Prototype Issue
Locavore Love: The Gardener’s Guide to Leafy Cuisine
By Lucinda Michele Knapp
(page 1 of 1)Strawberries from Chile. Beef from Japan. Cheese from Belgium. Here in LA, we’re used to grabbing all of the staples from supermarket aisles.
But in a trend toward eating local—practitioners of which are called locavores (seriously!)—new attention is being paid to ingredients that are produced nearby.
Since 1974, Christopher Nyerges of Pasadena has been leading workshops on ethnobotany, the study of plant lore and agricultural customs of people. With all the new attention on local food sources, we thought we’d ask Nyerges if some of the so-called weeds in our yards would actually taste nicer with a light vinaigrette. This is what we learned…
Carob
Tens of thousands of these common trees line LA’s streets. The brown pod can be wiped clean and eaten when harvested in fall. Carob is 50% sugar, high in B vitamins, and three times richer in calcium than milk. It can be used as a sugar substitute, ground to make flour, or served as a snack—nature’s own PowerBar.
Cactus
Prickly pear pads are good raw or cooked, as a side dish, or in soup. Easy to grow, drought-tolerant and long-lived, their fruits are the closest thing to watermelon that you’ll find in the wild. Pick the fruit in autumn with metal clippers, burn off the spikes, then eat it or juice it.
Rose
Assuming you haven’t put pesticides on your roses, the fruit, called the hip, can be eaten after its seeds are removed. The seeds can also be dried to form a nutlike candy. Rose petals, high in vitamin C, can be used in salads or in broth.
Nasturtium
The Nasturtium herb has become naturalized along the California coast. All its above ground parts are edible, from the round leaves to the beautiful red or orange flowers. Its leaves and stems are peppery in flavor and can be used in sandwiches and soups or sautéed with eggs; its flowers can be used as garnish or in hors d’oeuvres.
Lamb’s Quarter
This weed finds its way into almost every suburban lawn. It has a triangular leaf with a whitish coat and red streaks on its stalk. High in vitamins and minerals, its freshly cut leaves are excellent in salads, egg dishes and soups. It also contains seeds that can be cooked with rice for a nutty-flavored pilaf.
Dandelion
Although this plant is known for being edible, it’s rarely consumed due to its bitterness. A very similar and almost identical plant, sow thistle, is far more palatable. To tell the two apart, look for sow thistle’s multiple flowers, and its relative height as compared to the low-growing dandelion. The leaves of the sow thistle are a richer source of beta carotene than carrots. Overly mature leaves may be bitter, so harvest them while they’re young or cook them to remove the bitterness.
So if you’re not out digging up these plants already, grab a shovel, and meet me at the dinner table!
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