04/27/2021
Eat the opportunists!!!!
Eat the Weeds💚 I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I love this plant! Do you know it? It’s perhaps one of the most maligned plants I know of, Japanese Knotweed. If you live anywhere in the northeast chances are you’ve driven or walked by this plant sooooo many times. Originally native to Asia, its now made a home here in North America. The roots are powerful medicine- antimicrobial, antiviral, and resveratrol rich- often used for Lyme Disease, especially when it goes to the joints. And the shoots are a spring edible- also full of the potent antioxidant resveratrol- and are so versatile and can be eaten in a huge variety of ways. They can be eaten raw, pickled, stewed with strawberries or fruit as a rhubarb substitute, cooked like asparagus for a more savory take on their flavor, put into stir-fries, wild greens sautés, and they’re a traditional spring vegetable in Japan. My favorite way to cook them is lightly sautéed/steamed with garlic and olive oil for just a few minutes and then drizzled with salt, olive oil, and fresh-squeezed lemon.
The best description I’ve heard of their taste is that they “taste like rain” 💦 They’re mildy sour (more so when they’re raw) with a light asparagus-y taste. If you cook them for more than few minutes they get soft and mucilaginous, which can nice in certain dishes, but only cook them lightly if you want a more firm consistency. The best time to harvest is while they’re young (late April/early May here in MA) and be forewarned- they grow FAST! Like, inches a day. I tend to remove the older leaves for cooking but I leave the tender leaves at the tips of the shoots. They’ve started popping-up on menus at fancy restaurants which makes me happy bc it’s such a better option for wild food foodies instead of Ramps, which are a threatened woodland herb. I know many folks hate this plant, but I wish we could get past the binary thinking that the label of a plant as “invasive” equates with no value! I think this is a great plant to work with to start unraveling that limiting belief💚
