Hi, my name is Doug Elliott, I live in North Carolina, and I'm here with
Mountain Rose Herbs. I'm delighted to be here. You know, I was
just out in the yard, and I just picked a dandelion leaf, and you know, dandelions
are one of the most nutritious plants you can grow in
your garden. They have all kinds of vitamins: vitamin A, vitamins, minerals,
potassium, all kinds of trace minerals, and
you know, where I live in North Carolina, it's kind of warm, and it's not a real
good dandelion area we have a few in the garden but not very many.
I don't know if you've been around these gardeners, but I had to be married to one,
and I don't know if, you know, been around these gardeners, but about January and
February when those garden catalogs come in,
she gets this far away look in her eye, mostly looking for seeds she hadn't
already saved. But, but one day she's looking through
the catalog, and she says, "Look at this: French dandelions, Italian dandelions!"
I thought, wow here's two cultures known for their cuisine, they've been selecting
out dandelions over the centuries, I thought, yeah go out get some, order
those seeds! So she ordered the seeds and she got them in the greenhouse, and got
them in the little plant flats...it took them a long time to come up, they finally
did: little tiny dandelions. We went out in
the garden and we, and we put some compost in the
bed, we made this nice little bed of dandelions, all kinds of little
dandelions coming up, they were coming up and they were doing
really well. And the grass started growing between the dandelions,
we had to weed the grass out between the dandelions...and they grew pretty well!
And, um, actually they, some of them got to be pretty big, and I actually took
one of, one of the leaves, and I pressed it,
and then I, um let it dry, and then I colored it, and I took it to the coffee
shop and I, um I
i made, uh I laminated it. That's pretty good sized dandelion leaf,
wouldn't you say? Well you know the French, when they looked at dandelions,
and they saw those jagged teeth on the leaves, they said, "That looks like the
jaws of a lion!" Now, now in French, they call that,
"Dent de leon," right, that means, Tooth of the lion."
Now as Americans, you know, we couldn't speak French very well, couldn't make a
mouth go "dent de leon," we couldn't talk like that,
we go, "DAN-dee-lion." That's why we got the name, was "dandelion."
And you know, now you may talk to my know a native
French speaker, and say, "Is that really what that guy said, is that you
really call them "dent de leon?" They'll say, "Well, that's the old name for the plant,
what we call them now, we call them "pis en lits."
Well, "pis en lits" translates out loosely to mean, "piss in the bed,"
and what that refers to is the diuretic quality of the leaves.
And, now what's interesting is, if you went to a physician and you
got a diuretic medication, with that medication would become a
potassium supplement. Now, here's a plant with the folk name of
"pee in the bed," and it's also a very high source of
potassium. So there it is, you know, it kind of
reminds us that it's all there. Now the taste of dandelion leaves, they're
so nutritious, these leaves are nutritious, so you're going
to taste it, and you think, "I'm glad it's nutritious but it's kind of bitter.
And what we found that we can do is, you
take the dandelion leaves, and you chop them very finely,
that kind of oxidizes them, and then then you make a sweet-sour dressing, and
you take that sweet sour dressing, and you can take, and then that cuts the
bitter. You make a little honey little vinegar then oil and herbs,
and, and uh, it kind of cuts the bitter, and it's
amazing, you can take a salad like that's like 90 percent
dandelion greens, serve it to people who are like wild food resistant, you know,
and they'll eat for a little while and say, "Oh this is a good salad," you know,
well let them eat for a little while before you tell them what's in it.
And next time maybe you'll have help gathering your dandelions.
Now, so dandelions you can take them and make them into salads,
you can take them, chop them up, and put them in soups, you can
put them in omelets, you can take the flowers, you can dip the flowers
in in batter and make dandelion fritters, or you can take the flowers put them
with sugar and yeast and make dandelion wine,
you can take the roots, the roots are a liver tonic,
and you can actually roast the roots and make a dandelion coffee.
And the seed heads, when they make the seed flower heads,
the seed heads, you can take them, and you, you blow them
and make wishes. You know, probably the best way I could summarize would be
something like this: [Plays harmonica, sings:]
"Dandelion, they're my favorite flowers, in the sunshine, or during a shower.
Dandelion, they be popping up everywhere [harmonica] They don't care, dandelions, they never
take a vacation, they always popping up, without
invitation, dandelions, there's always enough to share.
Well I went to the store where the gardeners go, to buy me some dandelion
seeds, [harmonica chord] the man behind the counter said, "Son
don't you know, you don't have to plant them: they grow like a weed!"
Wow! Dandelions, they don't have to be planted,
why does everyone take them for granted? Dandelion, they're special as you and me. [harmonica].
Well, you wake up in the morning, you're feeling kind of low, your get-up-and-go
is gone, you need some vitamins, some remedies,
some tonic or some tea? Well, look out in your lawn!
You got dandelions by the bunch or the bowl-full,
eat them all up, they make you feel soulful, dandelion, they're special as you
and me! [harmonica]
Dandelion, they're good for your liver, eat them all up, they make you jump up
and shiver! Dandelion, they make a long-liver out of
you. [Harmonica]
Dandelion, blow those seeds and make wishes [puffs]
for money, world peace, lots of sweet kisses.
Dandelion, they'll make your wishes come true! [Harmonica]
I got that song off of a children's album by Lisa Atkinson; I made up the
medicinal verses to kind of, kind of embellish the song a little bit.