Last summer I force fed myself winter cress—a wild mustard that grows all over the place, eventually flowering into splashes of fantastic fluorescent yellow. Euell Gibbons includes a chapter on winter cress (Barbarea vulgaris, B. verna) in Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962), … [Read more...]
Don’t Forget the Tumble Mustard
If you’re looking to make use of local wild greens, why not give tumble mustard (Sisymbrium altissimum) a try? Tumble mustard—a non-native species from the Middle East thought to have been introduced to North America years ago via contaminated crop seed—is found throughout much … [Read more...]
Wild Edible Notebook—October 2014 Release!
We clambered through the underbrush in an overgrown lot and parted the spiny branches of wild plum to glimpse a wonderland of apple trees plump with every size, shape, and color you could imagine. These were not trees bearing malformed, feral apples grown from seed, but a … [Read more...]
Wild Greens & Potato Pie with Kochia
I’m having wild greens and potato pie for breakfast again, as I have for the last two mornings. You wouldn’t think greens mixed into mashed potatoes in a pie crust would be all that exciting, but I am definitely smitten. The inspiration came from Ellen Zachos’ book, Backyard … [Read more...]
Tumbleweed Salad
Just when I think I know everything there is to know about wild mustards, I find another one to eat and then do happy kicks about. This time, I am excited about tumblemustard (Sisymbrium altissimum), which you might know better as tumbleweed, because at maturity when it dries out … [Read more...]
