Clovers
Clovers have dense compact heads, tiny pea-like flowers and 3 leaflets. They come in many different species wit white, pink, red, or yellow flowers. They can be used in salads, as cooked greens, for tea, and to make flour. They are rich in protein. They flower-heads and young leaves are hard to digest when raw, but if soaked for several hours in salt water or boiled for 5-10 mins. they can be eaten in large amounts. If dried, the flower-heads can be made into a delicate healthy tea and, if ground, along with the seeds, they can be made into nutritious flour.
Alsike clover – Trifolium hybridum
White clover – Trifolium repens
Crimson clover – Trifolium incarnatum
Red clover – Trifolium pratense
Wild chamomile – Matricaria camomilla
This low, slender-stemmed plant has small daisy-like flowers and sparse, feathery leaves. the leaves and stems are apple green and pineapple-scented. They are found along the edges of roads and the flowers can be dried and used to make a delicate, golden tea.
American lotus – Nelumbo lutea
This plant has large, pale, yellow flowers. It’s leaves can be 1-2 ft. (30 -60 cm.) long and are usually held a few feet above the water. The seedpod is shaped like a showerhead, with each hole in its top containing a large seed. It is found in quite water and can be used as a great food source. The tuberous enlargements of the rootstock are great when they’re baked like sweet potatoes. The unrolling young leaves can be prepared like spinach. Immature seeds can be eaten whole, raw or cooked. The kernels from the ripe seeds can be eaten like nuts or ground in to flour to make muffins.
Common Dandelion – Taraxcum officinale
This is a familiar lawn weed with single flours that have downy white seed-balls. The leaves have sharp irregular loves and stems are milky and hollow. Young leaves can be gathered from this plant before flowers appear and can be added to salads or boiled for 5-10 min. The best part of the leaf is the blanched part just below the soil. The leaves are healthy and rich in vitamin A.
Young flower-buds that are still tucked down in the rosette of the leaves can be boiled for several minutes and served with butter or pickled. The flowers are good when dipped in batter and fried to make fritters. the roots can also be baked in a slow oven until brown and brittle, ground, and perked like commercial coffee to make a great coffee-like beverage.
Hairy lettuce – Lactuca hirsuta
This is a type of wild lettuce with reddish-yellow, dandelion-like, flowers and a reddish stem. The lower stem and leaves are often hairy and the sap is milky and bitter. It can be used in a salad, cooked green, and as a cooked vegetable. They developing flower-heads can also be added to casseroles.
Passion Flower – Passiflora incarnata
This is a weak, trailing of climbing vine with tendrils. the leaves are finely toothed with 3 or 5 lobes. The long-stalked shown flowers have 3-5 white sepals with alternating 3-5 white petals and overlaid by a sunburst structure of purple or pink threads. The fruit is a yellow and hen’s-egg sized berry.
The fruit can be eaten fresh or made into a cold drink (simmer 5 mins., strain, add lemon and sugar, chill) or jelly (simmer, strain, add as much sugar as juice, add pectin).
Briar roses – Rosa eglanteria
This a large group of bristly or thorny shrubs with showy, 5-petaled, pink, white or deep rose flowers. The fruit is bright red with 5 prominent calyx lobes at the end. This plant can be used to make jam, tea, candy, or as emergency food. The jam is made with rose hips and sour apples. To make the jam discard the stems and calyx lobes and combine the hips with sliced apples (3 parts hips and 1 part apples). Next train the mixture through cheesecloth, sweeten to taste and boil hard until ready to set (about 15 min.). Add commercial pectin if you omit sour apples. Alternatively, syrup can be made by leaving out the pectin.
Fresh or dried hips, fresh petals, and Sweetbrier leaves can be steeped in hot water for 10 mins. to make tea. The fresh petals can be added to salads, made into jelly, or candied. The pulpy exterior of the hips can be eaten raw, and because the hips are often held on the bush through the winter, they make an excellent survival food, rich in vitamin C.
Nodding wild onion – Allium cernuum
These are widespread, familiar plants with grass-like basal leaves and small, 6-petaled flowers. They have n onion scent and can be used as a cooked vegetable, pickled, used in a salad, used as a cooked seasoning, and as a cooked green. The underground bulbs are excellent boiled, pickled, added to salads, or used as seasoning. The tender leaves (before flower stalks appear) can be cooked as greens along with the bulbs or added raw to salads.
Thistles – Cirsium vulgare
Thistle are biennials with deeply-cut, prickly leaves and showy, rose-purple, “shaving-brush” flowers. They can be used in salads, as cooked greens, and as a cooked vegetable. When the spine is removed the young leaves can be added to salads or cooked as greens. The pithy young stems are great when peeled and eaten raw or cooked. The raw or cooked roots of first-year plants (those without stems are good survival foods.
Cat Tail – Typha latifolia
This plant contains erect, sword-like leaves. The stems are unbranched, stiff and topped by a compact, cylindrical head of minute flowers. Male flowers are located above the heads with the female flowers in the heads blown.
Young shoots can be easily pulled from rootstocks, peeled to a tender white core and eaten raw or cooked like asparagus (boil for 15 mins.). Yong spring stalks can be prepared in the same way an green immature flower spikes and be gathered before they erupt from their papery sheathes and leaves and boiled. They make for a good vegetable when served with butter and eaten like corn-on-the- cob.
The pollen can be gathered and mixed half-and-half with wheat flour to make a protein-rich flour. Then the pollen must be dried thoroughly before store for future use.
Small horn-shaped sprouts form at the tip of the rootstocks and remain through the winter. These can be added to salads or boiled fro 10 min. and served with butter. In the Spring they can be peeled, boiled and pickle din hot vinegar.
The starchy core at the base of each sprout can be prepared like a potato. In the late fall, winter, or early spring the shallowly buried rootstocks become filled with starch. These rootstocks can be washed thoroughly, peeled, and crushed in a pail of cold water to separate the starch form the fibers. Next, the fibers are removed and the starch is allowed to settle so the water can be poured off. This process needs to be repeated once or twice more to produce pure white flour that can be used immediately or dried for future use.