Dandelion Days

Yesterday spring finally arrived on the coast of Maine. Even if I hadn’t read the news on the thermometer (high 40s when I let the dog out at 8 a.m.), I would have known from the hordes of high school girls who suddenly appeared on the streets of Camden clad in next to nothing, exuberant with the freedom to let pale limbs absorb the sunny warmth. This time of year, my vegetarian offspring complain that there’s nothing to eat—honestly, they say. The greens are all imported from California or, worse yet, Mexico, the root vegetables are getting punky, and the asparagus—well, forget about it because who knows where in the world that’s grown, or under what conditions.

So I’ve been on the prowl for dandelion greens. Haven’t found any yet but they will pop up soon out of leaf-bedraggled lawns and then I may do what my mother always did at this time of the year. Armed with a blunt-ended kitchen knife she ranged over our little acre, cutting the greens off at the root and tossing them into a paper bag. Back in the kitchen, they were picked over laboriously, rinsed in several waters (they’re often very muddy), then cooked to death (“cook the bejesus out of them”), steamed for at least an hour, often with a little cured pork (“with the marrow of a hambone,” says my favorite Maine cookbook). To cut the bitterness, they were always served up with a healthy sprinkle of vinegar. And they are indeed healthy, packed with calcium and Vitamin A, also a great source of iron, I’m told, just what sluggish, winter-tired blood needs to get active once more.

If you harvest your own greens, make sure you’re doing so in an area that has not been sprayed with any herbicides or growth stimulants. Look for the tightly compacted crowns of dandelions with a furl of  unopened buds at the center of the circle of leaves. Cut beneath the plant to take up as much of the tap root as you can—it has its own flavor appeal. Don’t bother with plants that have already put up a flower stalk as they’ll be quite intolerably bitter. And clean them very, very well—until there’s no suggestions of mud in the water.

Some folks like to serve dandelion greens raw in a salad but I think they’re much better, much easier to appreciate, when cooked. Now and then I get a little fancy, a little Mediterranean, with the cooking: once they’re steamed, I chop the greens coarsely, then toss them in a pan with olive oil, garlic, and the merest hint of dried red chili pepper.

You can of course buy cultivated dandelion greens (cultivated, no doubt, in California!) but nothing really beats the pleasure of harvesting your own.

Nancy Harmon Jenkins, cookbook author, food writer, journalist.