Cooking Dandelions?

If dandelions were rare and fragile, people would knock themselves out to pay $14.95 a plant, raise them by hand in greenhouses and form dandelion societies and all that. But they are everywhere and don't need us and kind of of do what they please. So we call them weeds and murder them at every opportunity. Robert Fulgham

I'm thinking about cooking dandelions. They are just beginning to bloom in our back yard, and I've been told that this is the time to pick the tender stems.

Having a hard time thinking of the dandelion as a much maligned vegetable. In most of the world it is considered delicious and very much part of the menu. It has been used for many centuries as medicine for various ailments.

But for three decades we have been pulling them out and digging them out and yes, poisoning them.

I never really thought about eating them. Apparently dandelion greens and roots are rich with vitamins and antioxidants. They are said to to be one of the most nutritious greens. They have a strong diuretic quality (like asparagus) and can detoxify the blood. They have been used to treat stomach ailments and arthritis and eczema. (Though I doubt that my family doctor husband would advise this).

How to serve them? In salads or sandwiches (raw), or in soup. Dandelion wine? Dandelion tea? I just don't know. Even so, I'll try it tonight, and get back with you in my next blog. Yikes! And this doesn't compare to the food exploration of Andrew Zimmerman.

Is it a medicine? A vegetable? A weed? What do you think? The garden metaphor is (to paraphrase Dorothy Gale) if you ever go looking for the evening's supper, you better not look any further than you own front yard. Seriously. We are culturally influenced to believe that this healthy, abundant vegetable is a dreaded weed. And yet, I love arugula - and am guessing that it really doesn't taste much different than the dandelion leaf.

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

1 Corinthians 3:7