Dandelions

My Dad just told me about a farmer in Oklahoma back in the 40's who loved dandelion salad and decided to plant a field of them. He let the many that sprouted in his yard go to seed and planted the field. None grew! Seems that nature wanted them to grow wild and not in cultivation! He had to settle for the ones that grew in the yard. One mans weed is another mans dinner!

well I could feed an army withall the weeding I did today.
My daddy made dandylion tea-we luved it with a lil honey.

Zanymuse,

in Crete dandelions are a delicacy, a blessing and an art
in itself. To cut s VERY long story short, they are
picked with a knife (cut off just at the top of the root) cleaned of all yellow leaves and flower stems, and washed several times in plenty of cold water. A large pan with a lot of water is put on the stove, andwhen the water boils the weeds are thrown in and boiled with the pot open for a few minutes. They are served hot or cold, with olive oil, salt and lemon juice. Tips: the younger the weeds > the tastier, the more the boiling water > the less bitter they taste, the water they boiled in is very tasty with salt and lemon added and it is a good diuretic, etc, etc,

let me know how they taste in your part of the world.
I tried to boil dandelions in England - they were TOO bitter and I did not repeat it.

Best wishes
dpmichael

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Zanymuse,

I have a lot of seeds of a variety very wild growing, but they have been cultivated and marketed by a Greek seed company - I bought htem last year and I bought too many -
shall I send you?? How many??
Let me know

There is a variety called French Dandelion that is a cultivated type. This is the dandelion you find, from time to time, in markets.

Horizon Herbs, among others, sells seed for it.

The problem with trying to sow wild seed is that it has something like a 5% germination rate. Think about it. As bad as your lawn is now, if the dandies had a high germination rate _all_ you would have is a dandelion lawn.

This message was edited Wednesday, Apr 18th 9:31 AM

Uh-hum...hmmm....(clearing my throat and trying to get attention...;>))...
Altho I've collected the flowers, battered them (w/a bit of sugar in the batter) and fried them, eaten the greens (both cooked as well as a nibble while working in the garden) I STILL have not made any dandelion WINE. Anyone have a good recipe? eh? eh?... (sure got quiet in here all of a sudden...).

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Looking for slug bait, Horseshoe? I mean, that IS what you plan to do with this alcoholic beverage, right? hee hee

Here is link with a recipe for dandelion wine. http://www.texascooking.com/recipes/dandelionwine.htm

Let us know when the wine is chilled....
I tried the boiled dandalions but didn't care for them much. Think I will stick to the fresh leaves in my salad. Curiouse though..are the flowers edible also or is it just the leaves ?
dpmichael, thankyou for the seed offer but I have more than I can eat sprouting wild in the lawn ! DH already says I am crazy because I will not let him spray the lawn and eat them...if he saw me actually plant them he would have me committed to the assylum for certain!

'Shoe,
Ray Bradbury wrote a GREAT book about dandelion wine.

dpmicheal, my grandfather always ate some boiled dandelions every spring, but even now, with the snow and frost, it's getting on late in the season here - they are, um, piquant!

A lot of oldtimers ate dandelion in the spring. It was used as a general tonic to spring clean the body.

Medicinally, dandelion is a blood cleanser and improves the liver. It is mildly laxative and strongly diuretic.

The blood cleansing action of the herb is retained in dandelion wine and beer---making them palatable ways to take your medicine.

For medicinal purposes the whole plant is used. Most of the active ingredients are actually in the roots.

...in the roots? Hmmmm...root beer! (whoops, that just slipped out!) Kathleen, I thought Bradbury wrote sci-fi books..was he perhaps drinking dandy-wine? Thanks Happy...will check out the link! Go-vols, yep, for sure...slug bait (just hope I can keep my neighbor Bert out of it).

Yeah, I can see you (I mean him) lapping up that dandelion wine, tongue flicking the slugs out of the way....hee hee hee!

>tongue flicking the slugs out of the way<

And waste all that protein?

Hmm, back to Ray Bradbury, yes indeed, good sci-fi, and horror and some neat memoirs. Good guy to read.

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Patty - Stephen King is a GREAT writer, I just can't stand his subject matter - makes me want to hurl. Just bought his book "On Writing" - excellent book. That one I could get through!