- Here is a plant that I just picked
from a crack in the sidewalk.
It may not look like much, but if prepared properly,
it can be transformed into a nutritious and delicious meal.
[whimsical music]
I'm Dr. Bill Schindler.
I'm a food archeologist, chef, and director
of the Eastern Shore Food Lab at Washington College.
Now most of us go to the grocery store
to find our vegetables.
But what we may not realize is that the nutritional profile
of wild plants, or to most of us, weeds,
far exceeds that of domesticated plants.
I'm gonna spend the next several hours
walking around my town, my neighborhood,
and even my yard, to show you where you can find
some of these plants, and how to harvest them.
Then I'm gonna take them back to my kitchen
and show you how to transform them
into some nourishing and delicious meals.
Let's get to it.
Before we begin, a few words on safety.
Now the first thing that we need to realize
is that all plants contain toxins.
But when we're foraging, the responsibility falls on us
to properly identify and understand
the plants that we're harvesting.
The other thing that we need to keep in mind
is what's happened to the land on which we're foraging.
Have people sprayed insecticides or fungicides
or herbicides and if so, how does that impact quality
and the safety of the food we're trying to harvest
and include in our diets?
[understated music]
I'd like to introduce you, or reintroduce you
to this plant right here.
Many of you have seen this growing in waste lots
or maybe even in your own yards
and have probably tried really hard to get rid of it.
Often considered a class A noxious weed
in many parts of this country, this is in fact
one of the most nutritious wild edible plants in the world.
It's known as garlic mustard.
And as its name implies, it tastes like a combination
of garlic and mustard.
Now it's very easy to identify
for a number of different reasons.
It starts its life off with these young leaves
that look almost like an arrowhead
that are somewhat toothed.
Later on, these leaves turn into a more heart-shaped leaf
that are scalloped on the edge.
It has distinctive seed pods,
white flowers with four petals.
But the most distinguishing characteristic
is that when any part of this plant is crushed,
it gives off an odor that is a combination
of garlic and mustard.
Every part of this plant is edible.
The underground roots can be used
as a horseradish substitute.
The seeds can be used to make mustard.
And the stalk, the leaves, and the flowers
can all be used either cooked and sauteed, or eaten raw.
And really the best thing to do with this plant,
to make the most of its garlicky mustard flavor,
is to use it in pesto.
When harvesting the leaves from this plant,
we want to assure that we get
the most tender leaves possible.
And we do this by focusing on the new growth
young leaves at the top of the stalk.
[understated music]
Here we have a common dandelion.
These plants grow in just about everybody's yards
and people work really, really hard to get rid of 'em,
but this is just another example
of an incredibly nutritious and delicious wild edible plant.
Now the name dandelion comes from the French Dent de lion,
which means the lion's teeth.
And what that's referring to are its leaves
that have deeply notched teeth.
And the points actually point back to the center
of what we call a basal rosette.
See a dandelion, it's just like many other spring plants
that when they first appear in the early part of the year,
they send out a whole bunch of leaves in a circular pattern
to attract as much sunlight as possible
at a time of the year
when there isn't that much direct sunlight.
Now other plants, when the stalk comes up out of the ground,
it picks up those leaves and carry them up the stalk.
But a dandelion is fairly unique in that it always keeps
its basal rosette leaves at the ground
the entire time it's alive.
Dandelion greens are full of high-quality nutrition,
but they're also a little bit bitter,
and that bitterness fluctuates throughout the year.
In early spring like now or later on in the fall,
that bitterness is greatly reduced.
But in the middle of the summer,
that bitterness is at its peak
and most people avoid dandelion greens that time of year
just for that reason.
So what chefs will often do is combine
the bitter dandelion greens with high-quality fat,
particularly high-quality animal fat,
because that fat will cut the bitterness.
And that's why often when you see a dandelion green salad,
it's often cooked with some sort of bacon grease
or have some sort of a bacon grease dressing.
You can also eat the dandelion flower.
Well, this dandelion flower is actually not one flower,
but it's a composite flower made up of a ton
of tiny little flowers.
It's sweet, slightly crunchy,
and you can use it to make wine.
You can use it as a garnish for salads,
or you could also take this, dip it in some batter,
and fry it up for a fantastic fritter.
The below-ground parts of this plant are edible as well.
Let me show you.
And there's two parts I want us to pay attention to.
First are the roots.
Now the roots by themselves are a little bit
too tough to eat raw, but when cooked, boiled or steamed,
they actually are an excellent cooked vegetable.
On top of that, if roasted, they take on a flavor
that's just like your roasted coffee beans
and make an excellent caffeine-free coffee substitute.
In fact, during World War II when there were food shortages,
people in eastern North America
used to take dandelion roots,
roast them to taste like coffee,
and pair them with Yaupon holly leaves, ilex vomitorias,
and by putting those two things together,
people could make a coffee substitute
that actually not only tasted like coffee,
but packed the caffeine punch that coffee does.
The other part of the dandelion, in fact,
my favorite part of the dandelion, is this part right here,
between the base of these leaves and the top of the root.
This is called the crown, and this is my favorite part
because especially in larger dandelions,
it is the most delicious and crunchiest part of a dandelion,
and they work really, really well raw in salads.
[understated music]
Okay, right here at the base of this wall,
at the base of this hydrant in cracks in the sidewalk
is another common, delicious edible wild plant
known as wood sorrel.
Now this plant has heart-shaped leaves
and small flowers with five petals.
And it is not only chock full of vitamin C,
but it has a delicious, sort of acidic lemony quality to it.
Now it doesn't hold up well to heat,
so it's not great for cooking, per se.
But it's great for a lot of culinary applications
for garnishing and to use a little bit of it
to impart that wonderful lemony flavor.
A word of caution, however.
Wood sorrel, a member of the genus oxalis,
is one of many plants with a high oxalate content.
Oxalates are plant toxins that can build up
in our bodies over time and cause all sorts of issues
from joint pain to kidney stones.
So this plant should be consumed in moderation,
just like other plants with high oxalate contents,
such as spinach, almonds and potatoes.
One of the best ways to harvest this plant
is with a pair of scissors.
With these scissors, I can trim off the tops of this plant
where they're the most tender.
But the entirety of the above part of this plant is edible,
from the stems, to the leaves,
to the flowers, to the seed pods.
[understated music]
This is one of my favorite edible plants ever, chickweed.
And it grows everywhere!
Now its genus, stellaria, refers to its star-shaped flowers
and those flowers are super cool.
They look like they have ten petals
but in fact they're five petals with really deep clefts.
The leaves are teardrop-shaped and they grow opposite
on the stem from one another.
And when it grows with just the right amount of moisture
and shade, it can grow large, succulent stems,
with just the right amount of crispy bite to it.
The entirety of the aboveground portion
of this plant is edible.
That means the stems, the leaves, and the flowers.
But when I harvest it, I really only wanna harvest the tips
because they're the most tender.
We can use it raw in salads and we can even saute it,
just like spinach.
This plant is not only nutritious,
but I find it incredibly delicious.
In fact, when I close my eyes and eat this,
I think it tastes a lot like raw corn.
[understated music]
Here we are on the side of this footpath
at the base of this tree, and I'd like to introduce you
to this plant, known as field garlic.
Now field garlic is an incredible first-time foraging plant
for a number of different reasons.
First, it's ubiquitous.
It grows all over the place
and probably everybody watching this
has some of this growing in their yard.
Second, it's very easy to identify.
And one of its identifying characteristics
comes from the fact that it contains a compound
known as allicin, which produces a garlicky onion smell
when the stems or any part of this plant
are crushed or broken.
Now this part above the ground, these stems can be used
just like chives, but the part that I'm really after
exists under the ground.
Let me show you what they look like.
One of the things I'd like you to notice
is at the base of this plant are small cloves of garlic
that are growing and separating
from the main part of the plant.
And this is one of the ways that it propagates.
And that's why this grows incredibly well
in disturbed soils.
So actually by disturbing this soil,
I'm helping to spread new plants, and also aerate the soil,
which is good for it as well.
This is the part that I'm after.
This garlic at the base can be used
just like regular garlic in culinary applications,
and it has a ton of flavor, but not the punch
that a lot of garlic actually has.
Here we are actually in my own backyard,
right next to my garden beds.
And I wanna show you this plant
that is a common wild edible plant that we're gonna eat
that's actually not in my garden bed
but actually on the side of it.
That is the common violet.
The common violet is not only delicious and nutritious,
but when it's in flower, is absolutely beautiful.
The flowers, the corollas, can occur
in all sorts of different colors from purple to white.
The leaves themselves are heart-shaped
with tooth margins and have no hair on them whatsoever.
The leaves have been used for everything
from reducing blood pressure to aiding in digestion,
relieving coughs, as a blood purifier,
reducing fever, treating skin problems, treating cancer,
and even to treat hemorrhoids.
In fact, the leaves contain salicylic acid,
which is the principal metabolite in aspirin.
And not only that, but these leaves are high in mucilage
and that's a soluble fiber.
And so by consuming these leaves,
the soluble fiber not only soothes,
but acts as a prebiotic that helps support
healthy population of probiotics in your gut.
The leaves can be cooked and sauteed
or they can be eaten raw in things like salads.
And the flowers, well, they can be used as a garnish
that add a splash of color and a nice crunch and sweetness
to anything you put it on.
In just a few short hours,
by walking through my neighborhood,
my town and even my own backyard,
I was able to collect all of this fresh food.
Now I'm gonna show you how to process it
and transform it into incredibly nutritious
and delicious dishes.
For the first dish, we're going to highlight the flavor
of the garlic mustard.
We're gonna combine that with the wild field garlic
that we collected, and make an incredible pesto.
And we're gonna use that pesto to combine it
with homemade mozzarella cheese, olive oil, and salt,
to top a long-fermented sourdough crust.
For the second dish, we're going to use fat
to cut the bitterness of the dandelion greens.
Traditionally that's done with bacon grease or even bacon,
but we're gonna use a different fat.
We're gonna take marrowbones, beef marrowbones,
roast them in the oven to liquefy the incredibly satiating
and nourishing bone marrow on the inside.
And then we're gonna take and make a very quick vinaigrette,
dress the dandelion greens,
arrange them around the roasted marrowbones,
and serve that with a long-fermented sourdough bread.
Finally, for the rest of the greens,
we're going to saute them.
Sauteing is a great way to take almost any wild green
and turn it into something that you can use
in almost any dish.
For us, we're going to combine that
with homemade ricotta cheese, made from the whey left over
from making the mozzarella.
We're gonna put that inside of fresh pasta dough
and top it with an egg yolk.
We're adding an egg yolk for three reasons.
First, because it adds a ton of nutrition.
Second, because it also adds a little bit more fat
to help cut any residual bitterness
that's left in the greens.
And finally, we're adding the egg yolk to this ravioli
because it transforms the basic ravioli
into something decadent.
Foraging can provide access to all sorts
of unique flavors and textures
that you just can't get in the grocery store.
And, foraging can connect you with the world around you
in some unique and powerful ways.
Once we realize that these edible wild plants
exist all around us, even in our own backyards,
and that they have the ability to provide
the highest-quality nutrition possible for plants,
then maybe instead of trying to eradicate them,
we can actively try to propagate them
and once again return wild plants into our diets
like they've been for millions of years.