Since time immemorial, people have fed on nature. The leading activity of ancient people was hunting
and gathering. Men went hunting, women collected roots and edible plants, wild apples, and berries.
Modern man can also easily feed on nature, because there are so many edible plants that it won’t be difficult to find.
Today we will talk about wild plants that can easily be found on the shore of any body of water or marshy place.
Cattail narrow-leaved and broad-leaved
Cattail is a perennial plant that can be found in the shallow waters of rivers and lakes. A characteristic feature of cattail is a brown cob. The brown (or black) spadix is an inflorescence of female pistillate flowers.
Down from cattail cobs used to be mixed into rabbit fur and made into felt hats. Cattail was used as a covering material for the roof.
Ropes were made from the stems, baskets and mats were woven. Paper was made from cattail wood (stems).
The edible part of the cattail is the rhizome. Cattail rhizomes reach about 60 centimeters and are about 3 cm thick.
The dry rhizome contains 47 percent starch, 11 percent sugar and up to 30 percent protein.
Cattail rhizomes can be used to make flour, and the roots can be baked (tastes like asparagus). You can make a coffee substitute from cattail.
How to cook: We pull the cattail out of the soil, separate the root, dry it and grind it in a mortar (or on a stone). Knead like dough and bake, it turns out like flat cakes. You can make jelly from this flour (contains a lot of starch. Mix with forest berries and drink jelly). You can also eat young cattail shoots.
Umbrella susak (Yakut bread), wild bread, marsh susak
Susak is a plant 1-1.5 meters tall, with a bunch of linear, erect leaves. The plant has a straight stem with white and pink flowers sticking out in all directions, like the spokes of an umbrella. It grows everywhere, both in Siberia and in the Middle Zone.
Umbrella susak is a very common plant that can be found near almost any body of water. Edible parts are its roots, which are harvested in autumn or spring.
Irkutsk scientists who studied it noted that swamp susak contains everything for human nutrition.
Composition of susak: it contains almost 60 percent starch, 14 percent protein and 4 percent fat (straight proteins, fats and carbohydrates)
Susak was prepared in Yakutia and even in Italy. Susak roots are dried and fried with lard (quite tasty, similar to potatoes). If you roast the susak rhizome thoroughly, it is an excellent coffee substitute. The only difficulty in harvesting the plant is that it is harvested late in the fall or early in the spring. In order not to confuse susak with another plant, during flowering the plant is marked in some way (you can tie a cloth)
Common reed
The reed is tall like a cattail, but its stems are thin, like straws, green in color, and the leaves are bluish-green. At the top of the stem there is a panicle 30 cm long. Reed from the cereal family.
Reed has been used for covering roofs since ancient times, and even fences are made from it. The edible parts of the reed are the root, which reaches a length of about two and a half meters. The rhizomes taste very tender and slightly sweet (raw rhizomes contain about 5 percent sugar).
Cane rhizomes can be consumed raw, boiled or baked. Reed also has medicinal properties, this is an excellent diaphoretic.
It is very convenient to extract reed rhizomes with a rake from a depth of up to 1 meter; you can make an impromptu cat out of nails. The reed blooms in July. The roots are collected in early summer or late autumn
Overcome grass, White water lily
A perennial herbaceous aquatic plant that grows in reservoirs at a depth of 1 to 3 meters. The flower is white. It plunges into the water at about 6 o’clock in the evening and emerges at about 7 o’clock in the morning.
Water lily roots can only be eaten boiled and fried. Poisonous in their raw form!
Dry the roots, grind them into powder and you can bake bread. But you should not tear the water lily without great need; there is not so much of it.
By the way, water lily roots stain fabrics brown. The roots of the water lily contain a lot of tannins and therefore before drying it should be soaked in water, often draining it.
Common arrowhead (marshweed)
Common arrowhead (Swampweed) is a perennial aquatic plant that grows near water bodies in wetlands. The arrowhead is easily recognized by its original leaf, which is very similar in appearance to an arrow.
Arrowhead medicinal plant, in It has a lot of minerals and nutrients. (more on this in the next articles). The roots are used for food - nodules that form in the fall at the end of the shoots. These nodules can be collected in autumn and spring.
The tubers are baked over a fire, boiled, fried. Chemical composition Arrowhead is very similar to regular potatoes, only not as watery. After eating arrowhead tubers, there is a slight (bitter) aftertaste in the mouth. You can dry the tubers and crush them and bake them like bread. Tubers contain about 60 percent starch and 6 percent sugar.
Arrow leaf has wound healing and astringent properties. Useful for stomach diseases
Composition of minerals:
Minerals
Common duckweed
Duckweed is a perennial aquatic plant; it can be found in small reservoirs, swamps, and creeks. Duckweed forms a single green carpet. Duckweed is a very valuable nutritious and medicinal plant. Duckweed contains a lot of protein; the nutritional properties of this plant are close to those of cereals (wheat, oats...)
Duckweed is great for allergies (desensitizing properties), soothing nervous system, helps with malaria, has antitumor activity. Duckweed contains a lot of iodine and bromine salts.
You can eat duckweed raw in the form of a salad. We rinse it thoroughly in water (although the smell will still remain) and eat it).
Below are duckweed recipes
Duckweed salad
Place onion rings on sliced boiled potatoes, sprinkle with chopped boiled egg and chopped parsley. Mix the washed duckweed with cabbage, place in the center of the plate, and pour sour cream on top.
Product consumption: duckweed - 30 g, onions - to taste, boiled potatoes - 1 piece, sauerkraut - 50 g, sour cream, 1 egg, salt and spices to taste.
Pasta with duckweed
Mix all the ingredients specified in the recipe and use the paste for sandwiches.
Product consumption: duckweed - 20 g, butter - 20 g, grated horseradish - 2 teaspoons.
Meat cabbage soup with duckweed
At the end of cooking, add duckweed, spices, parsley, dill, onions or green onions to ordinary meat soup seasoned with cabbage and potatoes and boil for 3-5 minutes.
Product consumption: duckweed - 10 g per serving.
Green cabbage soup with duckweed
Add sorrel and duckweed, minced in a meat grinder, sautéed carrots and onions, green onions, spices, parsley and dill to the cabbage soup 10 minutes before readiness.
Before serving, top with sour cream.
Product consumption: duckweed - 30 g, sorrel - 50 g, potatoes - 100 g, onions or green onions - 40 g, sour cream - 20 g, dill - 10 g, salt to taste.
Green oil
Grind the washed duckweed in a meat grinder and cook for 5 minutes. large quantities salted water, then mix with oil and dill.
Wild Edible Aquatic Plants
For many centuries, a variety of leafy vegetables have been a regular item on the menu of people - not only peasants, but also city dwellers. The selection was quite impressive. Later, with the beginning of industrialization, only a few species remained of the former diversity, resigned to the mechanization of production and withstanding long-term storage. The rest, until recently, remained on the sidelines of progress. Modern dietetics has given leafy vegetables a second life. Now we enjoy eating the culinary delights of past eras - “green” sauces, salads, soups - and enrich our body with vitamins.
Leaf crops do not have any special care requirements. Moreover, some of them are as hardy as weeds. These are arugula, sorrel, quinoa. However, even quinoa will grow tender and juicy only on loose, fertile and well-moistened soil. On heavy, uncultivated soils, any of the vegetables will be coarse and tasteless. In addition, with rare and irregular watering, plants are in a particular hurry to bloom, which further reduces the quality of the harvest.
Borage, borage
Young leaves are added to salads, soups, and used as a seasoning. They smell like cucumber. Loves fertile, humus-rich soil. Before spring sowing The seeds are soaked for a day, changing the water several times. Leaves are collected before flower stalks appear.
Salad chicory (witloof)
Witluf translated means " white sheet": they drive it out in complete darkness, otherwise the leaves will turn green and become bitter. Chicory is a biennial, but it is grown for food for one season, and in winter it is forced out. It is moisture-loving, prefers fertile soil. Lettuce chicory is sown in the last ten days of May. If sown earlier , then by autumn the plant may go into decline. Root crops are harvested before frost sets in. The tops are cut at a height of 2-3 cm, so as not to damage the growing point. Before this, the root crops are stored in the basement at a temperature of 1-2°C. At home, several centimeters of peat are poured into deep boxes or buckets and the root crops are planted close to each other. They are sprinkled with soil on top and watered in 2-3 steps. The boxes are placed in a dark place with a temperature of 10-12°C. increase to no more than 15-18 °C, otherwise the leaves will become bitter. The heads are ready for consumption a month after the start of distillation. They are stored in the refrigerator for up to three weeks.
Spinach
A very popular leaf vegetable. It is also eaten fresh, but more often in cooked form: in appetizers, soups, pies. This is one of the most healthy vegetables, although the long-held belief that spinach is especially rich in iron turned out to be just a myth. The plant is cold-resistant and can withstand frosts down to -5°C. Both early and late varieties have been bred. Spinach is a long-day plant, so it tends to bloom in mid-summer, which deteriorates the quality of the harvest. To avoid stemming, late varieties of spinach are planted in the summer.
Rucola, indau
A close relative of mustard greens. The plant is unpretentious. Young leaves have a very pleasant, tangy taste. You will have fresh greens all summer long if you sow every two weeks. Arugula is one of the fastest ripening vegetables. It is cold-resistant and tolerates shading well, but with long days it shoots easily. In addition, in warm weather it is attacked by the cruciferous flea beetle. Therefore, in mid-summer, sowing can be stopped until August. If you still set out to get a harvest all season long, then from May to July it is advisable to darken the plantings in the morning and evening so that the daylight hours do not exceed 12 hours.
Watercress
Cold-resistant early ripening plant. The taste of the leaves is reminiscent of mustard (they belong to the same family - cruciferous), but much more delicate. This plant, which does not require heat, can be sown both before winter and in early spring, in April. Crops are repeated every two weeks. This way you can harvest until autumn. And if you sow lettuce in a box on the windowsill, you will have fresh greens all year round. When growing watercress at home, you don’t even have to wait for the leaves to develop. Young seedlings, about a week old, are especially useful. They are obtained by placing the seeds on a damp cloth or cotton wool. You will need much more seeds than when growing lettuce the usual way.
Sorrel
Perennial plant for obtaining large leaves can be cultivated as an annual. Can be used to force leaves at home. Soups and green cabbage soup are made from sorrel, and added to salads and pie fillings. This is extremely unpretentious plant. For a long time The sorrel that appeared in the garden was weeded out, considering it a weed, but at the same time the leaves of wild sorrel were collected for food. The plant prefers slightly acidic soils and is frost-resistant. In order to receive fresh young leaves throughout the season, sorrel is sown in 2-3 periods.
Garden quinoa, vegetable
Young leaves and shoots of the plant are edible. They are rich in protein, vitamin C, and mineral salts. Quinoa is undemanding to soil quality and is resistant to cold and drought. It is found everywhere in the wild. A similar weed, white pigweed, is often mistaken for quinoa. In times of famine, quinoa helped our ancestors out more than once, whether good or bad, but by replacing bread. True, because of this, it acquired the reputation of a plant that can only be eaten when dying of hunger. But quinoa is good both fresh and boiled - in soups and borscht. From the seeds you can make porridge, which is said to be slightly inferior to buckwheat. There are also decorative varieties quinoa with burgundy, beet or cream colored leaves.
Chard (chard)
A relative of quinoa and beets. There are two known forms of chard: leaf and petiole. The leaves are eaten fresh - in salads, as a side dish, or added to omelettes and soups. Before sowing, the seeds are soaked for a day. Young plants easily tolerate light frosts. In order to get greens as early as possible, at the end of March the seeds are sown for seedlings, and a month later they are planted in the ground, initially covered with film. Chard loves fertile soil and bright light. The first leaves can be cut a month after sowing, but the massive harvest will only be a month later.
!”, will be dedicated to wild plants. I decided not to stick exactly middle zone Russia, but to describe those species that may be encountered and useful to you in all regions of the Russian Federation. In the forest, tundra, and desert you can find many wild edible plants.
Some of them are ubiquitous, others have a precise geographical address. Various parts of plants are eaten as food: fruits, roots, bulbs, young shoots, stems, leaves, buds, flowers. Plants that birds and animals eat are generally safe to eat. However, it is rare to find plants in which all parts are edible. Most of them have only one or a few parts suitable for eating or quenching thirst.
So, here is a list of some edible, wild plants:
Nettle
Young shoots are used for green cabbage soup, purees, and salads. It grows mainly in the temperate climate zone in the Northern and (less often) Southern Hemispheres. The most widespread in Russia are Stinging Nettle and Stinging Nettle.
The strongest sails were made from nettle fabric in Rus' and other countries, as well as the strongest bags, chuvals and coolies made of coarse nettle fabric, “wrens”.
In Japan, nettle rope in combination with silk was the main material in the manufacture of expensive samurai armor; shields were made from woody stems, and bow strings were made from the strongest nettle fiber, twisted and rubbed with wax.
By the way, you can put nettles on caught fish, it will stay fresh longer.
Sorrel (common and horse sorrel)
Sorrel contains vitamins C, B1, K, carotene, essential oils; it contains large quantities of organic acids (tannic, oxalic, pyrogallic and others), as well as minerals (calcium, magnesium, iron, phosphorus).
All parts of the plant are used to treat or prevent certain diseases.
Sorrel is also used in the treatment of vitamin deficiencies, scurvy, and anemia.
The leaves and fruits of sorrel have an astringent and analgesic effect, wound healing, and anti-inflammatory.
In Russia it grows mainly in the European part (about 70 species).
Used for sweet and sour jelly and jam; it belongs to the buckwheat family.
It grows on rocks and rocky slopes in the lower parts of mountain ranges, and also enters the lower parts of the alpine belt.
It is found in abundance in the Altai Territory and the East Kazakhstan region, in Northwestern Mongolia, and the Sayan Mountains. Rhubarb is widespread in Asia from Siberia to the Himalayan mountains and Palestine, and is also grown in Europe.
In medicine, rhubarb roots and rhizomes are used, containing glucosides, which determine the laxative properties of rhubarb, and tannins, which have an astringent effect and improve digestion.
Only the stem of the rhubarb is edible; the leaves and root of the rhubarb are considered poisonous.
Grows widely in many areas of the European part of the country, in the Urals, Western and Eastern Siberia, the Far East, Crimea and the Caucasus. It grows in water, along the banks of rivers, ponds and lakes, and in wetlands.
The edible underwater tubers of the plant contain up to 35/o starch, 10.5/o proteins, 0.5/o fat, more than 3/o sugars, and tannins. In dry form, tubers contain up to 55/about starch and about 9/about sugary substances.
The tuberous formations that develop in the fall at the ends of the shoots are eaten. rarely - rhizomes. Boiled or baked tubers taste like chestnuts, raw tubers taste like nuts, and baked tubers taste like potatoes.
For long-term storage The tubers are cut into circles and dried in air, and for grinding into flour they are dried in the oven.
It grows along the banks of reservoirs, often at a considerable depth - up to one and a half meters, and is found in swamps and water meadows, close to groundwater in forests and salt marshes.
The most valuable for food use is the long, fleshy rhizome of the cane, containing starch (over 50%), carbohydrates (up to 15%) and fiber (up to 32%). The rhizome contains the largest amount of these substances late autumn and early spring.
The rhizomes are eaten raw, baked, fried; They taste tender and sweetish.
In hungry years and periods of prolonged crop failure, the rhizomes were dug up, dried, and ground into flour, which was added in large quantities to wheat and rye (up to 90% by weight). However, long-term consumption of such bread (apparently due to the high fiber content of cane flour) caused undesirable consequences: swollen bellies, a feeling of heaviness and pain. A method for separating starch from coarse fiber has not yet been developed.
Roasted rhizomes are used as a coffee substitute.
Found everywhere on the banks of water bodies and water meadows. Many people are familiar with its peculiar black-brown velvety inflorescences on a long (up to 2 m) straight stem. Many people mistakenly call it reed, but they are not even of the same family. Cattail is widespread throughout the European part of the country and in the Urals. Caucasus. Ukraine, Siberia and Central Asia.
The rhizomes contain up to 46% starch, up to 24% protein, 11% sugars, tannins, the leaves contain ascorbic acid, and the seeds contain fatty oil. In folk medicine, the rhizomes are used for dysentery, the leaves are used as a wound-healing and hemostatic agent.
In hungry years, cattail was one of the most important sources of food. Rhizomes and young stems were and are still used for food. They collect young shoots that have not yet emerged from the ground. Before use, they are boiled in salted water. They are pickled for the winter. Soups, purees are prepared from rhizomes and young stems, they are stewed with potatoes, and used as a seasoning for meat, fish, mushroom and vegetable dishes.
Most often, baked rhizomes are now used for food. You can use them to make flour, bread, pancakes, biscuits, biscuits, jelly and other products. To prepare flour, the roots are first broken into pieces up to 0.5 cm thick, dried and crushed.
Roasted rhizomes can replace natural coffee. Cattail sprouts, which resemble bulbs, are delicious raw. Rhizomes are collected in autumn or spring, when they contain a lot of starch. Dried, they can be stored for a long time.
About 20 species are found in Russia. It is known that its stems and rhizomes contain up to 48% sugars, up to 6% protein, 3% fat.
The rhizomes of the reed are edible. If you chop the rhizome and cook for 40-50 minutes, you will get a sweet decoction. By boiling the broth over low heat, you can prepare a thick and even sweeter syrup.
The basal white part of young reeds is eaten raw. They are edible as a substitute for bread. Flour is obtained from the dried rhizome, which is added to grain for baking bread.
IN hiking conditions The reed rhizome can be baked on coals or in ash. People who find themselves in extreme conditions, there is no risk of starvation if there are reeds nearby.
People call reeds “cut grass.” The peeled rhizome is applied to a fresh wound, and the bleeding stops.
Often used to prepare salads and borscht. Roasted roots can serve as a coffee substitute. For tourists, dandelion can undoubtedly diversify their diet. Anyone who has tasted it knows that it is quite bitter. In order to remove this bitterness, it is enough to scald it with boiling water and soak it in cold salted water for several hours.
It is very easy to prepare a salad from dandelion; it is done like this: first scald the leaves, add finely chopped fireweed leaves and nettles. Mix it all.
A “coffee” drink is made from the roots according to the following recipe: dig the roots, wash them thoroughly, chop them finely, and fry them until dark brown. Then grind it in a coffee grinder and prepare it the same way as coffee. This drink is very useful.
It is found throughout the temperate climates of the Northern Hemisphere. Grows in clearings, forest edges, and among bushes.
Ivan tea is widely known as a strong antioxidant and is used to cleanse the body of waste and toxins. IN medicinal purposes Both leaves of Ivan tea and its flowers are used.
Residents of the Far East use fireweed tea for sore throats, bleeding, constipation, and also as an anti-inflammatory and astringent. In Tibetan medicine, the herb, roots and flowers were used as an anti-inflammatory agent for diseases of the skin and mucous membranes.
Salads and soups are prepared from young shoots and leaves of fireweed, and fresh roots can be eaten raw or boiled instead of asparagus or cabbage.
The dried roots are used to make flour, bread, pancakes and cakes, and the roasted roots are used to make “coffee.”
The dried leaves are brewed and a strong and tasty tea is obtained.
Widely distributed in Siberia, the Urals, the Far East, Central Asia, the Caucasus and many areas of the European part of the country. Grows in standing ponds and slow-flowing rivers.
The rhizomes are rich in starch - up to 60% and protein - 13.4%, they contain sugars, fats, and ascorbic acid in the leaves. Dried rhizomes contain 4% fat, 13.5% protein and 60% carbohydrates. In addition, fiber - 7.1% and ash - 6.7% were found in the plant. In folk medicine, rhizomes were used as a laxative, diuretic, expectorant, and anti-inflammatory agent.
Since ancient times, susak has been known as a very valuable food plant; it was called Yakut bread. People went to shallow creeks, lakes, bays, ditches, uprooted susak, separated the starchy rhizome, washed it in water and initially dried it in the wind.
At home, the rhizome was dried in ovens, pounded, ground, made into cereal and flour, from which they baked bread, cooked porridge, and prepared coffee and coffee drinks. From 1 kg of dry rhizomes, 250 g of flour is obtained, yellowish-white in color and with a pleasant sweetish taste, reminiscent of unhulled wheat flour. This flour usually contains 30% rye or wheat flour. In times of famine, bread was baked from umbrella susak.
Preparing susak rhizomes better in autumn or in the spring before flowering, when they contain a large amount of starch. Delicious and nutritious roots are baked over a fire.
Distributed throughout almost the entire territory of Russia. It grows in vacant lots, in garbage areas, near housing, in vegetable gardens and orchards.
Due to the presence of inulin and protein, burdock roots are used as food. Ground into flour, they can be added to dough when baking bread. They can be eaten boiled, baked, fried, fresh; You can replace potatoes in soups, make cutlets, flatbreads.
The roots are boiled with sour milk, vinegar, sorrel, and inulin undergoes hydrolysis to form sugar - fructose. This produces a sweet and sour jam. Roasted roots can serve as a coffee substitute or replace chicory.
In Japan, burdock is cultivated as a garden crop called gobo.
Siege delicacy. This stunningly simple recipe is taken from a unique book published in besieged Leningrad in 1942 for the few still alive. It is no coincidence that the recipe omitted an indispensable condition - to wash the root first. There was not enough water even for drinking. The gas station was not indicated either - it simply wasn’t there. Surely, today you will not use this recipe in its original form, but let it once again remind us all of those faithful green friends who helped the people to withstand and survive in deadly conditions. Here is the recipe: “Boil the burdock roots, chop in small pieces. Serve topped with some sauce.”
In the wild it can grow up to the tundra zone. It grows mostly in shady forests in valleys near rivers. Wild garlic contains 89% water. 1.4% ash, 2.4% protein, 6.5% carbohydrates, 1% fiber, 0.1% organic acids, 4 mg% carotene and B vitamins.
Since ancient times, wild garlic has had a reputation as a reliable healer. The plant has strong phytoncidal, antibiotic, tonic, and anti-atherosclerotic properties. wound healing properties. This is an excellent anti-scorbutic early spring plant.
It is best to eat fresh wild garlic in salads and vinaigrettes. Wild garlic with black bread and salt is delicious. Very tasty early spring cabbage soup and soups are cooked from it, and minced meat is prepared. It is used as a seasoning for meat and fish dishes, and as a filling for pies.
In many places, wild garlic is prepared for future use: it is fermented, salted and pickled, and the finely chopped wild garlic is dried in the sun. The bulbs of these plants are also used in food. Wild garlic leaves are similar to leaves poisonous plant lily of the valley, so some care is required when collecting.
“I’ll add on my own behalf. I lived in Kamchatka, and so, in the forests there, wild garlic, apparently or invisibly, is very similar to lily of the valley and grows just like it - in small but frequent patches.”
Oxalis (“hare cabbage”, “cuckoo clover”)
This small grass, up to 10 cm high, can be found in damp coniferous and deciduous forests in the European part and in Siberia.
It is familiar to many from childhood because of the graceful outline of its leaves, as if consisting of three light green hearts. 100 g of raw mass of sorrel leaves contains up to 100 mg of vitamin C, a lot of potassium oxalate, malic and folic acid. They have a sharp, sour-astringent taste and can be used in salads, vinaigrettes and cabbage soup instead of sorrel.
Sour soft drinks are prepared from oxalis. You can find wood sorrel even in winter under the snow. It is just as green and tasty.
Well, this is not a complete list of wild plants that can be used for food. There are more than 1000 species of edible plants growing in our country, so it is somewhat problematic for me to cope with such work. Attention is paid to the most common types.
Back in the 18th century, about 700 leafy vegetables alone were known, read - edible herbs and flowers. Modern people are concerned about finding and using as an edible supplement wild herbs and flowers because of their undoubted usefulness. Let's take a closer look at the “pasture” that will give us vitamins, nutrients and minerals.
Dandelions
Dandelion is mainly eaten in Western Europe and especially in France, where it is even bred in greenhouses as a salad plant. Salads made from fresh herbs were not known in Russian cuisine until approximately the era of Catherine the Second, and even after that they were served only in the houses of the nobility. In the bitterness of the leaves lies main value dandelion like medicinal plant. All bitterness increases liver activity, improves digestion and metabolism. To ensure that dandelion can be safely eaten, there are several ways. The simplest is to pour boiling water over the leaves, but in this case we get completely limp soft leaves, not a particularly pleasant consistency. Second method: chopped leaves are poured with salt water (1 tbsp per liter) and left to soak for 10-15 minutes, while they better time Taste from time to time so as not to completely lose all the bitterness. The slight bitterness of dandelions gives the salad a special piquancy. And the third, most labor-intensive method is bleaching. To do this, the dandelion is deprived of light for several days - covered black film, cardboard box or even a tin can. Arriving at the dacha in a week, you will receive white, crisp leaves, ideal for salad.
Primrose
Leaves of all types of primroses are used in Western Europe as salad plants. They have a pleasant taste and a very high ascorbic acid content.
The leaves of the wild primrose of our forests, which is also called rams, are officially used in medicine as a vitamin plant. They go well with green onions and cucumbers. Of course, you can make a salad from onions and cucumbers, but just primrose with onions is tasty and healthy. You can put daisy leaves and then their flowers in the salad, this is also an English classic, where salads and sandwiches are decorated with daisy flowers.
Levkoy
The leaves of the nocturnal plant are very good in salads - a perennial gillyflower that blooms with pinkish-purple flowers in June-July. They are spicy, taste like mustard and go well with any other greens. This plant is very often found in our flower beds, but it never occurs to anyone that it is edible. Meanwhile, from under the snow, nocturnal bushes emerge with green leaves.
Bluebells The leaves of most bluebells are edible and can not only be eaten raw, but also cooked delicious salad. Particularly suitable for this is the rapunzel bell - a pretty perennial that easily turns into an annoying weed. This type of bells has creeping underground shoots and large branching roots, similar in shape to carrots. These roots are also edible and even tasty, so when dealing with bluebells, do not throw them into the compost, but rather eat them. Bluebell greens contain a large amount of vitamin E, the vitamin of eternal youth, which is responsible for reproductive function and skin condition.
Day-lily
The most delicious spring salad comes from the well-known daylily, especially the one that blooms in the fall. This type of daylily - yellow-brown daylily - is not considered a flower at all in China, from where it came to our gardens. Pickled daylily flowers can sometimes be bought in Chinese shops. But daylily leaves are also edible; they taste like onions, but are not at all spicy.
Young leaves are used both independently and in mixed salads. In summer, when the leaves become hard, you can put their young part, located at the very bottom, in salads. Daylily flowers are the main thing eaten in it, but spring-blooming daylilies have too many strong smell and are used only as a seasoning. Autumn daylilies do not smell at all, so their flowers can be eaten in unlimited quantities, raw or processed.
Snooze
Pay attention to the most common weed in our gardens, which more than one generation of summer residents has been struggling with - weed, one of the popular names of which is “food-grass”. This ancient food plant of our ancestors is mentioned in Dahl’s dictionary: “If only there were hogweed and saplings, we would be alive.” Very whiny tasty plant, whose young leaves are edible. To ensure that they do not cause gas formation in the intestines, they must be scalded or subjected to any heat treatment.
Cabbage soup made from cabbage soup is much tastier than nettle cabbage soup. The taste is reminiscent of both carrots and parsley. Very old leaves can be put into the broth as a spice and thrown away after cooking, and from the young leaves you can prepare various dishes: scrambled eggs, stew, fillings for pies, salads. When the borers begin to eat intensively, the plants quickly weaken and after a year or two completely disappear.
Nettle
And, of course, how can you do without young spring nettles? It is used to prepare cabbage soup, add it to salads and prepare the filling for pies. However, be careful: nettles appear in thawed areas, especially “sweaty” ones, long before the snow melts completely. It grows quickly and after 10 - 12 days it becomes “old” and unsuitable for food.
Wild onion
Wild onions appear about a week later than nettles and grow on hillsides, along river banks, in sparse grass on rocky soils. Its leaves are similar to those of ordinary cultivated onions, but thinner, tougher, and noticeably less juicy. Wild onions are used to make salads, as are wild garlic. In addition, it can serve as a seasoning for soups, borscht, fish soup, like regular onions. It’s not prepared for future use - I found it and picked a bunch for a salad.
Ramson - wild garlic
It appears in thawed areas and the first wild garlic must be looked for on the southern slopes in sparse aspen forests growing in place of dark coniferous plantations, in forest clearings. It appears earlier in places where warm groundwater comes out. On sale most often there are bunches with cut leaves and torn flowers.
Sorrel This tender small plant, whose leaves look like clover leaves, can be used like sorrel. It grows under the canopy of dark coniferous plantations and is very abundant. However, due to its small size, collecting sorrel is labor-intensive. It is not as sour as sorrel and is therefore suitable for salads. As an additive to such salads, you can use chickweed, a common weed that grows in well-moistened open fertile areas.
Sorrel
Different types of sorrel are eaten (common, pyramidal, curly, passerine). Leaves and young shoots are used mainly when cooking green cabbage soup, which is prepared according to the same recipe as cabbage soup from fresh cabbage. After the chopped leaves boil once, the cabbage soup is ready. They are served with a hard-boiled egg and fresh sour cream. Sorrel is also used as a filling for pies, especially in the first half of summer, when the berries have not yet appeared. The leaves are steamed, cut and mixed with sugar. You can add up to 50% of peeled hogweed stems (bunches). Sorrel can be preserved by hot processing and salting. Due to the presence of acid, there is no danger of anaerobic fermentation in this case.
bracken fern
Young shoots of ferns are used for food. Just two or three decades ago, no one in Russia collected ferns, since they did not consider it an edible plant. But with the development of relations with Japan, China and South Korea, where fern shoots have been eaten since ancient times, we began to harvest bracken fern, first for export, and then for our own consumption. Gradually, Russians, primarily residents of Siberia and the Far East, tasted this gift of the forest, and now fern is considered a delicious product, along with champignons, olives and asparagus. The fern harvesting season is short - about 2-3 weeks. It begins, depending on the area, at the end of the first or second ten days of May, and approximately coincides with the harvest of wild garlic.
Asparagus (Asparagus) On sunny sandy slopes, on dry manes and hills, white-greenish and juicy large shoots of asparagus appear in the spring at the time of bird cherry blossoms - an excellent spring food rich in vitamins and other valuable substances. This plant was introduced into culture by the ancient Romans, who highly appreciated its qualities. In our country, asparagus is found wild in the European part, in the Caucasus and Western Siberia, where it grows in meadows and among shrubs. Probably everyone has seen adult asparagus - sprigs-like herringbone panicles with red berries, often added to flower bouquets. Young shoots of asparagus are also difficult to confuse with anything - they are thick sprouts with triangular scales, at first whitish, then darkening and becoming brownish-greenish, sometimes with purple tint. Young asparagus shoots are eaten boiled and used either as a main dish or as a side dish.
Yarutka
Yarutka can be detected without special labor on the nearest dug area, abandoned arable land or along a field road, as long as the soil is not covered with solid turf. This is a plant of the cabbage family, or as they were previously called cruciferous plants. Young shoots are used in salad.
Shepherd's Purse
Shepherd's purse, like cress, emerges in early spring, literally from under the snow. Shepherd's purse leaves are eaten raw in salads, boiled in soups and borscht, even salted. Interestingly, as a vegetable, shepherd's purse is widely used in Chinese cuisine; moreover, it was brought by the Chinese to Taiwan, where it is grown as a “magnificent spinach plant” (quote from the book “Edible Plants of Southeast Asia”, published by in Hong Kong).
Surepka
One of the first things that catch your eye in fields, garden beds and other areas dug up in August-September are the bright green, shiny rosettes of colza leaves. Their taste is reminiscent of mustard, slightly hot, so it is better to mix it with other ingredients in a salad. early plants. This bitterness disappears when cooked, which is why colza is also used instead of cabbage in soup or as a side dish for meat, but in this case it is not cooked for very long, otherwise the colza loses its taste.
Caraway
A well-known plant with a characteristic umbellate inflorescence (belongs to the corresponding umbelliferous family). Widely used in pickles, baking bread, etc.
Many herbaceous plants are edible. Most of them contain almost all the substances necessary for humans. Plant foods are richest in carbohydrates, organic acids, vitamins and mineral salts. Leaves, shoots, stems of plants, as well as their rhizomes, tubers and bulbs are eaten. The underground parts of plants, being natural stores of nutrients, are very rich in starch and are of the greatest value from the point of view of providing nutrition; plants with edible leaves and shoots are widespread. Their main advantage is the ease of collection, the possibility of eating raw, as well as in the form of salads, soups and additives to other products. The substances contained in herbaceous plants can partially restore expended energy, support the vitality of the body, and stimulate the cardiovascular, digestive and nervous systems.
One of the most ordinary plants forests - stinging nettle (Urtica dioica). Its stems are straight, tetrahedral, unbranched, up to one and a half meters high. The leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate, with large teeth along the edges. The entire plant is covered with stinging hairs. Nettle grows in shady, damp forests, clearings, burnt areas, along ravines and coastal bushes. Due to its high nutritional value, nettles are sometimes called “vegetable meat.” Its leaves contain large amounts of vitamin C, carotene, vitamins B and K, and various organic acids. Nettle has been used as a food plant for a long time. Very tasty green cabbage soup is prepared from its young leaves. Scalded with boiling water, nettle goes into salads. Young, non-coarsened stems are chopped, salted and fermented, like cabbage. The inflorescences are brewed instead of tea. Nettle also has numerous medicinal properties. It is used mainly as a good hemostatic agent. Fresh juice(one teaspoon three times a day) and infusion (10 grams of dry leaves per glass of boiling water, boil for ten minutes and drink half a glass twice a day) are used to treat internal bleeding. Externally fresh leaves or powder from dried leaves is used to treat festering wounds.
Dandelion (Taraxácum officinále) is also common in forest flora.- a perennial plant from 5 to 50 centimeters in height with a thick vertical, almost unbranched root; oblong, pinnately serrated leaves collected in a basal rosette and bright yellow flower baskets. Dandelion settles on weakly turfed soils - in floodplains, along roadside ditches, on slopes. Often found in forest clearings and edges, along the sides of forest roads. Dandelion can be considered a vegetable crops(in Western Europe it is grown in gardens). The plant is rich in protein, sugars, calcium, phosphorus and iron compounds. All its parts contain a very bitter milky juice. Fresh young leaves are used to make salads. The bitterness is easily eliminated if the leaves are kept in salt water for half an hour or boiled. Peeled, washed and boiled roots are suitable as a second course. Boiled roots can be dried, ground and added to flour for baking cakes. Ground dandelion root can replace tea. The dug up and cleaned rhizome of the plant is first dried until the milky juice ceases to be released at the break, then dried and fried. To obtain an excellent brew, all that remains is to finely crush it.
Horsetail (Equisetum arvense) grows in river valleys, along sandy coasts, in meadows in spruce, light coniferous, birch and mixed forests. In the spring, its pale spore-bearing stems emerge from the ground, looking like densely spaced arrows with brown tips, and a month later they are replaced by green “fir trees” that do not wither until autumn. This is weird ancient plant edible. Young spring spore-bearing shoots are used for food - they are used to prepare salad, cook soup or eat raw. You can also eat ground nuts - nodules that grow on horsetail rhizomes - they are rich in starch, taste sweet and can be eaten raw, baked or boiled. Horsetail grass (“Christmas tree”) is rich in valuable medicinal substances and has long been used in medicine. Having hemostatic and disinfectant properties, infusion (20 grams of horsetail per glass of boiling water), powder or juice of fresh herbs is used to treat festering and incised wounds. Horsetail infusion is used to gargle for sore throat and inflammation of the gums. All of the above applies only to horsetail; other types of horsetail contain alkaloids.
Burdock
Among the many herbs of the forest, there is nothing more common than burdock (Arctium tomentosum). In hollows and ditches, in the forest, on bushy slopes to the river - everywhere you can find this green giant, sometimes exceeding human height. The trunk is sinewy, fleshy with a red tint. The dark green, arshin-length leaves seem to be covered with felt on the reverse side. In Siberia, burdock has long been considered vegetable plant. Young in the spring delicious leaves boiled in soups and broths. But the main thing about burdock is that it is a long, powerful root vegetable that can replace carrots, parsley, and parsnips. The fleshy roots of burdock can be eaten raw, as well as boiled, baked, fried, used in soups instead of potatoes, and made into cutlets. In camping conditions, burdock roots are thoroughly washed, cut into slices and baked over a fire until golden brown. Fresh burdock leaves are used as compresses for joint pain and bruises.
In the spring, when the buds on the trees barely begin to unfold in forest clearings and thickets, stems of primrose (Primula veris) appear along the banks of rivers and in thickets of bushes, looking like bunches of golden keys. This is a perennial plant with a straight flower arrow and large woolly, whitish, wrinkled leaves. The bright yellow corollas of flowers with five cloves are fragrant with honey. In some countries, primroses are grown as salad greens. Its leaves are a storehouse of ascorbic acid. It is enough to eat one primrose leaf to meet your daily requirement of vitamin C. Early spring fresh leaves and flower shoots of this plant are an excellent filling for a vitamin salad. Soothing and diaphoretic teas are prepared from the leaves and flowers of primrose.
One of the first spring herbs- wood sorrel (Oxalis acetosella). This simple forest plant is unsightly and inconspicuous. Oxalis has no stems. Fleshy, light green, heart-shaped leaves emerge immediately from the roots. Dense thickets of this grass can often be found under the trunks of spruce trees. It grows everywhere in shady and damp forests. Oxalis leaves contain oxalic acid and vitamin C. Along with sorrel, it is used to season cabbage soup and soups. Sour sorrel juice is very refreshing, so a sour drink is prepared from crushed sorrel, which perfectly quenches thirst. Oxalis can be added to salads, brewed as tea, or eaten fresh. When applied to purulent wounds, boils and abscesses, crushed oxalis leaves or their juice have a wound-healing and antiseptic effect.
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At the end of spring, in forest clearings among the grass, it is easy to find a straight stem with a tassel of spotted flowers and oblong (like a tulip) leaves, also covered with spots. This is an orchis. From Latin name it is clear that this plant is an orchid. Indeed, the first thing that catches your eye is the purple flower - an exact smaller copy of a tropical orchid. In addition to its beauty, orchis has long attracted people with its juicy tuber, which is rich in starch, protein, dextrin, sugar and a whole range of other nutrients and healing substances. Kissels and soups made from orchis rhizomes perfectly restore strength and save you from exhaustion. 40 grams of crushed tuber powder contains the daily norm of nutrients needed by a person. Orchis tubers, which have enveloping properties, are used for stomach disorders, dysentery and poisoning.
Snake knotweed (Polygonum bistorta) grows on wet edges, lowland and watershed meadows, grassy swamps, and marshy banks of water bodies. herbaceous plant with a tall, up to a meter, stem; large basal leaves as long as the palm of your hand, but much narrower and more pointed. Upper leaves small, linear, wavy-notched, grayish below. The flowers are pink, collected in a spikelet. Snake knotweed is edible. Young shoots and leaves are mainly eaten, which, after removing the midribs, can be boiled or eaten fresh or dried. The above-ground part of the plant contains a fair amount of vitamin C. The rhizome of the plant is thick, twisting, resembling a crayfish neck, and is also edible. It contains a lot of starch, carotene, vitamin C, and organic acids. However, due to the large amount of tannins, the rhizomes must be soaked. They are then dried, pounded and added to flour when baking bread and flatbreads. Snakeweed root is used as a strong astringent for acute intestinal disorders. Externally, decoctions and tinctures are used to treat old wounds, boils and ulcers.
The very first newcomer to forest burnt areas is fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium). It lives on the edges, in tall grass meadows, clearings and slopes. This is a plant with a smooth, tall, ankle-shaped stem, on which alternate leaves, dissected with a network of veins, sit. Fireweed blooms all summer - from a distance its lilac-red or purple flowers, collected in long brushes, are striking. The leaves and roots of fireweed contain a large amount of proteins, carbohydrates, sugars, and organic acids. Almost all parts of the plant can be used as food. So, young leaves taste no worse than lettuce. Leaves and unbloomed flower buds brewed like tea. Fireweed roots can be eaten either raw or cooked, similar to asparagus or cabbage. Flour from dried rhizomes is suitable for baking flat cakes, pancakes and making porridge. An infusion of fireweed leaves (two tablespoons of leaves, brewed with a glass of boiling water) is used as an anti-inflammatory, analgesic and tonic.
Sorrel (Rumex acetosa) grows on forest edges, along roadsides and wastelands. This plant, which was introduced into cultivation long ago and moved into vegetable gardens, is known to everyone - everyone has tried its sour, spear-shaped leaves on long cuttings. The stem of the plant is straight, furrowed, sometimes up to a meter high. The leaves grow from a lush basal rosette. Just three weeks after the ground thaws, sorrel leaves are ready for harvesting. In addition to oxalic acid, the leaves contain a lot of protein, iron, and ascorbic acid. Sorrel is used to make soup, sour cabbage soup, salads, or eaten raw. A decoction of seeds and roots helps with stomach upsets and dysentery.
Another edible herb, gooseberry (Aegopodium podagraria), is often found in moist, shaded forests, along ravines and gullies, and damp stream banks. This is one of the very first spring grasses, appearing in the forest at the same time as nettle shoots. Umbrella is from the umbelliferous family - the inflorescences are mounted on thin spokes, which radiate in radial directions. At the top of the plant is the largest umbrella, the size of a fist. In places where there is little light, the tree forms thickets, entirely consisting of leaves without flowering stems. In clearings rich in sun, the plant acquires a rather tall stem with a white umbrella. Even in the heat, the leaves of the plant are covered with droplets of water - this is perspiration that seeped through the water gaps in the green plates. Cabbage soup cooked from cabbage soup is not inferior in taste to cabbage soup. Young, unexpanded leaves and petioles are harvested. The stems, from which the skin is first cut off, are also eaten. Petioles and stems placed in the salad will give it a piquant taste. Wild greens, as a very nutritious and vitamin-rich product, were widely used by Moscow canteens in the spring of 1942 and 1943. Dozens of people went to forests near Moscow to harvest this grass. During those difficult years, squash also came to the rescue in the winter - it was chopped and salted in advance, like cabbage. Soup from snyti is prepared as follows: chopped and fried petioles of snyti leaves, onions, finely chopped meat is placed in a pot, poured with meat broth and put on fire. Add crushed marigold leaves to the barely boiling broth and cook for another thirty minutes, and fifteen minutes before the end of cooking, add salt, pepper, and bay leaf.
One of the few forest plants, whose leaves, stems, and rhizomes are suitable for food, is hogweed. Among our herbs there is hardly another such giant. The powerful, ribbed, bristle-covered trunk of this plant sometimes reaches two meters in height. The trifoliate leaves of hogweed are also unusually large, rough, woolly, dissected into large lobes. No wonder popular name hogweed - "bear's paw". This is a common inhabitant of forest edges, forest meadows, wastelands, and roadsides. Its peeled stems have a sweetish, pleasant taste, somewhat reminiscent of the taste of cucumber. They can be eaten raw, boiled or fried in oil. In spring, hogweed is tender, and its young, carrot-flavored leaves are also edible. All types of hogweed contain essential oils and therefore have a strong smell. Hogweed greens are usually first scalded in order to reduce the pungent odor, and then placed in borscht or stewed. Hogweed decoction resembles chicken broth. The sweetish rhizome of the plant, containing up to 10% sugar, in terms of calories and taste qualities Not inferior to garden vegetables and corn. The juice of some hogweeds contains furocoumarin, which can cause skin burns. Therefore, care must be taken when collecting this plant.
In clearings and fires, in damp and shady places Often large areas are covered with luxurious fans of bracken (Pteridium aquilinum). Its thick brown rhizome is overgrown with thread-like roots; Large pinnately complex leathery leaves emerge from the top of the rhizome. Bracken differs from other ferns in that the sacs with spores are placed under the folded edges of the leaves. As a food product, bracken is widely used in Siberia and the Far East. Its young shoots and leaves are boiled in plenty of salt water and washed thoroughly to remove all scales from the leaves. Soup made from bracken shoots tastes like mushroom soup.
Another inhabitant of the forest, migrated and cultivated in vegetable gardens, is rhubarb (Rheum). In rhubarb, long-petioled leaves with more or less wavy plates, collected in a rosette, extend from the underground shoot (rhizome). It grows on forest edges, along streams and rivers, on hillsides. Fleshy leaf cuttings are used for food, which, after peeling, can be eaten raw, boiled, or prepared into compote or fruit juice. In England they make soup from rhubarb.
Along the banks of rivers, swamps and lakes in the water you can find dense thickets of cattails (Typha angustifolia). Its black-brown inflorescences, resembling a ramrod on long, almost leafless stems, cannot be confused with anything else. The fleshy rhizomes containing starch, proteins and sugar are usually used for food. They can be boiled or baked. Pancakes, flat cakes, and porridge are baked from cattail roots dried and ground into flour. To make flour, the rhizomes are cut into small slices, dried in the sun until they break apart with a dry crack, after which they can be ground. Young spring shoots, rich in starch and sugar, are eaten raw, boiled or fried. When boiled, cattail shoots taste very much like asparagus. The yellow-brown flower pollen, mixed with water to form a paste, can be used to bake small loaves of bread.
One of the most beautiful plants forests - white water lily (Nymphaea candida). It grows in quiet bodies of water, standing and slowly flowing waters. The leaves of the water lily are large, their upper side is green, the lower side is purple. Its highly developed rhizome is eaten boiled or baked. The roots are also suitable for making flour. In this case, they are cleaned, divided into narrow strips, cut into centimeter-long pieces and dried in the sun, and then pounded on stones. To remove tannins from the resulting flour, it is filled with water for four to five hours, draining the water several times and replacing it with fresh water. After which the flour is scattered in a thin layer on paper or cloth and dried.
Water chestnut chilim
Another inhabitant of water bodies, the chilim, or water chestnut (Tgara natans), is also edible. It is an aquatic plant with large greenish leaves, very similar to currant leaves. Long thin stems stretch from the leaves to the very bottom. If you lift them, then under the leaves on the stem you can see small blackish boxes with five spines. Chilim is similar in size and taste to chestnuts. The local population sometimes collects it in bags in the fall. In some countries, water chestnut (Tgara bicornis) is widely cultivated. Chilim can be eaten raw, boiled in salted water, baked in ashes like potatoes, or made into soup. Bread is baked from nuts ground into flour. Boiled fruits of this plant are sold everywhere in China.
The bog grass has long been called the bog grass (Calla palustris). This conspicuous inhabitant of swamps is short and, being a relative of exotic callas, has many similarities with them. “The leaves are on long petioles - flush with the stem. Each plate is wide, pointed, with a contour like a heart, sparkling with lacquered greenery... But first of all, this plant stands out for its cob, in which it collects small flowers. Stearic suppository Such cobs turn white among thickets of marsh grasses. The whitewing cob rises one and a half, or even three centimeters, putting forward the cover - the covering leaf. This leaf is fleshy, pointed, snow-white on the inside and green on the outside,” this is the description given by A.N. Strizhev and L.V. Garibova. All parts of the plant and especially the rhizome are poisonous. Therefore, before eating, the calliper root is cut into small slices, dried, ground, and the resulting flour is boiled. Then the water is drained and the grounds are dried again. After this treatment, the flour from the root of the calliper loses its bitterness and toxic properties and can be used for baking bread. Bread made from white butterfly flour is rich and tasty.
Susak - wild bread
Along the banks of rivers and lakes, in swampy meadows, susak, nicknamed wild bread, grows. An adult plant is large - up to one and a half meters in height, and usually lives in water. On its straight, erect stem, umbrellas of white, pink or green flowers stick out in all directions. There are no leaves on the stem, and that is why the flowers are especially noticeable. The triangular leaves of susak are very narrow, long, and straight. They are collected in a bunch and rise from the very base of the stem. The thick, fleshy rhizomes are edible. After peeling, they are baked, fried or boiled like potatoes. Flour obtained from the dried rhizome is suitable for baking bread. Rhizomes contain not only starch, but quite a lot of protein and even some fat. So nutritionally it is even better than regular bread.