So, what's a flower doing on a feel-good good blog? While you already know that certain flowers are edible, bet you didn't know that you can add this common weed to your list of munchables.
It's a late winter, early spring bloomer so it's all over the place at the moment. Keep your eyes open, like we did when my daughter was a kid. Out and about in the car and coming across a field of what we named 'sour grass' had me screeching to a halt and us piling out to pick and munch à la minute.
Now before you go adding it your salads and tossing it into your greens, you chew the stems only. I'm not sure what happens if you eat the flowers, probably nothing, but I've never tried and I'm not about to. The stem is a bit lemony, quite tangy, bordering on tart. My daughter, who can eat lemons as is, loves it, though it's nowhere near as tart as a lemon. Just fresh and tangy. You just chew all the nice juice and flavour out of it rather than eat the stem. As with everything, moderation when chewing weedy flower stems is good.
Apparently it's a thing with the Lebanese. While that's not grounded in fact, it doesn't matter. Neither does the fact that it's official name is Oxalis pes-caprae. What does matter is that you pick a fistful soon and either stick it in a vase for the sake of prettiness or munch on it for the sake of picking something and enjoying the earth to mouth experience.
What also matters, if you're lucky enough to have this prettiness in your yard, is that you don't spray it with Roundup (or other weedkiller) and that you don't support Monsanto. And that you ban products from these companies in your shopping trolley from this moment on for the sake of your precious health and that of our precious planet. Please? Thank you.
Foodliterary Regards,
Julia Svoice
(Julia Hebaiter in Another Life)
FoodLit Writer, Feel-Good Food Lover & Storyteller
Because Food Sans Story is Bland
Because Food Sans Story is Bland
