The Dandelion Gatherer

A forager in the park

It’s a tiny triangle of land. It’s bordered on one side by an off ramp of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway that seems frequently used to practice for the Indy 500. A public tennis court and baseball/soccer field dominate the opposite side. Stretched across the triangle’s bottom is a serenely pretty pocket garden if better maintained by the city. One would not normally consider the plot between the courts and raceway to be fertile agricultural land. But others know better and, after the first soaking spring rain coaxs the grass to grow thick and long, there are always some people hunched close to the ground harvesting the season’s first crop of dandelions.

A morning’s haul.

The health properties of what many consider a weed are well known and in many cultures prized for its medicinal use. The list of benefits always come prefaced with “may” because research is ongoing. But the people working this spit of ground don’t need anyone to tell them if they’re true or not. They’ve been eating and drinking dandelions, from flower to roots, for eons and are better off for it

I accosted an Asian man the other day to ask his thoughts about the plant. The interview went pretty much like this:

“Hi!” I called before walking over and crouching down beside him. He was clearly uneasy about this intruder who was even more alarming for being tethered to a very large, very good natured 84 pound immovable dog who decided he needed to lie down.

The interviewee and the dog.

The man continued to stab a very long chef knife into the grass around the dandelion bed.

“Can I ask you what’re you going to do with the dandelions?” I asked.

He very eloquently signaled he would like nothing to do with me but I continued. Someone once explained to me the importance of eating the plant as soon as it flowers.

“It helps to stir up your sluggish winter blood, right?”

He finally glanced up at me from under his straw hat. “Yes.”

But that was the limit of his patience, as well as the dog who was heading home without me.

I followed around a noted forager a couple of years ago but I wouldn’t trust me not to poision you. A friend who is a born and bred forager searches for mushrooms in a nearby cemetery. This is the month she goes out and always comes back with a cornucopia of different varieties. Some years she finds so many that she gladly hands over a full gallon-size plastic bag of fungi that guides the family menu for weeks afterwards. They’re also quite lenient about being freezed to throw into winter stews and soups.

But you can’t go wrong with dandelions. Miss Glover taught me this. I met her while working as a community organizer for a project that was trying to prevent the city from condemming houses in a historical Black neighborhood. She was given the large task of shepherding me around to her neighbors because, as she said the first time we were together, people would think a white girl showing up on their doorstep would mean nothing but trouble. Somewhere in the vicinity of eighty-years-old (it’s rude to ask a woman’s age), deceptively frail (she thought nothing of pruning the lilac tree in her garden), and stubborn (never lost an arguement), Miss Glover would knock on doors and talk us inside. My task was to carry a bag of sweets—cookies or biscuits or sometime a slice of cake the ladies at the community center baked especially for our purpose. Miss Glover and I sat on porches and at kitchen tables and over iced tea and the sweets persuaded our hosts to allow the project to fix up their homes. No one said no to Miss Glover.

One day she told me I would come home with her for lunch. She would show me how to boost my skinny body’s immune system. What I needed was a huge dose of iron. Someone in the neighborhood had brought her a sack of dandelions and she worried it was already too late for them to do any good. She probably thought I’d make a good test case to see if they had lost their power.

A big pile of danelions were mounded on her kitchen counter, roots and all, and she put me to washing each leaf, pat it dry then place it carefully between newspaper sheets to dry. Meanwhile, she cooked up six thick slices of fresh bacon from a pig she probably knew personally. She used the leftover grease to fry up cubed bread and slices from a large Vidalia onion. Everything went into a bowl and she gave it a good stir. Then she directed me to set the table in her parlor with two china bowls, juice glasses, and a pitcher of very cold iced tea with thick lemon slices floating about. We ate the whole bowl and drank the pitcher dry while she kindly went over improvements I needed to make in my life. I listened very carefully and ever since have strived to follow most of her advice, especially the one about having a big bowl of dandelion leaves every April to gain strength for the months ahead.

The harvest is complete on our little field between the Indy 500 run and the tennis courts. None left over for me to try my hand at foraging. Nor for the big dog to roll around in. But all the neighborhood vegetable markets are awashed in dandelion leaves. The problem is they’re big and tough so it’s best to cook them. (This is a fine recipe that even a vegetable phobic husband may enjoy.)

If you are lucky enough to have a lawn awashed in dandelions or in the proximity of a blooming field, run out now and bring in your own crop. Second best is to buy a bunch in your market. You really will feel better.

As Miss Glover said to me, “get on, now, and do what’s good for you.”

Miss Glover’s Dandelion Salad Recipe for Two

1 bunch tender spring dandelion leaves, thoughly washed and dried well then stredded
6 thick slices of bacon (fresh if you can find it)
A handful of cubed stale bread
1 firm Vidalia onion, sliced thin
3 or 4 tablepoons good cider vinegar
salt and pepper

Place the clean greens in a bowl. Saute the bacon until very crisp. Add the cubed bread and cook until they’re golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and toss them into the bowl with the greens. Saute the onion slices in the same bacon fat until just slightly wilted and add them to the bowl as well.  Toss everything together then sprinkle the vinegar over everything. Toss again. Serve immediately with salt and pepper.

The Farmer’s Almanac is a logical place to find a host of dandelion recipes, including one for wine. I made it. It has a nice kick to it. If you brew it now it’ll be ready for the holidays when we all need a nutritious alcoholic pick-me-up

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And now, the fun photo of the week!