireweed.
Research on food preservation is an ongoing process.
The United States Department of Agriculture and the Cooperative Extension Service
continuously apply new research findings to their recommendations for food
preservation techniques. The guidelines in this module may be revised as
additional knowledge is obtained that may increase the margin of safety or
improve the quality of home-preserved foods. Consult your local Cooperative
Extension office annually for updated information.
Fireweed shoots are a rich source of vitamin C and pro-vitamin A.
Recent research has also documented that in addition to the vitamins A and C,
fireweed plants contain a number of medicinal compounds, supporting some of
the traditionally documented medicinal uses. Today we're going to talk about
harvesting and using fireweed shoots. Let's see if we can find some.
Take a little knife and a bag to put your shoots in. If you're planning to
harvest fireweed shoots, check areas where you know it grows often during the spring.
Fireweed shoots should be harvested when the plants are young,
only a few inches high, and the emerging leaves are reddish. The plant becomes
bitter with age and the ideal harvesting time may span a period of only a few days.
When harvesting, you'll dig down a couple of inches, cutting some of the
blanched underground portion. Dig carefully so that you don't disturb the
main rhizomatous root, as it is fairly tender. Now that we've got some fireweed
shoots, let's go back to the kitchen and see how we can prepare them to be eaten.
Now that we're back in the kitchen, the first thing that we need to do is to
rinse the shoots to get rid of any soil. I've already rinsed these.
The Cooperative Extension Service does not have any published instructions for long-term preservation of fireweed shoots.
Refrigerate them as soon as possible and plan to use them within a few days of picking, just like greens from your garden.
Some recommend trimming browned and thickened portions, and tasting the shoots for bitterness.
If they are bitter, you may choose to boil them briefly in some salted water before adding to your recipes.
I'm going to give these a taste.
They taste pretty good, so I think I can add them to my salad.
The shoots may be eaten raw, in a salad. They may be boiled or steamed like asparagus.
They may be cooked in a stir-fry or used in an omelet for breakfast.
Fireweed shoots are only available for a few weeks each spring,
so it's important to get them while you can.
As you can see, they can add variety and nutrients to your spring menu.