THE FORAGER’S COOKBOOK: Identify & Prepare Edible Weeds & Wild Plants

The Forager’s Cookbook: Identify & Prepare Edible Weeds & Wild Plants

Written by Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal

Photographs by Julie Bruton-Seal

Published by Skyhorse Publishing, 2023

“If you are stuck with these tenacious life forms, perhaps it’s time to appreciate their good side. If you can’t beat them, eat them!” –Julie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal

If you’re a gardener or farmer, you inevitably view weeds as the enemy: pervasive nuisances that battle for crucial terrain in garden beds and fields. However, this book—simultaneously field guide, botanical history, and cookbook—may cultivate a new appreciation for these wild plants by offering recipes that incorporate them into delicious, nutritious dishes and drinks. Ground ivy, or creeping Charlie, makes a lovely cleansing tea or can be used as a soup stock; finely chopped leaves find a natural home in buttery shortbread and scones. Lamb’s quarter leaves are loaded with vitamins A and C, retain their bright color when cooked, and can be adapted for use as spinach or other mild greens. Other preparations include chickweed hummus, dandelion flower syrup, elderberry vinegar, and mugwort and mushroom soup.

The authors wryly note, “If you are stuck with these tenacious life forms, perhaps it’s time to appreciate their good side. If you can’t beat them, eat them!” Once a gardener changes her mindset, a former nemesis becomes lunch. Spring nettle leaves provide anti-inflammatory benefits and can be carefully harvested (wear protective gloves to avoid the sting, or cut with scissors directly into a bag or basket), blanched and pureed, then frozen in an ice cube tray. Pop a couple of intensely emerald-hued cubes into a blender with a banana, an orange, and apple juice and you’ll have a superfood smoothie. The book also has a tempting recipe for Nettle Cake, its beautiful pale green layers sandwiched by lemony frosting.

As you turn the pages and read about readily recognizable foes, you begin to see them with fresh eyes and to realize their new potential as free ingredients.

Patches of garlic mustard at the edge of your yard? Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, flower buds can be treated like broccoli, tender stalks make a tasty snack, or oil and drain some potatoes, add a handful of the chopped leaves, then mash the mixture with milk or cream. Is your shady garden bed overrun by ground elder, or bishop’s weed? Throw a cup or two of the chopped leaves in your quiche or frittata fillings. Dandelions carpeting the lawn? Toss blanched dandelion greens with garlic, ginger, toasted sesame oil, and soy sauce and stir with sautéed mushrooms into a bowl of cooked noodles.

Julie and Matthew admire weeds for their resilience as well as for their taste and nutrition. In fact, many weeds are nutritional powerhouses, oftentimes with more minerals and vitamins—not to mention stronger flavors—than standard commercial vegetables. Moreover, weeds frequently thrive in the shoulder seasons of late fall and early spring when other produce is waning or waxing. “Stick with these wild tastes,” the couple advises, “because you’re taking in the plant’s wildness, its survival strength.”

This British couple are longtime gardeners, naturalists, cooks, and writers; this is their sixth book. Each chapter focuses on a different common weed—23 in all—and provides an in-depth history of the plant along with helpful advice on uses, gathering, and cooking. As you turn the pages and read about readily recognizable foes, you begin to see them with fresh eyes and to realize their new potential as free ingredients. The plant-based recipes draw from global cuisines and present a diverse array of savory and sweet main dishes, snacks, and drinks. Julie’s closeup photographs reveal each plant’s innate beauty and assist with proper identification.

Perusing this book may change your view of weeds and offer delicious ways to make peace with Mother Nature’s abundant, free resource.