Cafe Liz

Winter weekend weed walks

I attended two weed walks last week. Both had been delayed due to rain. Coincidence? Not at all.

We’ve had several years of drought, and the rain came late this year. But once it started, it didn’t stop. When the winter rains begin, the dusty earth quickly comes alive with fresh green growth. Flat brown yards and parking lots fill up with massive packs of mallow, and green shoots peek from between cracks in the pavement.

Many of the country’s wild plants are edible, and thus have played a role in regional culinary traditions. Over the past decades these traditions have been largely ignored, forgotten or shunted aside, whether due to ignorance or their association with poverty, as the familiar group of internationally-recognized vegetables dominate agriculture and markets.

Yet foraging is making somewhat of a comeback. In fact, you could even call it trendy in certain circles. For those looking for a greater connection to the land, to broaden their culinary horizons, to eat local and organic, it seems like a natural choice.

And fortunately for us city-dwellers, you don’t even have to go farther than the nearest yard. Many of the most popular plants to forage are ruderals, meaning they follow humans — they spring up in (man-made) empty lots, where they have no competition. Once you know what you’re looking for, the entire city starts to look like a huge salad. To prove this point to a friend, Eitan started nibbling straight off a mallow bush in her yard. OK, that was for shock value. Continue reading Winter weekend weed walks …

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