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So. Here is a dead burdock plant (Arctium lappa). You can’t dig the roots on this one. If you walk too close the burrs stick to you and getting them off can be a pain.

But is there more here than meets the eye?

In fact there is (but you probably knew I’d say that!)

Inside the burrs are the burdock seeds. This is why the burdocks stick to anything that walks by: to spread its seed around. You’ll likely pick off those burrs sometime later, deposit the seeds there and voila, the plant has traveled. Those seeds will take root and a new burdock plant will grow.

And the seeds themselves? Useful, of course! In Chinese medicine the seeds are known as Niu Bang Zi and are boiled into a tea. They treat constipation and also help bring out a rash if someone is coming down with something like measles or mumps. This progresses the disease along to help speed healing.

One trick to making burdock seed tea: use the whole burr. Don’t open the burr to get the seeds out unless you are wearing protective eye wear like goggles. Don’t get me wrong: the burr opens very easily, but those velcro-like outer burrs break off and float through the air…I know from experience this winds up in a trip to the ER (or a very nice/patient eye doctor who will see you in her/his office at any hour.) It isn’t worth it. Just bundle the burrs up in a cloth tea bag and boil the whole thing in water for 20 - 30 minutes.

So just because a plant looks/is dead doesn’t mean there isn’t a whole lot going on!

Happy Foraging - even in winter!

~ Melissa Sokulski, Food Under Foot

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Today I harvested garlic mustard for the spicy white roots to make a horseradish-like condiment.

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is an invasive plant, brought to America in the 1860’s as a culinary herb. It spreads like wildfire and often will displace native mustards and cresses. Many parks hold days where people can come volunteer to pull out garlic mustard so it doesn’t take over other native plants. This is one weed no one will mind you pulling!

Now is a great time to use garlic mustard: the leaves are tasty and not too bitter, as the weather warms the leaves get more bitter and lose their spicy garlic mustard flavor.

To make the condiment, harvest the entire plant, and wash the roots well. The roots are white and have a horseradish-like smell. They will taste spicy.

I chopped the roots:

I blended the roots in a food processor with a bit of salt, a couple teaspoons of water and about 1 tsp apple cider vinegar and blended until it looked like horseradish: (It stung my eyes! Pretty spicy…)

Here it is, in a jar:

According to Chinese Medicine, the spicy or pungent taste of horseradish and garlic mustard enters the Lung meridian, and is known to clear the sinuses and help the body get rid of respiratory infections. (For more on Traditional Chinese Medicine and health, visit our sister website Birch Center for Health.)

Here in Pittsburgh, wild edibles are just emerging from the ground. Today we also found nettles! What is popping up where you live? We’d love to hear from you!

Thanks!
Melissa Sokulski, acupuncturist, herbalist
Food Under Foot

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As promised in the previous post, here is how I made my own burdock root tincture.

Look for a first year burdock plant. This time of year it will still be green, large leaves in a basal rosette on the ground. You’ll likely find them next to the dead second year plants, which are brown and covered with burrs.

Below you’ll find one of the burdock roots we were able to get from the ground. Burdock has a long thick tap root, it’s nearly impossible to get the whole thing out, but do as best as you can.

After I washed all the dirt off, I peeled and chopped the root, below:

I put some of the chopped roots on drying racks to dry (I actually used my dehydrator, but you can air dry them as well, in a dark, airy place), and the rest I put into a glass jar and covered with 100 proof vodka, to tincture:

I could have covered it and put it away for six weeks, but instead I made use of my Vitamix (a high speed blender), and blended it all together. This way, I’ll be able to use the tincture faster:

I labeled it with the date, what was inside (Burdock Root) and what the solvent was (100 proof vodka). Two weeks later I poured off some of it, filtering it through a paint straining bag purchased at Home Depot (2 bags for $3). You can also use cheese cloth or other cotton cloth napkin to filter. You save the liquid (that is your tincture) and compost the plant matter. I poured off enough to fill a 2 oz dropper bottle, the rest is still in the jar in a dark cabinet.

Let us know what you do with Burdock. I’ll soon post a pictorial of how I made the delicious fermented vegetables with cabbage and burdock root. Now is a great time of year to harvest the burdock root. If you’re unsure how to identify it or what to do with it, make sure you sign up for our 5 free ebooks (the green box in the margin to your right.) The first book is on Burdock, so you’ll receive a ton of information right away after signing up.

Have fun, stay safe!
~ Melissa Sokulski, L.Ac.
Food Under Foot

Also please visit our sister blog, full of information on general health and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

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Autumn is an excellent time of year to harvest burdock root.

If you haven’t received our eBook all about Burdock, including how to identify and harvest burdock, and recipes and projects using burdock, please sign up for our free newsletter on the right margin.

Aside from being an excellent vegetable (called Gobo in Japan), burdock root is used medicinally to cleanse the blood.

Some reasons that blood may need to be “cleansed” include:

• parasites
• toxins from cigarette smoke or pollution
• toxins from alcohol or junk food
• bacteria or viruses, including chronic viruses from things such as Lyme’s disease
• heavy metal exposure, like mercury, lead, or arsenic

This time of year you’ll find burdock, a biennial plant, in both phases: one being the brown dead plant covered with burrs that stick to your clothes (do not harvest these roots, they are dead - pictured below), and a plant with a rosette of green leaves, still close to the ground, with no flower or seed stalk. This is the first year plant, and it is from this plant you want to harvest the roots (shown above).

We harvested some burdock root the other day, and prepared it three ways:

• dried for use as a tea


Sliced Burdock Root Drying on a Dehydrator Tray

• tinctured in alcohol


Sliced Burdock Root Steeping in 100 Proof Vodka, Before Blending

• fermented with cabbage in cultured vegetables (also known as sauerkraut.)


Shredded Burdock Root, Cabbage, and Seaweed Fermenting on the Counter

Over the next few days, I’ll post step-by-step pictorials of how I made the above remedies. The sauerkraut is absolutely delicious! The recipe is in our free e-book, so please sign up (green box to the right) if you haven’t yet!

Happy Harvesting!

~ Melissa

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Another edible mushroom we found on our hike with the Western Pa Mushroom Club was a bolete called Old Man of the Woods.

Boletes are mushrooms that grow up from the ground, and the underside has pores instead of gills. The Old Man of the Woods has characteristic black bumps along the top and stalk and has white to gray pores underneath. When bruised or cut, the mushroom eventually turns black. (Beware of boletes which bruise blue quickly, these are often poisonous.)

This mushroom was positively identified for us by members of the club, and we carefully wrapped it in wax paper and placed it in our bag with our other edible mushrooms (the chanterelles).

We’d heard the Old Man is a tasty mushroom, as long as you don’t mind it turning everything black as it cooks. In the books, though, we found it was “edible” but not worth eating. We decided to try it.

We sliced the Old Man when we got home

and sauteed it in olive oil, red onions and salt.

It did turn black. It is a meaty mushroom, though had a bit of slimy-ness to it. All in all, it was very good, reminiscent of portebellos.

A couple good mushroom guide books are National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (National Audubon Society Field Guides), and Mushrooms Demystified
), which is especially good for those on the west coast.

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
by Michael Pollan has a wonderful chapter about mushrooms in it as well, be sure to check that out.

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Let’s continue our summer wild edibles walk.

Here’s another of my favorite herbs to find: Mullein. The flowering plant is the second year (mullein is a two year plant, like Burdock.)

We collect and dry the fuzzy soft mullein leaves, the tea from which is excellent for the lungs. Those beautiful yellow flowers can be steeped in olive oil for an excellent ear oil to use in cases of ear aches (safe on animals, as well.) We often mix mullein oil with garlic oil to use as drops in the ear.

Here is the beautiful Milkweed in bloom:

Monarch butterfly chrysalises can be found on milkweed plants. Some people find the catepillar eggs early in the season and collect the leaves of the plant, feeding the catepillars throughout the year (milkweed leaves, of course) and will hatch a monarch butterfly to release in the summer!

The flowers smell like lilacs. Some people steam the flowers to eat.

Finally we have the very delicious black raspberries, whose season is nearly done here in Pittsburgh.

In this picture I am demonstrating that the underside of the raspberry leaves are white, as opposed to blackberries, (which will ripen later), which are green underneathe.

Of course, you’ll also still find dandelions blooming, chicory flowering, burdock and thistles in purple bloom…it’s just gorgeous out there. I’ll post more pictures and let you know what we’re up to!

We’d love to hear what you’ve been doing as well! Any new finds, recipes, tinctures, or oils? Please let us know!!

Thanks!
~ Melissa

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I just love watching what happens to the plants around me as the seasons change!

Here in Pittsburgh, it is getting HOT, summer is here.

With it bring a whole new crop of wild edibles, herbal remedies, and poisonous plants to watch:

Here is the St. John’s Wort, (Hypericum perforatum) now if full bloom. In the picture I am demonstrating that if you crush a bud in your fingers, you get a dark red pigment, which is the Hypericin - one of the active ingredients in St. John’s Wort.

Now is the time to harvest St. John’s Wort to make oils or tinctures. The oil is great to soothe sore muscles, ease jangled nerves, and treat sunburns. The tincture of St. John’s wort is used as an anti-viral, and also an anti-depressant. In fact, in European countries like Germany, St. John’s wort is used to treat depression more commonly than the prescribed medications like Prosac, which are used more in this country.

Here is Queen Anne’s Lace, or Wild Carrot:

Even though the greens of carrots are full of nutrition, and the root of this plant has a distinctly carrot-like smell, we do not eat this plant at all! That is because it so closely resembles the deadly poisonous Water Hemlock and Poison Hemlock, that we do not feel it is worth the risk of making a mistake. We tell everyone who comes on our walks that it is our policy NOT TO EAT wild carrot, and we strongly suggest they do the same.

Here is a poison plant: Pokeweed. It’s berries are not fully ripe yet, they will get dark purple/black when ripe. Pokeweed is eaten (mostly down south) when it is just shooting from the ground in early spring. Now it is TOXIC, and the berries are highly poisonous. It is used, however, as a dye:

Here is one of our favorites, yummy plantain (Plantago major). We love to use the green leaves of this plant in smoothies, chopped in salads, and marinated and dehydrated into yummy crisps. Here you see the stalks. In the fall (once they turn brown) we will collect the seeds of plantain and use them just like psyllium seeds (which is from another Plantago: Plantago psyllium and Plantago ovata, both of which grown in the middle east.)

We’ll use these seeds just as we would use psyllium seeds: as a thickener for puddings and sauces, and also added to oatmeals and breads. In Chinese medicine, the seeds are used to treat urinary tract infections.

We’ll have more on our virtual summer wild edible walk tomorrow…please stay tuned!!

~ Melissa

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One wild edible plant you’ll find in bloom this time of year along city roadsides, fields and waste areas is beautiful, sky-blue chicory (Cichorium intybus). Not only is chicory edible, but it has a long tradition of medicinal use, especially to detoxify the liver.

If you pay attention, you’ll notice that chicory flowers open and close precisely the same time every day.

Chicory is similar to dandelion in many ways. For one thing, the leaves look very similar, and another, they are both especially good for the liver. Another similarity is that chicory leaves can be eaten in early spring, but get quite bitter once the plant flowers. The roots can be dug, dried and roasted to use as a coffee substitute, and in fact is commonly used in that respect in commercial teas and coffee substitutes.

The roots can also be dug and planted in a dark cellar, and the plant will grow small pale leaf heads: we know this vegetable as Belgian endive; it is the same species as roadside chicory (Cichorium intybus.)

Chicory root is used medicinally as a decoction (strong tea) or tincture (steeped in alcohol) and used to clear the liver. Eating the chicory leaves or Belgium endive is used to treat Liver fire: bursting headache, thirst, congested face and fever.

Chicory is used to treat all kinds of liver ailments, including jaundice, gall stones (and urinary stones), moodiness, depression, constipation, indigestion, headache and right side pain under the ribs.

The milky sap of the chicory is used similarly to dandelion: to promote lactation in breastfeeding women.

Chicory in bloom is an erect, branched plant, with alternate leaves and sky-blue (or sometimes pink or white) flowers.

The root can be harvested in the fall, when the plant stops flowering.

Let us know if you have chicory blooming near you…and other uses you have for it!

Thanks,
~ Melissa
Food Under Foot