April’s outdoor pleasures are many — from the rhapsodic chorus of singing birds to the ephemeral visual parade of myriad blooming wildflowers.
I won’t even get into the piscatorial nirvana of spring fishing!
In my family, another herald of spring’s resurrection was the year’s first bowl of fresh-picked dandelion greens. Fresh greens gracing our supper table celebrated the season—and mid-April was when we typically gathered and enjoyed that first mess.
In several bestselling books, writer Euell Gibbons continually extolled the eating pleasures derived from natural foraging. “Adventurous epicures,” he wrote in Stalking the Wild Asparagus, “can expect to find flavors and textures in wild foods that can’t be obtained elsewhere.”
My parents were both born and raised on farms amid the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky. In that time and place, families grew or raised practically everything they ate. There were no grocery stores. Just a mill for grinding corn and wheat into flour, and a general store where you could buy staples such as salt and sugar by the barrel, and coffee beans in twenty-five pound sacks.
The rest of what they ate and drank came — in one way or another — from the land. Wild foodstuffs, free for the finding and taking, were a regular part of their daily fare. Nowadays we’d refer to such folks as “foragers,” though back then, they were simply doing what everyone did — gathering food that grew naturally.
Thankfully, this foraging penchant stuck with them all the days of their lives. I learned early on about delicious wild edibles — foods truly worth the effort of locating and preparing; foods you simply won’t find on shelves at the nearest grocery.
Dandelion greens are at the top of my foraging list. I love dandelion greens! Actually, I love all types of cooked greens — mustard, kale, spinach, turnip, collard, Swiss chard — plus some exotics and regional…greens that are store-bought, garden-raised, or wild-foraged.
Even as a kid, I regularly ignored an extra piece of fried chicken, a second golden pork chop, or an extra heaping ladle of my mother’s chicken-and-dumplings, for another helping of tasty greens.
Now, all these decades later, dandelions are still my favorite type of cooked greens.
My parents felt much the same. On those springtime meals when the year’s first taste of cooked dandelions made their debut, the greens were not merely a side dish to a platter of fresh-caught fish fillets — they were the centerpiece!
Dandelion greens aren’t just delectable, they’re nutritionally great — a real powerhouse! Arguably a more nutritious green than anything you can buy at the supermarket, including spinach.
They have five times the vitamin A of broccoli. More beta-carotene than carrots. Are higher in protein and iron than comparable servings of leaf lettuce or endive. And are rich in flavonoids — a class of phytonutrients with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties—plus vitamins B-1, B-2, B-5, B-6, B-12, C, E, and D, biotin, inositol, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc.
In earlier times the plant’s usefulness was revered — hence the dandelion’s botanical name, Taraxacum officinale, which translates as “the official remedy for disorders.” Dandelions were used to treat everything from liver and gallbladder disease to bladder problems and troubles with the spleen, stomach, intestines, and pancreas, even urinary tract infections and stones.
But I don’t feast on savory dandelion greens because they’re good for me, but rather simply because they taste so good.
Dandelions reduce considerably during cooking. It takes about half a large brown-paper grocery bag to end up with enough to fill a medium-sized serving bowl.
Luckily, the plants are as commonplace and prolific as weeds. Twenty minutes of picking should yield enough for a meal. And I often need look no farther than my own shaggy yard, forever struggling from my lackadaisical upkeep. Should those pickings prove insufficient, I’ll finish my foraging expedition along the shoulder of our dead-end road.
Should I desire to pick in bulk, the best dandelion-gathering places are typically fallow fields and fencerows along neglected meadows — areas where the earth is rich and was once disturbed but has lately been allowed to revert back to some semblance of unruly wildness. You can find dandelion plants of considerable size, and it won’t take long to fill several large tote sacks or a couple of five-gallon buckets.
When gathering, cut the plants just below ground level. I always pick only pre-bloom plants. The bitter taste reported by some folks invariably comes from any of three common mistakes: insufficient cooking; picking plants that were too mature; or leaving in the flowers and especially their stems.
Once you’ve returned home, pick out any remaining debris and lightly wash the greens. You can add raw dandelion leaves to tossed salads. Or sauté them with onions and garlic in olive oil. Even cook them with carrots or parsnips.
I mostly stick with the simple, unadorned dish of my youth.
Place leaves only in a cooker and fill halfway with water. Boil, covered, about twenty minutes. Then place the partially cooked greens into a skillet. Don’t drain before transferring, just ladle from pot to skillet using a fork, thereby retaining sufficient water to prevent scorching or sticking during frying. Add a tablespoon or so of bacon drippings for seasoning, fry an additional ten minutes, and serve the finished greens lightly salted with perhaps a dash of apple vinegar.
One taste and you’ll nevermore look upon dandelions as pesky weeds.
For me, a mess of fresh-picked wild dandelion greens is both tonic and comfort food, the very essence of the new season. A mandatory — and delectable — taste treat for welcoming spring.
Reach Jim McGuire at [email protected].
