I have eaten Lamb's Quarters. It is a close relative of spinach and, when prepared in any way that you do spinach, it closely resembles it. I don't eat Lamb's Quarters often simple because I don't take the trouble to hunt for some which is good quality. Like any vegetable it needs to be large enough to be worthwhile gathering, yet young and tender.

The three most prevalent weeds in my garden are Lamb's Quarters, Amaranth and Purslane. All are edible. Amaranth has many cultivated varieties and Purslane has a couple. Somethimes I wonder why I don't just grow the weeds. It would make everything simpler.

Jim

Purslane I knew about, Amaranth is a new one on me. Last year I was introduced to purslane, i don't love it like I love the Lamb's Quarters though. According to Michael Pollan the edible weeds are some of the most nutritious plants we can eat.

-Robin

Robin, I had never tried Lamb's Quarter until a few years ago and a friends Mother had it growing in her yard. My friend picked me a sack full and I thought there would be no way the two of us could eat all of that. My friend told me to saute it, all of it in a little bacon grease, salt and pepper, stirring it until it cooked down and then put the top on the pan and steam until done.

It was really good. I would pick some more if I knew where there were some. I will have to inquire!

Found this for you Robin..

Here is a link that might be useful: Lambs quarters and Beans

When I was growing and selling herbs commercially, the most popular by far were the ones usually called weeds! I sold tons of lamb's quarters, lamb's lettuce (corn salad), purslane, amaranthus, good king henry, epazote, pigface, warrigal greens (New Zealand spinach), bistort, stinging nettle, burdock, chickweed, various clovers, rocket, plantain (not the banana-looking things, but the lawn weed), assorted sorrels etc.

Biggest seller was, believe it or not, DANDELION! And the biggest thug of them all, in weed terms - evening primrose. Did you know you can eat all parts of evening primrose?

Such herbs are commonly called 'potherbs'. You have to remember that in days long gone, people were more accustomed to eating foods which have a bitter taste than we are today. If you find such greens too bitter, try cooking them in several changes of water. This gets rid of the oxalic acid in them. All greens have oxalic acid, but some, especially the 'wild' ones like the sorrels, have very high concentrations of it, and should be eaten very much in moderation. It's oxalic acid which makes rhubarb leaves so poisonous.

Here are a couple of ways to use them: Use any of the following, making sure you have correctly identified an edible herb:

dandelion, cat's ear, dock, nettles, sheep sorrel, fat hen, chickweed, sow thistle, purslane. Combine with spinach, lettuce, comfrey leaves, green beetroot tops, carrot tops or turnip tops and smaller amounts of culinary herbs.

Toss any combination in a salad bowl, add onions or chives and French dressing.

OR: Wash greens, cover with water, add a meaty ham bone and a little garlic. Cover and simmer about 30 minutes, then add 2-3 potatoes, peeled and diced. Simmer another 30 minutes. Serve hot as soup.

Over the years, I've built up quite an impressive collection of recipes using all these herbs and more, and turned them into a lengthy book (yet to be published).

Travellers Joy
3 cups purslane, chopped
1/2 onion
1 hard-boiled egg, sliced
1 cup chickweed
1/2 cup amaranth leaves
1 ripe avocado
approximately 1/4 cup cheddar cheese diced small
1 teaspoon garlic salt
juice of 1/2 lemon

Chop the purslane, chickweed, amaranth, and onion into bite sized bits. Add the avocado, peeled and diced. Add one hard-boiled egg, sliced. Mix in cheese. Squeeze the lemon over the salad, add the garlic salt, and mix well. Add 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise if desired.

Mixed Weed and Flower Salad
!/2 cup young rocket leaves
1/2 cup young dandelion leaves
1 cup young lamb's quarter leaves
1/2 cup purslane, chopped
1 small head of lettuce, torn
1/2 cup young nasturtium and violet leaves, torn
1/4 cup chive flowers
1/2 cup nasturtium and violet flowers
2 teaspoons chopped mint
2 tablespoons chopped, salted smoked almonds
salt and white pepper to taste
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup salad oil

Combine flowers and greens. Combine the honey and vinegar, whisk in oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour dressing over the salad tossing gently to coat all ingredients. Sprinkle with chopped almonds and serve.

oh WOW - this is exciting! I may be able to call myself a gardener yet! I know I can grow weeds...:-)

It's all over my front yard, any my neighbor's yard too.. My neighbor and I were out comparing pictures with the "weeds" and we have it everywhere. Now we have to screw up the courage to actually believe that's what we have and eat some!

Before eating any wild food, be sure you can positively identify it. Don't rely on one or two pictures. Look at many pictures and descriptions until it becomes a familiar friend. Better yet, learn it from someone who knows. It needs to be as easy as distinguishing between cabbage and iceberg lettuce. This advice is not intended to scare you and certainly not intended to discourage you from trying wild foods. It's just to be sure you have an enjoyable experience.

I am a great fan of Euell Gibbons and have enjoyed foraging for all sorts of wild foods. Euell's approach was quite the opposite of so-called "survival food" books. No poached tree bark for him. He believed in eating well from foraged foods. The things he gathered and cooked were delectable. His wild diet was not skimpy. In fact, he usually had a surplus to take home at the end of a camping trip and would can foods at his camp site.

I'm surprised and delighted at the level of interest in wild foods on this forum. It's something I never would expected.

Jim

Yes, I eat it every summer, I really like it best raw in salads, but that's how I like spinach the best too. I've used it in "spinach" dip, and sauteed it with a bit of olive oil, garlic and onion.

I also like purslane, I think it's best added to cabbage as a kind of slaw.

For some reason I always have a bumper crop of both in my garden, or wherever anyone has tilled, we have a ton. In fact, that's why I first ate the lambsquarter, I figured if it was growing in my garden, I was going to eat it!

Mine's not quite bit enough here, I think it'll be ready about the same time as my romaine and mesclun, which will be another couple of weeks.

Annie

Well, Jim, where's the fun in that;)

Anyway Euell Gibbons is dead, so he's not going to be much help (talk about a blast from the past).

Sally, where are you in Texas?
Try some lamb's quarter, it's good!
I might just come pick some! I am in the Texas panhandle.

"Anyway Euell Gibbons is dead, so he's not going to be much help..."

We have his writings and they still are the best by far on this subject. They are based on personal experience, backed up by research. They are full of fascinating anecdotes. I can't think of any author who provided me with more fun. I'm a little slow on the uptake, so I'm not sure what you mean by "where's the fun in that". Can someone explain?

My life would not have been the same (no exaggeration) without "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" and "Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop."

Jim

Jim, for one love the idea of foraged food. One of my goals is to learn about mushrooming around here, how to find ramps and fiddleheads etc. Really close friends moved into a new house and I just noticed the woods bordering their property are filled with ferns. they said if they are fiddleheads I can have them all. Wahoo!!

A new cookbook of mine had a recipe for braised dandelions so I tried it... Ah, no. I will not be foraging those again. However someone at my CSA said dandelion petal pancakes are wonderful. Just add the flower with the green part cut off to pancake batter. Julian and some of his friends love eating dandelion flowers so I plan on trying it.

My understanding is purslane and lamb's quarters both love newly tilled soil. I also love sorrel as a foraged delight. My CSA has plenty of all three, and for some reason there is no limit to how much of this pick your own crop (strawberies on the other hand where limited to 2 quarts).

For those of you that eat purslane, do you eat the stems as well or just the leaves? I found the stems to be a little weird.

Trixie, You ate all of the Lamb's Quarters? I was told the stems ar really tough and woody.

Okay, i have added most of Euell Gibbons books to my wish list on Paper back book swap.

-Robin

Actually, I probably have those books somewhere in the basement, now I'll have to go through the boxes and find them. I'm pretty sure my XH didn't take them.

"Jim, for one love the idea of foraged food. One of my goals is to learn about mushrooming around here, how to find ramps and fiddleheads etc."

Mushrooming is a specialty of wild food foraging. It is greatly rewarding but requires expertise. Ten percent of mushrooms are very good or excellent for eating. Ten percent are poisonous, a few common ones are which are fatally poisonous. The remainder are undesirable but not poisonous.

You don't need to know every mushroom to eat them. You do need to positively know the one you are eating. Folks in the upper midwest may be able to positively identify only morels (and distingish the from false morels) and enjoy them safely without becoming a mycophagist.

Anyway, study of wild foods, including mushrooms, has been extremely fun and rewarding to me.

Jim

Robin, I only use the leaves of the purslane, and I also use young tender leaves of lambsquarter.

Like you, I don't care for dandelion greens, although Grandma used to wilt them with hot bacon grease and serve them. She said they had to be young and tender or they'd be bitter. I think they're bitter anyway, although I did make dandelion blossom wine a couple of times when I was younger. It was intensely sweet, I remember, and my brother drank a couple of quarts and got sick. Serves him right, the glutton.

I've eaten May Apples, though I was very strictly forbidden to eat the seeds or rind, being told those parts are poisonous. I don't know if it's true, but I don't think Grandpa would say that for no reason. The fruit is sweet and not unpleasant, but custardy and odd. My favorite were the little bright red wintergreen berries, tasting like Pepto-bismol, there weren't enough to do anything except snack.

I make jelly from foraged elderberries and pick blackberries in the national forest, but those are easy and readily available and identifiable. I do hunt morels but not very hard because I don't like them, LOL.

We have tons of black walnuts here but no one wants them, they're messy and a PIA to crack.

Now you've got me wishing that old crab apple tree was still here, the state widened the road and the tree was gone.

Annie

Ok, this is not the same stuff as fuzzy lambs ears right? Cuz that's a big weed in my garden.

No, Marys1000, lamb's ears are not edible, and they should not be confused with lamb's quarters, lamb's lettuce etc. They aren't even related to one another. That's the trouble with using common names, instead of the botanical names.

Lamb's Ears is Stachys byzantina. It's also called Woolly Betony.

Lamb's Quarters is Chenopodium album, also known as Fat Hen or Dirty Dick. It's very similar to Good King Henry, to which it's closely related. Many of the Chenopodiums are edible weeds.

Just to add to the confusion, Lamb's Quarters is an alternative common name for a vastly different plant - Bethroot or Wake-Robin, Trillium pendulum, which can be toxic. It is only used medicinally these days, with caution, by those who have professional expertise.

I'm in full agreement with Jimster about the importance of correctly identifying ANY plant before you eat it! Too many poisonous plants out there have adopted the ruse of looking closely like safe plants.

Robin, no we didn't eat the stems, just the leaves. I didn't realize how much it would wilt when cooked.

Hi Robin!
I have eaten lamb's quarters when I worked at a nature center with a big demo heirloom garden and log cabin. I did woodstove pioneer type cooking demos and it was early in the season and I was teaching a pioneering class and all we seemed to have in the garden was weeds!! I sauted it with bacon, it was yummy. Like spinach only better.

"Stalking the Wild Asparagus" by Euell Gibbons is one of the best natural history books, wild edible books and culinary books around. He was so much more than a Grape Nuts peddler. He was a very entertaining and inspiring writer. I have eaten a lot of wild edibles in my day, and most of them taste like soap. Euell's philosophy was to spend your time stalking the things that were really worth finding, and I couldn't agree more. Nothing like wild strawberries or blueberries with pancakes cooked on an open fire, followed by a little sassafrass tea (I know, I know, but I'll take my chances on a cup now and then). Dinner of brook trout, wild greens, morels and ginseng tea. I've even had acorn flour bread with wild cranberries and hickory nuts that was truly a thing of wonder. We'll loose more than a few songbirds when our last natural places are rolled over. And no, farmed versions do not taste just as good.

Laurie, That bread sounds wonderful, I wish I could try it. I totally agree that Lamb's quarters are like spinach only better. I found some just starting in my garden. It is in my fledgling (planted this spring) asparagus patch that I am supposed to keep clear of weeds. However in my book Lamb's Quarters are no longer a weed, so I will harvest them when they are ready.

I was looking at the Mediterranean coking in Alaska blog that Ann pointed out and found another wild edible. Spruce tips, or pine tips or fir tips are apparently edible and according to her yummy. As it is not spring here anymore (based on the weather I would say it is monsoon season) I will have to wait until next year. Looks interesting though.

-Robin

Here is a link that might be useful: Spruce Tips on Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska

lpinkmountain,

Your description of Euell Gibbons' writing is right on the mark. I couldn't have said it better.

Gibbons makes the point that acorns have been an important food source at certain phases of human history. I found that the astringency of acorns, due to their tannin content, varies greatly, not only among species of oaks but among individual trees. Tannin is soluble and can be leached out with boiling water, but it is better to select a tree whose acorns have less tannin. I was lucky enough to find a large oak whose acorns were so mild they could be eaten out of hand with no processing at all. I was conducting a wild foods class and we used acorns from that tree at the "wild party" which concluded the course to bake muffins which we spread with wild fruit jellies.

Your story of acorn flour bread reminded me of that and of the large batch of hickory nut brittle I once made.

Jim