Leslie Chaisson
Wendell
It was hot. It was June of 1996 in the Bitterroot Valley of northwestern Montana, where I spent my first summer interning on an organic farm. As I fell into bed around 9 each night, I begged the omnipresent sun to set.
My fellow intern, Chris, and I were directed toward the far end of the field one June morning, with the task of “saving the carrots” from the purslane, which had begun to outcompete the tender slow-growing Nantes. Morning chatter waned as the hot sun altered our formerly cheery moods. We weeded on. By late afternoon, Chris had snapped at me several times. “Stop saying ‘purslane’,” she’d said. “The way you say it annoys me.”
Three years later, it was June, and it was hot. Tensions were high among the interns at the Connecticut farm where I assistant-managed. I think someone had threatened to quit that morning that the purslane salad appeared at lunchtime. It was the first time any of us had eaten the dreaded weed, but we all stopped grumbling long enough to comment on what a tasty salad it made. By the end of that day, the crew’s mood seemed miraculously to have lifted.
Abby, the intern who made the salad, knew something that no one else knew. Perhaps not cognitively, she knew something about purslane that would have been useful to me that day in the carrots. Purslane cools hot tempers! According to M. Grieve’s A Modern Herbal, first published in 1931, purslane “cools the heat in the liver”…and is excellent for all pains in the head “proceeding from the heat, want of sleep or the frenzy…” Isn’t that a perfect description of June on an organic farm?
The Frenzy.
Remembering my experiences with purslane, I read this description in Grieves and it became clear to me that plants and people work in relationship with each other. The earth gives us what we need if we only open our eyes. In spring, we need cleansing foods to clear away the stagnancy and heaviness of winter. Spring offerings include young greens, (like dandelion, nettles, dock, and cultivated greens) shoots, and sprouts - foods that clean the liver and energize us. In summer, we crave sweet, juicy, cooling foods; we feast on watermelons, tomatoes, berries, beans (and purslane!). In fall we eat ripe fruits, nuts, seeds, and mushrooms, as our body begins to prepare for slow, cold winters, when we need fats, proteins, and starches from roots, rhizomes and tubers.
Eating seasonally, then, is not just about eating what is available locally because it is fresh and delicious. It’s also about responding to our body’s cyclical needs for nourishment.
So thank you, humble purslane, for coming on at a time when The Frenzy needs cooling.
Famous forager Euell Gibbons, in Stalking the Wild Asparagus, devotes an entire chapter to purslane, offering dishes from “pickled purslane stems” to “purslane seed pancakes.” Although the entire plant can be eaten, the leafy tips are the most palatable part. The leaves are fat and mucilaginous with a slightly tangy taste. Purslane should always be washed thoroughly, he warns, as it can be gritty.
Gibbons enjoyed purslane as any steamed or parboiled green: boil 5-10 minutes, season with butter and salt. Because of the mucilaginous consistency, purslane can be added to soups and stews for thickening. The number of accessible recipes for purslane may surprise you. In addition to the recipes in Stalking the Wild Asparagus, I found a few in other cookbooks, and several on the Internet. I must confess, however, that I have only eaten purslane in a prepared dish (the frenzy-cooling salad) once. Here’s some of what I found:
Cucumber-Purslane-Yogurt Salad
- 5 large cucumbers, peeled, seeded and cut into quarter-round slices
- 1/4 pound purslane, large stems removed, washed and drained well
- 2 tablespoons each, fresh chopped mint, cilantro and chervil
- 4 cups whole milk yogurt
- 1/4 cup virgin olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, puréed with the blade of a knife
- 2 teaspoon ground coriander
- kosher salt and ground black pepper
Place the cucumber, purslane and herbs into a large bowl. In another bowl, stir together the yogurt, olive oil and garlic, coriander and season to taste with salt. Add the yogurt mixture to the vegetables and mix well. Add a pinch of ground black pepper. Taste the dressed cucumber-purslane salad for seasoning, adding a little more salt if needed. Serve chilled.
Purslane and Egg Pita
- 1 c. purslane
- 1 T. olive oil
- 1 clove minced garlic
- 1 chopped onion
- 1 chopped tomato
- 2 tsp Bragg’s or soy sauce
- 1 egg
Blanch purslane 4 minutes; drain and squeeze dry. Saute garlic and onion until translucent. Add beaten egg; cook 1 minute. Stuff mixture into pita bread and serve.
Other ideas:
- might try adding some purslane to your favorite potato salad recipe.
- M. Grieves makes reference to purslane’s use in the well known French cream soup, bonne femme.
- Meat dishes using purslane include Mexican Pork and Purslane, and Anatolian Purslane, Lamb and Lentil Stew, both found on the Internet.
Have fun experimenting and keep cool!
Back to the June - July 2004 NOFA/Mass News
This page was last modified on July 27, 2009 at 10:38:19 AM.
Translate this page: 
|
