Spring Foraging and Feasting on Invasive Abundance
After a year of physical and at times seeping mental confinement, there came a sudden whoosh! of energy and creativity. These are signs of spring balance in TCM and Ayurveda. Like Santa Claus, I’ve been keeping a list of interesting topics I want to pursue, someday. Well, that day is now. One item was developing and incorporating more foraging skills. The objects of foraging are often considered an invasive abundance. I absolutely love that phrase. It denotes a need to pay attention. To seriously stop and take a freakin’ second look at the other lives sharing this planet besides humans. We’ll start with the ones that are abundant right now. Many have medicinal qualities but not all. However, they are all edible and highly nutritive.
The first one currently blooming everywhere is forsythia. These brilliant yellow early spring bloomers brighten up yards and byways. These shrubs can grow up to 10 foot tall and often develop roots when the branches touch the ground. They do like a good prune, but they can also be left to grow wildly unruly. The flowers are edible and can brighten up a salad, make a delicious syrup or a delicately flavored jam (either alone or with dandelion flowers). The syrup has a slight floral taste and can be used to sweeten tea or made into soda with the addition of seltzer or carbonated water. The varieties that are often grown in Central Virginia are f. intermedia and f. suspensa. Forsythia is in the olive family and will bear a small fruit ( brown capsules) at the end of summer. F. suspensa is used in TCM for hot toxic conditions such as red rashes, fever, slight chills, sore throat, and hives. F. intermedia does not have medicinal properties, but both have edible blossoms. Side effects are rare. There have been rare reports of photodermatitis after ingesting large amounts in addition to some concerns about prolonging clotting time. I am currently enjoying this lovely syrup in my tea. The recipe can be found here.
Continuing with the yellow theme is dandelion flowers. Looking at these little beauties gives me joy. Energetically they are cooling, moving, stimulating and fresh. The flowers can be made into fritters, jam, cake, salad topping, salve, oil, and tea. When making an oil or a salve have, it can be paired with cottonwood and goldenrod for pain or violet to help with lymphatic drainage. The tea has a sweet bland taste. The flower is high in lutein, beta-carotene, and flavonoids.
While writing this blog and foraging in my yard, I kept having to step over patches of blossoming dandelion who called out for me to stop and come play. Being single-minded and focused on my ‘to do’ agenda I smiled and walked past. After about the fifth pass-by I said, what the heck? Let’s make some oil! A large patch happened to be next to a community of nettles and violets. Realizing violet and dandelion go together to make a gentle and nourishing oil to maintain healthy lymph flow, I picked some of each. Using an Instapot makes oil infusions so easy. Here’s a recipe for oil using both fresh Dandelion and Violet blossoms.
I checked out my nettle bed and saw it was overflowing (challenging my echinacea bed for Most Abundant Spreader) with baby nettles. Time to make one of my new favorite nettles recipe: Potato Pancakes with Nettle. My history is one of fearsome respect for the plant. When I was 7 years old, I rode my bike into a bed of very tall nettles (it was summer, so I was wearing shorts and a sleeveless top). I immediately got the nettle love treatment (stinging wherever it touched my skin). I ran home crying and while trying to blurt out what I did between hysterical jags, my mom took one look at me and said, “You rode your bike where I told you not to go. It’s just nettles. It’ll go away.” And it did. Afterwards I had profound respect for the plant. One of its many gifts is learning about boundaries (the irony is not lost on me). Fast forward several years, I learned how nutritive nettles are. Considered a ‘land seaweed’, it’s a powerhouse of easily assimilated minerals, along with some protein and anti-histamine. It’s considered one of the Qi building herbs and builds Kidney energy. It can be made into tea, pesto, or soup, and incorporated into just about anything. It has a fresh green, salty/mineral taste. When drying it in my dehydrator, the house smells like seaweed (or urine, depending on your nose). Leaves are best harvested before they start to bloom, so now is a good time to harvest. Since I’m not at the stage of Being One With the Plant, I wear gloves to harvest the upper third of the plants, discarding the tough stems (a source for making rope in the past) and using just the leaves. For people with dry constitutions, nettle may be too drying. Adding violet, marshmallow or shatavari can help balance the dryness.
Speaking of violet, its lovely, cooling, and moistening gentleness belies its nutrient component. It adds a touch of beauty and nutrition to salads, it can be sugared and used as decoration on desserts or as a gorgeous vinegar used as a base for dressings or made into an oxymel as a base for sodas or cocktails. With violets at their peak right now, I gathered some deep purple ones and made a vinegar which will be ready in 2 weeks. I’m not a commercial soda person but I do love me some herb-based sodas. This vinegar will be made into an oxymel. When wanting a soda, I’ll add some soda water and presto! An instant refreshing and nourishing drink. Cheers to Spring!