From the Spring Forging Cookbook: Wild Grapes and Wild Lettuce

 

Wild Grapes

 All grapes are delicious for eating out of hand, made into preserves and jelly and, of course, wine.  But, grapes are a summer/fall fruit.  In the spring, the leaves are tasty and nutritious.  Most folks only associate dolmades or stuffed grape leaves with Greek food and their regional grapes.  But all grapes and even our native native wild grapes, which are different from the vinifera grapes of Europe, may be used and are very good.  I really love them!  Pick a reasonable quantity, wash them and briefly boil. Place a mixture of ground meat, rice, herbs, garlic, salt and pepper on each and roll them up to hold the filling inside – don’t over fill.  Steam them using water mixed with a glass of white wine, lemon and butter.  Lamb is the traditional meat for filling, but you can use any meat you like, and even fish.  I like game, especially.

Another great use for Wild Grape leaves is to include them with any fermented pickled vegetable, especially cucumbers.  Grape leaves have tannin.  They only add a little flavor to the pickles.  But, the tannin in the leaves helps keep veggies crisp when pickled.  Oak leaves also work, as will a little black tea.  But, my favorite is Grape Leaves, because they are also very good pickled.... pickled oak leaves really are not.

 

 

Wild Lettuce and Prickly Lettuce

These “common weeds” are actually the ancestors of our salad lettuces.  If you have ever tasted one raw, that will shock you.  Not only are they very bitter, but often tough, and sometimes prickly.  They grow into tall, upright stalks instead of bunching heads of cultivated lettuce!  As with corn, we should rightly be amazed at the thousands of years of plant breeding that enabled our ancestors to provide such delicious garden vegetables for us today.  For most folks in our era, the Wild Lettuces are merely weeds to be eradicated.  You will often see them growing by roads, in old fields and disturbed areas.  Herbalists, though, treasure the plants as a sedative and bitter herb – for about 50% of people, the milky sap of Wild lettuce acts with a mild opium-like effect, and bitter herbs aid digestion and liver health.  For the forager, it is the leaves we value.  This is likely not a salad green for most folks, though… although, it can be used in salads.  For salads, select the most tender leaves that are not prickly, and taste a couple to see if they are not too bitter and not too tough.  If you enjoy bitter Dandelion and other raw greens, as I do, you may find a new, but familiar delicacy in these plants.  Otherwise, they benefit from cooking.  Preparing a wilted Wild or Prickly Lettuce salad, in bacon grease, topped with vinegar would please most.  Cooking will make the Wild Lettuce more tender and palatable and soften the prickles of Prickly Lettuce so that they will not be noticed.  I usually just toss them in with Dandelion, Wild mustard, Docks, etc. as a potherb.  But, in France, especially, lettuce soups are often enjoyed made with chicken broth.  Making soup is an excellent way to use a lot of either wild or cultivated lettuce – it is always a shame to waste food, after all – and gain a lot of nutrition.  Don’t be surprised though it it makes you a bit sleepy or relaxed...

 

This article is an excerpt from

The Spring Foraging Cookbook: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.html
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