And it’s funny, the phrase one day it’s not going to be like this, it’s also one for me. That’s a cause for optimism as well. This is all very new, this has changed, and yet this will also continue to change. In good ways as well, one day it will not be like this.
I keep going out and making stuff after reading these blogs. We have the rabbit in the freezer, and now nettles look good. Have already eaten a lot of our dandelions. I wonder if it is possible to eat that sticky weed called catchweed bedstraw? I have a lot and I usually just grab it, bundle it up and throw it into the compost bin. Is it edible?
Am growing chamomile this year for tea. Yum.
But the US supply chain has long not been sustainable. It always reminds me of the Devo song about freedom from choice is what people want, when freedom of choice is what they got. I always look at it and wonder why people need so many varieties of the same thing. And they're all crap. When people ask me what food I miss, it's just things that don't travel. Proper pizza and that damn bluefish.
The only thing I agree with fruitcake Kennedy is that all the food colours the EU and UK have long banned, should be removed in the US. It is freakish.
Kennedy is a freak for sure but if he can get one thing right , that’s, well, something. Young bedstraw can be eaten. It gets bitter when it flowers too. The roots are lightly caffeinated I think. A depression era coffee for some, like chicory.
I find myself missing corn products mostly. Tortillas are weird when the masa is too fine. Bluefish is underrated.
There have been so many missteps in the US food system. There is simply too much consolidation and too little accountability.
I got lost in a bit of a rabbit hole for this comment because I was trying to remember a good book about the 20th century - and I found it! Mark Kurlansky's Food of a Younger Land. a worthwhile read : https://archive.org/details/foodofyoungerlan00mark
So true I grew up on the tail end of that whole system of homegrown local healthy. I remember as a kid in the 60s seeing so many farm stands along the roads and now they’re just gone or crumbled. We’d stop for fresh corn and we’d stop for strawberries. It was so delightful and now all that’s gone. Read the war on bugs by Will Allen and he talks about what happened in the 50s through propaganda from the chemical companies, forcing them to use pesticides and a lot of it was residual chemicals that these companies could not dump legally so they retool them to use on the farm and on us pretty frightening The farmers were extremely reluctant, but they just kept hammering them and hammering them and hammering them till they finally caved
Love it that you’re writing about this! I live in Sweden and nettle soup is still a thing, we make it with a recipe much the same as yours. And always add two halves of a hard-boiled egg floating on top! Looks pretty, tastes nice
I used to have a huge garden, and each spring I would on several occasions take my wheelbarrow, GLOVES!, secateurs and a podcast and harvest nettles from one of my many patches. Back on the veranda, I’d clip the tops into a big kitchen bowl, and the bottoms I’d lay out to dry. Later, I’d strip the leaves and dry them, powder them, use them off-season to flavour anything that needed it. And lots more nettles became green mulch, so good for the soil. My teenage daughter used to roll her eyes, wishing I was more like ”all the other mothers”. Later, in her twenties, I quietly noticed her bagging up dried nettles to take back to her flat. She’d got it! Happy parenting moment😊
Nettles are the easy thing to pick up kind of any time. We really should dry a bunch to have around. We used to just bundle and hang them up in bouquets and then knock the leaves off the stems when they’d dried.
Some lessons, especially about food, are lessons for now and others are lessons for ten years from now.
This makes me a bit jealous....I would love to forage. İstanbul is ful of edilen plansız but the pollution, insecticide, animal poop etc. is a major deterrant
There is so much to watch out for in cities. I’ve been a part of mitigating multiple spaces and, with time, compost can perform miracles, and lead pick up in many plants isn’t as bad as one might think, but it’s incredible what’s left behind. In a schoolyard where we built a new garden, importing soil and making compost for years, annual soil tests came back with high amounts of lead and, surprisingly, chromium and a few other things that I was told had to do with paint used in the area. I was never 100% about it but it’s remarkable.
Our recent blackout here in Spain was yet another reminder of how things we take for granted are not, in fact, sustainable. I've been dipping my toes in these waters for awhile now too, but only conceptually-- I really need to take a page from your book (or Substack) and start taking culinary advantage of the wild bounty available. One thing I have been doing is consciously savoring and appreciating the fresh fruits and vegetables we have access to. What a crazy luxury it is...
It’s amazing the variety. A later part of this series is going to deal with how terroire, or what we have traditionally held as the places certain foods come from, are changing. They have changed. And our sense of how far back that history goes is often not quite as far as we think.
Thanks so much! It makes sense. there are so many of them and people tend to eat whatever is available, don't they?
I'm often really impressed with just how many familiar edible plants there are for me here, especially as I did most of my studying about wild foods in the US.
The reason nettle are all over the place in France and The Netherlands is that the Romans brought them as they colonized Europe. The soldiers used them as food, but also whipped their feet with them to numb the pain of long marches.
I did not know that. I love it. For me, I find they're also really helpful with arthritis, once you get past the initial sting, which isn't so bad really.
A lovely and true meditation. Our food system and its fragility is a reflection on the fragility of our complex societies which assume stability in climate and that constant growth is normal. Deep in our gut we know that one day it is not going to be like this, but rather face the fact that a major change in direction is needed, we allow ourselves to be distracted with our phones, computers, consumption, helplessness, and fear.
We know that climate change, political unrest, human or machine error, natural disasters, pestilence and sabotage can seriously undermine (or in some cases , destroy) the services, people power and resources necessary to support our current lifestyles and systems; but we are ignoring the rumbles that suggest the danger is close and ignore the fact that we are ill prepared to face such disasters, especially if it involves a loss of electricity or digital communications for more than a couple of days.
Our electric grids are complex and interconnected and operate well only in a narrow range of environmental conditions. Without electricity, most of our communications networks are useless, our food and medical supplies may be at risk and transport would also be imperiled (because of an ability to get fuel, or because much of the supply chain relies on digital services. So what are the rumblings over the last 3 months that should warn us that our interconnected systems are fraying : 1) damage to subsea cables in Europe and elsewhere; 2) fire at power substation which shutdown Heathrow Airport; 3)the power outages in southern Europe; 4) power outages in the US, Canada and India; 5) the explosion in the port of Banda Abbas, Iran and in Port Sudan; 6) the loss of radar at New York/Newark Airport; 7) wildfires in Canada, the US and Korea ; and 8) recent cyber attacks targeting food supply chains, banks, stock exchanges, journalists and non-governmental organizations. There may others; but the point is that we are on the precipice and may need to figure out how to live without relying upon a stable power system and supply chains.
Your meditation on nettles resurrected my recent thoughts on fragility . My favorite cheese is local gouda with stinging nettles. If you get stung by nettles, the remedy, plantain is usually growing nearby. Just rub a crushed plantain leaf over the sting.
It is time to start eating weeds again. Nettles are wonderful, but so are purslane, sorrel, lambs quarters, chickweed and wild mustards
I see what optimism in wild plants myself. Today, standing next to a wild fig tree that was in a location that clearly no one had planted. If you had a mind too, you could gather bushels of food.
We’re too reliant upon a narrow range of both food options, and clearly electrical information grids. I think the path to a future that we actually wanna experience, is to diversify our food options had to do with less of a lot of the things that we’re currently doing with a lot of. The future that we want to have is in efficiency. Finding ways to do with a bit less, to have the things we have last a little longer, any small percentage of reduction and what we use, or any more variety introduced into what we eat and how we get it, this is step in the right direction and can reduce our dependence upon and actually increase The durability and longevity of the system that we do have in place.
I'm interested in food supply issues! But I'm always afraid I'll poison myself if I cook anything I've foraged. Too bad because I have to get rid of a lot of nettles every year...
I always suggest starting small, a few things in a season, then build on that. In a few seasons, you’ll have quite a repertoire. I first started learning fungi, I told myself I would master 4-5 in a year, but then we had microscopes at home at the time. I wouldn’t suggest you need to go that far, but it’s fun if you do.
Plants can be easier. Many of the plants around us, especially anywhere that’s been populated for a long time, are useful plants that we just don’t use anymore. Even poison ivy was once somewhat medicinal. The dose is the poison.
And it’s funny, the phrase one day it’s not going to be like this, it’s also one for me. That’s a cause for optimism as well. This is all very new, this has changed, and yet this will also continue to change. In good ways as well, one day it will not be like this.
I keep going out and making stuff after reading these blogs. We have the rabbit in the freezer, and now nettles look good. Have already eaten a lot of our dandelions. I wonder if it is possible to eat that sticky weed called catchweed bedstraw? I have a lot and I usually just grab it, bundle it up and throw it into the compost bin. Is it edible?
Am growing chamomile this year for tea. Yum.
But the US supply chain has long not been sustainable. It always reminds me of the Devo song about freedom from choice is what people want, when freedom of choice is what they got. I always look at it and wonder why people need so many varieties of the same thing. And they're all crap. When people ask me what food I miss, it's just things that don't travel. Proper pizza and that damn bluefish.
The only thing I agree with fruitcake Kennedy is that all the food colours the EU and UK have long banned, should be removed in the US. It is freakish.
Kennedy is a freak for sure but if he can get one thing right , that’s, well, something. Young bedstraw can be eaten. It gets bitter when it flowers too. The roots are lightly caffeinated I think. A depression era coffee for some, like chicory.
I find myself missing corn products mostly. Tortillas are weird when the masa is too fine. Bluefish is underrated.
Oh yeah. Lawn daisies are a bit like chamomile. They’re everywhere.
Grocery store should’ve never been allowed to become some massive anyway most of the stuff in there is inedible
There have been so many missteps in the US food system. There is simply too much consolidation and too little accountability.
I got lost in a bit of a rabbit hole for this comment because I was trying to remember a good book about the 20th century - and I found it! Mark Kurlansky's Food of a Younger Land. a worthwhile read : https://archive.org/details/foodofyoungerlan00mark
So true I grew up on the tail end of that whole system of homegrown local healthy. I remember as a kid in the 60s seeing so many farm stands along the roads and now they’re just gone or crumbled. We’d stop for fresh corn and we’d stop for strawberries. It was so delightful and now all that’s gone. Read the war on bugs by Will Allen and he talks about what happened in the 50s through propaganda from the chemical companies, forcing them to use pesticides and a lot of it was residual chemicals that these companies could not dump legally so they retool them to use on the farm and on us pretty frightening The farmers were extremely reluctant, but they just kept hammering them and hammering them and hammering them till they finally caved
Love it that you’re writing about this! I live in Sweden and nettle soup is still a thing, we make it with a recipe much the same as yours. And always add two halves of a hard-boiled egg floating on top! Looks pretty, tastes nice
I used to have a huge garden, and each spring I would on several occasions take my wheelbarrow, GLOVES!, secateurs and a podcast and harvest nettles from one of my many patches. Back on the veranda, I’d clip the tops into a big kitchen bowl, and the bottoms I’d lay out to dry. Later, I’d strip the leaves and dry them, powder them, use them off-season to flavour anything that needed it. And lots more nettles became green mulch, so good for the soil. My teenage daughter used to roll her eyes, wishing I was more like ”all the other mothers”. Later, in her twenties, I quietly noticed her bagging up dried nettles to take back to her flat. She’d got it! Happy parenting moment😊
Nettles are the easy thing to pick up kind of any time. We really should dry a bunch to have around. We used to just bundle and hang them up in bouquets and then knock the leaves off the stems when they’d dried.
Some lessons, especially about food, are lessons for now and others are lessons for ten years from now.
This makes me a bit jealous....I would love to forage. İstanbul is ful of edilen plansız but the pollution, insecticide, animal poop etc. is a major deterrant
There is so much to watch out for in cities. I’ve been a part of mitigating multiple spaces and, with time, compost can perform miracles, and lead pick up in many plants isn’t as bad as one might think, but it’s incredible what’s left behind. In a schoolyard where we built a new garden, importing soil and making compost for years, annual soil tests came back with high amounts of lead and, surprisingly, chromium and a few other things that I was told had to do with paint used in the area. I was never 100% about it but it’s remarkable.
Our recent blackout here in Spain was yet another reminder of how things we take for granted are not, in fact, sustainable. I've been dipping my toes in these waters for awhile now too, but only conceptually-- I really need to take a page from your book (or Substack) and start taking culinary advantage of the wild bounty available. One thing I have been doing is consciously savoring and appreciating the fresh fruits and vegetables we have access to. What a crazy luxury it is...
It’s amazing the variety. A later part of this series is going to deal with how terroire, or what we have traditionally held as the places certain foods come from, are changing. They have changed. And our sense of how far back that history goes is often not quite as far as we think.
This is genius.
I’m married to a European. You probably know that after WW2 nettles kept a lot of starving people alive.
Thanks so much! It makes sense. there are so many of them and people tend to eat whatever is available, don't they?
I'm often really impressed with just how many familiar edible plants there are for me here, especially as I did most of my studying about wild foods in the US.
The reason nettle are all over the place in France and The Netherlands is that the Romans brought them as they colonized Europe. The soldiers used them as food, but also whipped their feet with them to numb the pain of long marches.
I did not know that. I love it. For me, I find they're also really helpful with arthritis, once you get past the initial sting, which isn't so bad really.
A lovely and true meditation. Our food system and its fragility is a reflection on the fragility of our complex societies which assume stability in climate and that constant growth is normal. Deep in our gut we know that one day it is not going to be like this, but rather face the fact that a major change in direction is needed, we allow ourselves to be distracted with our phones, computers, consumption, helplessness, and fear.
We know that climate change, political unrest, human or machine error, natural disasters, pestilence and sabotage can seriously undermine (or in some cases , destroy) the services, people power and resources necessary to support our current lifestyles and systems; but we are ignoring the rumbles that suggest the danger is close and ignore the fact that we are ill prepared to face such disasters, especially if it involves a loss of electricity or digital communications for more than a couple of days.
Our electric grids are complex and interconnected and operate well only in a narrow range of environmental conditions. Without electricity, most of our communications networks are useless, our food and medical supplies may be at risk and transport would also be imperiled (because of an ability to get fuel, or because much of the supply chain relies on digital services. So what are the rumblings over the last 3 months that should warn us that our interconnected systems are fraying : 1) damage to subsea cables in Europe and elsewhere; 2) fire at power substation which shutdown Heathrow Airport; 3)the power outages in southern Europe; 4) power outages in the US, Canada and India; 5) the explosion in the port of Banda Abbas, Iran and in Port Sudan; 6) the loss of radar at New York/Newark Airport; 7) wildfires in Canada, the US and Korea ; and 8) recent cyber attacks targeting food supply chains, banks, stock exchanges, journalists and non-governmental organizations. There may others; but the point is that we are on the precipice and may need to figure out how to live without relying upon a stable power system and supply chains.
Your meditation on nettles resurrected my recent thoughts on fragility . My favorite cheese is local gouda with stinging nettles. If you get stung by nettles, the remedy, plantain is usually growing nearby. Just rub a crushed plantain leaf over the sting.
It is time to start eating weeds again. Nettles are wonderful, but so are purslane, sorrel, lambs quarters, chickweed and wild mustards
I see what optimism in wild plants myself. Today, standing next to a wild fig tree that was in a location that clearly no one had planted. If you had a mind too, you could gather bushels of food.
We’re too reliant upon a narrow range of both food options, and clearly electrical information grids. I think the path to a future that we actually wanna experience, is to diversify our food options had to do with less of a lot of the things that we’re currently doing with a lot of. The future that we want to have is in efficiency. Finding ways to do with a bit less, to have the things we have last a little longer, any small percentage of reduction and what we use, or any more variety introduced into what we eat and how we get it, this is step in the right direction and can reduce our dependence upon and actually increase The durability and longevity of the system that we do have in place.
I'm interested in food supply issues! But I'm always afraid I'll poison myself if I cook anything I've foraged. Too bad because I have to get rid of a lot of nettles every year...
I always suggest starting small, a few things in a season, then build on that. In a few seasons, you’ll have quite a repertoire. I first started learning fungi, I told myself I would master 4-5 in a year, but then we had microscopes at home at the time. I wouldn’t suggest you need to go that far, but it’s fun if you do.
Plants can be easier. Many of the plants around us, especially anywhere that’s been populated for a long time, are useful plants that we just don’t use anymore. Even poison ivy was once somewhat medicinal. The dose is the poison.
Stinging Nettle!! What a great friend this plant is! Especially for women! I don’t currently have this tea - and i should grab some!
It seems like the one thing everyone suggests with foraged plants is to make tea, but I like this one.
Super easy. A mild tea but really pleasant. https://rusticwise.com/how-to-make-nettle-tea/