Many herbaceous plants are edible. Most of them contain almost all the substances a person needs. The richest plant foods are carbohydrates, organic acids, vitamins and mineral salts. Leaves, shoots, stems of plants, as well as their rhizomes, tubers and bulbs are eaten. Underground parts of plants, being natural repositories nutrients, are very rich in starch and have the highest nutritional value. Plants with edible leaves and shoots are widespread. Their main advantage is 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 are able to partially restore the expended energy, support vitality organism, stimulate the cardiovascular, digestive and nervous systems.
One of the most common plants in the forest is stinging nettle (Urtica dioica). Its stems are straight, tetrahedral, unbranched, up to one and a half meters high. Leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate, with large teeth at the edges. The whole plant is covered with stinging hairs. Nettle grows in shady moist forests, in clearings, burnt-out areas, along ravines and coastal bushes. For their great nutritional value, nettle is sometimes called "vegetable meat". Its leaves contain a large amount of vitamin C, carotene, vitamins B and K, and various organic acids. Nettle has long been used as a food plant. Very tasty green cabbage soup is prepared from its young leaves. Scalded with boiling water, nettles go to salads. Young, not coarse stems are chopped, salted and fermented, like cabbage. Inflorescences are brewed instead of tea. Nettle also possesses 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. Outwardly, fresh leaves or powder from dried leaves are used to treat festering wounds.
Dandelion (Taraxácum officinále) is also common in forest flora.- a perennial plant with a height of 5 to 50 centimeters with a thick vertical almost unbranched root; collected in a basal rosette, oblong, pinnate toothed leaves and bright yellow flower baskets. The dandelion settles on weakly soddy soils - in the floodplains of rivers, along roadside ditches, on the slopes. It is often found in forest glades and forest edges, along the sides of forest roads. Dandelion can be quite attributed to vegetable crops(in Western Europe, it is grown in vegetable gardens). The plant is rich in protein, sugars, calcium, phosphorus and iron compounds. All parts of it contain a very bitter milky juice. Fresh young leaves are used for making salads. Bitterness is easily eliminated if the leaves are kept in salt water for half an hour or boiled. Peeled, washed and boiled roots make food as a second course. The boiled roots can be dried, ground, and added to tortilla flour. Ground dandelion root can replace tea. The dug out and cleaned rhizome of the plant is first dried until the milky juice ceases to stand out 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 spring, its pale spore-bearing stems appear from the ground, similar to densely spaced arrows with brown tips, and a month later they are replaced by green “fir-trees” that do not wither until autumn. This strange ancient plant is edible. Young spring spore-bearing shoots are used for food - they are used for preparing salad, making soup or eaten raw. You can also eat earthen nuts - nodules growing on the rhizomes of horsetail - they are rich in starch, taste sweet and are edible raw, baked or boiled. Horsetail (herringbone) herb is rich in valuable medicinal substances and has long been used in medicine. Possessing hemostatic and disinfecting properties, the infusion (20 grams of horsetail per glass of boiling water), powder or juice of fresh grass is used to treat festering and cut wounds. Horsetail infusion gargle with sore throat and gum disease. All of the above applies only to the horsetail; other horsetails contain alkaloids.
Burdock
Among the many herbs in the forest, there is nothing more common than burdock (Arctium tomentosum). In the hollows and ditches, in the forest, on the bushy slopes to the river - everywhere you can find this green whopper, sometimes exceeding human growth. The trunk is sinewy, fleshy with a red tint. The leaves are dark green arshin length as if covered with felt on the seamy side. In Siberia, burdock has long been considered a vegetable plant. In spring, young tasty leaves are boiled in soups and broths. But the main thing in burdock is a long, powerful root vegetable that can replace carrots, parsley, and parsnips. Fleshy burdock roots can be eaten raw, as well as boiled, baked, fried, used in soups instead of potatoes, and made into cutlets. V field 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, along the banks of rivers and in thickets of bushes, primrose stalks (Primula veris) appear, similar to bundles of golden keys. It is a perennial plant with a straight flower arrow and large woolly, whitish, wrinkled leaves. The bright yellow corollas of flowers with five teeth are fragrant with honey. Primrose in some countries is bred as salad greens... Its leaves are a storehouse of ascorbic acid. It is enough to eat one leaf of primrose to fill the daily requirement for vitamin C. In early spring the fresh leaves and flower arrows of this plant are an excellent filling for vitamin salad. Soothing and diaphoretic teas are made from primrose leaves and flowers.
One of the first spring herbs is oxalis acetosella. This unpretentious forest plant is unsightly and inconspicuous. The sour cherry has no stems. Fleshy, light green, heart-shaped leaves extend immediately from the roots. Dense thickets of this herb can often be found under the trunks of firs. It grows everywhere in shady and humid forests. Oxalic leaves contain oxalic acid and vitamin C. Along with sorrel, it is used for dressing cabbage soup and soups. Sour juice refreshes well, therefore, an acidic drink is prepared from crushed sour liquor, which perfectly quenches thirst. Sour can be added to a salad, brewed as tea, or eaten fresh. Applied to purulent wounds, boils and abscesses, crushed acid leaves or their juice have a wound healing and antiseptic effect.
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At the end of spring, in the forest glades, among the grass stands, it is easy to find a straight stalk with a tassel of spotted flowers and oblong (like a tulip's) leaves, also covered with spots. This is the orchis. From the Latin name it is clear that this plant is an orchid. Indeed, the first thing that catches your eye is a purple flower - an exact reduced copy of a tropical orchid. In addition to its beauty, the 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 medicinal substances. Kissels and soups, cooked from orchis rhizomes, perfectly restore strength, save from exhaustion. 40 grams of crushed tubers powder contains the daily requirement of nutrients that a person needs. Orchis tubers, which have enveloping properties, are used for indigestion, dysentery and poisoning.
On wet edges, lowland and watershed meadows, grassy bogs, swampy shores of water bodies, the snake mountaineer (Polygonum bistorta) grows - a perennial herb with a high, up to a meter, stem; large basal leaves as long as a palm, but much narrower and sharper. Top leaves small, linear, wavy-notched, grayish below. The flowers are pink, collected in a spikelet. The snake mountaineer is edible. Young shoots and leaves are mainly used for food, which, after removing the middle veins, can be boiled or eaten fresh or dried. The aerial part of the plant contains a fair amount of vitamin C. The rhizome of the plant is thick, sinuous, resembling a crayfish neck, and is also edible. It contains a lot of starch, carotene, vitamin C, organic acids. However, due to the large amount of tannins, the rhizomes must be soaked. Then they are dried, pounded and added to flour when baking bread and tortillas. Knotweed root is used as a powerful astringent for acute intestinal disorders. Outwardly, decoctions and tinctures are used to treat old wounds, boils and ulcers.
The very first newcomer to the forest fires was the fireweed (Chamaenerion angustifolium). It lives on forest edges, in tall-grass meadows, clearings and slopes. This is a plant with a smooth, tall, ankle stem, on which successive leaves, dissected by a mesh of veins, sit. Fireweed blooms all summer - from a distance its purple-red or purple flowers, collected in long brushes, are striking. The leaves and roots of fireweed contain a large amount of protein substances, carbohydrates, sugars, organic acids. Almost all parts of the plant can be used for food. So, young leaves taste no worse than salad. Leaves and unblown flower buds are brewed like tea. Fireweed roots can be eaten raw or cooked like asparagus or cabbage. Dried rhizome flour is suitable for baking flat cakes, pancakes and 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, roadsides and wastelands. This plant, which has long been introduced into culture and moved to 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 in height. Leaves grow from a lush root rosette. Just three weeks after the ground thaws, the sorrel leaves are ready to harvest. In addition to oxalic acid, the leaves contain a lot of protein, iron, ascorbic acid. Sorrel is used to make soup, sour cabbage soup, salads, or eaten raw. Decoction of seeds and roots helps with indigestion and dysentery.
Another edible herb - runny (Aegopodium podagraria) - is often found in a moist shaded forest, along ravines and ravines, and damp stream banks. This is one of the very first spring grasses that appears in the forest at the same time as the shoots of nettles. Runny from the umbrella family - the inflorescences are fixed on thin knitting needles, which diverge in rays in radial directions. At the top of the plant is the largest fist-sized umbrella. In those places where there is little light, the runny 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 cabbage soup cooked from dream is not inferior to cabbage. Young, unfolded leaves and petioles are harvested. Go to food and stems from which the skin is pre-cut. Petioles and stems put in a salad will give it a spicy taste. Wild greens of dream as a very nutritious and vitamin product was widely used by Moscow canteens in the spring of 1942 and 1943. Dozens of people went to the forests near Moscow to harvest this grass. In those difficult years, she also helped her sleep in winter - she was chopped and salted in advance, like cabbage. Dream soup is prepared as follows: chopped and fried petioles of dream leaves, onions, finely chopped meat are placed in a pot, poured meat broth and put on fire. Chopped leaves of dream is added to the barely boiled broth and boiled for another thirty minutes, and fifteen minutes before the end of cooking, add salt, pepper, bay leaf.
One of the few forest plants in which both leaves and stems and rhizomes are suitable for food is hogweed. Among our herbs, there is hardly another such giant. Powerful ribbed, covered with bristles, the trunk of this plant sometimes reaches two meters in height. The trifoliate leaves of hogweed are also unusually large, coarse, woolly, dissected into large lobes. No wonder the popular name for hogweed is "bear paw". This is a common inhabitant of forest edges, forest meadows, wastelands, roadsides. Its peeled stems have a sweet, pleasant taste, somewhat reminiscent of that of a cucumber. They can be eaten raw, boiled, or fried in oil. In spring, the hogweed is tender, and its young leaves with a taste of carrots are also edible. All types of hogweed contain essential oils and therefore smell sharply. The cow parsnip greens are usually first scalded in order to reduce the pungent smell, and then put in the borscht or put to stew. The hogweed broth resembles chicken broth. The sweetish rhizome of the plant, containing up to 10% sugar, is not inferior in calorie content and taste to garden vegetables and corn. Some hogweed juice 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 vast areas are covered with luxurious bracken ferns (Pteridium aquilinum). Its thick brown rhizome is overgrown with filamentous roots; large pinnately complex leathery leaves emerge from the top of the rhizome. The bracken differs from other ferns in that the bags with spores are placed under the wrapped edges of the leaves. As a food product, bracken is widely used in Siberia and in Far East... Its young shoots and leaves are boiled in a large amount of salt water and washed thoroughly to remove all scales from the leaves. Bracken soup tastes like mushroom soup.
Another inhabitant of the forest, migrated and cultivated in vegetable gardens, is rhubarb (Rheum). In rhubarb, from the underground shoot (rhizomes), long-petiolate leaves with more or less wavy plates are collected in a rosette. It grows on forest edges, along streams and rivers, on the slopes of hills. They use fleshy leafy cuttings for food, which, having peeled off the skin, can be eaten raw, boiled or prepared from them to compote, fruit drink. In England, rhubarb is used as a soup.
On the banks of rivers, marshes and lakes in the water you can find dense thickets of cattail (Typha angustifolia). Its black-brown inflorescences, reminiscent of a ramrod on long, almost leafless stems, cannot be confused with anything. The food is usually fleshy rhizomes containing starch, proteins and sugar. They can be cooked or baked. Pancakes, flat cakes, porridge are baked from dried and ground cattail roots. To prepare flour, the rhizomes are cut into small slices, dried in the sun until they break with a dry crack, after which they can be ground. Rich in starch and sugar, young spring shoots are eaten raw, boiled, or fried. When cooked, cattail shoots taste very much like asparagus. The yellow-brown pollen of flowers, mixed with water to a mushy state, can be used to bake small loaves.
One of the most beautiful plants in the forest is the white water lily (Nymphaea candida). It grows in quiet waters, on stagnant and slowly flowing waters. The leaves of the water lily are large, their upper side is green, the lower one is purple. Its highly developed rhizome is eaten boiled or baked. The roots are also good 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 poured with water for four to five hours, draining the water several times and replacing it with fresh. Then the flour is sprinkled thin layer on paper or cloth and dry.
Chillim water walnut
Another inhabitant of water bodies is also edible - chilim, or water nut (Tgara natans). This aquatic plant with large greenish leaves, very similar to currant. Long thin stems stretch from the leaves to the very bottom. If you raise them, then under the leaves on the stem you can see small blackish boxes with five thorns. Chillim is similar in size and flavor to chestnuts. The local population sometimes picks it up in sacks in the fall. In some countries, water walnut (Tgara bicornis) is widely cultivated. Chilim can be eaten raw, boiled in salted water, baked in ash, like potatoes, and made into soup. Bread is baked from walnuts ground into flour. The boiled fruits of this plant are sold everywhere in China.
The marsh breadbasket has long been called the calla palustris. This conspicuous inhabitant of the swamps is low and, being a relative of exotic calla lilies, has many similarities with them. “Leaves on long stalks - flush with the stem. Each plate is wide, pointed, with a contour like a heart, sparkles with lacquered green ... But first of all, this plant stands out with an ear in which small flowers. Stearin candle such cobs turn white among thickets of marsh grasses. One and a half, or even three centimeters, the ear of calla rises, exposing the coverlet - the covering leaf in front of it. This leaf is fleshy, pointed, snow-white on the inside, and green on the outside, ”- such a description of calla is given by A.N. Strizhev and L.V. Garibova. All parts of the plant and especially the rhizome are poisonous. Therefore, before eating, the calla root is cut into small slices, dried, ground, and the resulting flour is boiled. Then the water is drained, and the thick is dried again. After this treatment, calla root flour loses bitterness and poisonous properties and may well be used for baking bread. White calla bread is fluffy and delicious.
Susak - wild bread
Along the banks of rivers and lakes, in swampy meadows, there grows a susak, called wild bread. An adult plant is large - up to one and a half meters in height, usually lives in water. On its straight, standing stem, umbrellas of white-pink or green flowers stick out in all directions. There are no leaves on the stem, and therefore the flowers are especially noticeable. The triangular leaves of the susak are very narrow, long, straight. They are collected in a bunch and rise from the very base of the stem. Thick, fleshy rhizomes are edible. Peeled, they are baked, fried or boiled like potatoes. The 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 it's even better nutritionally than regular bread.
Since ancient times, people have tried to supplement their menu with healthy plant foods. Today we have all the possibilities for eating greens during all year round, however, plants growing in greenhouse conditions are worse in their useful properties than those of soil origin.
And today people have the opportunity to take advantage of the experience of ancient ancestors - to include wild edible herbs in their daily diet.
The information presented in the article will help you understand plants, distinguish edible herbs (photos and names below) and plants among their huge set, and get to know them undoubtedly useful properties.
general information
Spring vitamin greens are always good for any meal. It contributes to the healing of the body, adds vigor and strength. Therefore, many housewives do not refuse to use wild-growing edible herbs.
Below are some of the most common and most famous photos edible herbs and their descriptions.
There is a special day in the folk calendar called Mavra - May 16 of the new style. On this day, in the old days, a dish appeared on the tables of the peasants (and the lords'), which was prepared from fresh greens of forest and meadow grasses. And it was very appetizing.
And in the old Russian "Izbornik Svyatoslav" (a monument to writing of the XI century) it says: "In a vegetable, the strength is great." This means not only garden greens (at that time there were few of them), but also greens growing in the wild.
Edible wild plants and herbs in to a greater extent useful. Below will be presented some types of "pasture", which have a large variety of vitamins, minerals and other useful substances.
Nettle
You can often find this edible herb in the garden. This plant is known to everyone, because it settles everywhere. Nettle is one of the first to appear in the spring after warming up the soil.
This plant loves fertilized (manured) lands.
Only the freshest spring nettle greens should be collected for consumption. It is used for cooking borscht, cabbage soup and making fillings for pies. Older leaves can be salted for future use, like cabbage.
With an acute shortage of food, Russian peasants even added dry ground greens to flour for baking bread, and sprinkled seeds with potatoes and cereals.
In the richest pantry of nature, there are not very many edible wild-growing herbs that have such a value as that of nettles. Thirty grams of its greens provide a person with vitamin C and carotene for a whole day.
Nettle is good for both humans and pets. Nettle leaves are also used for other purposes - they are excellent raw materials for the production of green paint. Harvesting is usually done during the flowering of the plant.
Dandelion
When asked what herb is edible, the first thing that comes to mind is dandelion.
The young leaves of this plant are good. They should be torn before the flowers bloom (early May). The plant completely replaces spinach in salads. The only drawback is bitterness, which is fought off in two ways: bleaching or scalding. To whiten, the dandelion should be completely covered from the sun with straw or planks. Scalding - the collected leaves are bathed in boiling water twice.
The leaves of the plant are very rich in useful microelements. It is recommended to use them in food with depletion of the body and with anemia. Dandelion buds can be pickled. This is a great and sophisticated seasoning for meat dishes completely replacing capers.
Wild onion (wild garlic)
Some edible herbs found in nature are similar in appearance and taste to those grown in the garden by humans. For example, the onion, familiar to us, has been used as a medicinal plant for a long time.
Many of its varieties that grow in nature are not inferior in their properties to ordinary garden onions, and in terms of healing, they even surpass it. It has been scientifically proven that wild onions contain peculiar essential oils that have a good phytoncidal effect, and a large amount of vitamins.
Most the best way eating - fresh in salads and just with salt. Inappropriate overcooking reduces or negates the value of the plant. Onions are good both in minced dumplings and as a seasoning for dishes.
Wild garlic appears in the forest at the end of April with the first rays of the spring sun. It contains about 15 times more vitamin C than oranges and lemon. Wild onions also contain saponins, organic acids. Even a combination of only two therapeutic factors- phytoncides and vitamins, puts wild garlic in the first row of the best healing and food products nature.
When collecting wild garlic, you need to carefully cut off the stems with a knife, without damaging the rhizomes for their further reproduction. Harvested crop they also ferment. For this, the best specimens are selected, rinsed in cold water and chopped with a knife. Then the whole mass is well salted and placed in a wooden barrel under oppression, just like when fermenting cabbage. After a short time or immediately after fermentation, the product is used in salads, served as a side dish for meat and potato dishes.
Lungwort
In the list of "Edible herbs of Russia" among the first, you can deservedly include lungwort. This plant appears immediately after the snow melts among last year's forest foliage. Juicy young shoots are used for food.
It grows in mixed, sparse coniferous and deciduous forests. Also found in mountain meadows and river floodplains. The area of their distribution is European part Russia, the Urals and Siberia.
Medunitsa is one of the most famous and beloved edible plants among the people. Young flower stems are eaten fresh, and crushed leaves and stems are put in spring soups and salads.
The lungwort contains a large amount of manganese, potassium, iron and other elements. There are also carotene, rutin, ascorbic acid, as well as mucous and tannins. Medunitsa - the most valuable medicinal plant, known in Russia for a long time.
Horsetail
Even horsetail is an edible herb and plant. Probably everyone knows him in appearance. It is suitable for food in spring, when young shoots bearing spores stick out like arrows in wet meadows with sandy and clayey soil.
Its shoots are used in the preparation of casseroles, pies (filling). You can eat them both raw and boiled. Long ago, horsetail was always held in high esteem on the peasant table. It should be noted that the tubers on the rhizomes of this plant (ground nuts) are also edible. They are used both boiled and baked.
Asparagus
In spring, during the flowering of bird cherry on sandy slopes and hills, well-lit by the sun, large and juicy sprouts of white-green asparagus appear. This is another great plant that is rich in vitamins and has many other health benefits. This plant was introduced into culture by the ancient Romans, who already at that time were able to appreciate its quality.
In Russia, asparagus grows wild in meadows among bushes in the European part, in the Caucasus and in Western Siberia... Adult asparagus is represented by broom-like twigs (like a Christmas tree) with red round berries. They are often used to decorate flower bouquets. Young shoots are thick shoots with triangular scales, whitish at first, and then darken to brownish-greenish shades. They also come with a shade of purple. Young shoots are taken for food cooked, using both as a side dish and as a main dish.
Hogweed
Some of the names of edible herbs are heard by many people because they have been eaten raw for a long time. These include cow parsnip, from which peeled stems are eaten. They have a pleasant, sweetish taste.
Over the summer, this plant grows to such an enormous size that a standing person can easily hide behind them. Its stems are tubular, slightly woolly. In spring, hogweed has tender stems and leaves, and both are edible on it. This grass loves wet meadows.
To reduce the pungent smell of herbs, you must first scald it and only then add it to the dishes. Hogweed can also be pickled, but after scalding with boiling water. Peeled stems are good for roasts with flour and butter, and for pickling. The hogweed is very popular among lovers of nutritious greens.
Kislitsa
It is impossible not to add sour sour into the list of edible herbs. At the very beginning of spring (early May), a low grass appears with light green trifoliate leaves and flowers white... It is too small to collect it, but those who try it will be remembered for a long time.
It is good in fresh salad and as a dressing for cabbage soup. You can eat it just like that, until the teeth are sore. It tastes like lemon, but softer and more pleasant. Lovers of hiking and romantic travel make tea with her, which perfectly quenches their thirst.
It should be noted that the oxalis, hibernating under the snow, retains its leaves until spring, which people tear in the spring.
Quinoa
A well-known spinach plant is quinoa, which is a weed in the garden.
Its triangular thin leaves are very rich in carotene. Even a few pinches of these greens perfectly fill the body's daily need for this important provitamin.
White quinoa leaves are added to salads, soups and cabbage soup, and ripe plant seeds are an aid to bread.
Caraway
There are also such edible plants in the rich pantry of nature, with which almost everyone is familiar. For example, cumin (or anise) growing in meadows, glades and along roads. First, this plant has leaves that look like carrots, then a stalk (suitable for seasoning in salads), and then flowers, collected in umbrellas.
Fruiting occurs in August, and then you can collect seeds for flavoring pickles and pickles, and for flavoring bread products. Young greens can be dried in the shade in the air, and then closed in jars for the winter.
Sorrel
In green meadows, you can often find sour sorrel, which is also grown in gardens.
Fresh leaves are very good for cabbage soup and other soups. You can also use them in the preparation of sauces. This plant well compensates for the lack of spinach, which is rarely bred in the garden. Young arrows are especially tasty with sorrel.
The plant contains in large quantities proteins, sugars and minerals. The characteristic pleasant flavor of the wild vegetable is given by the oxalic acid salt contained in the delicate stem and leaves.
Sorrel has a short harvesting period, so it is immediately picked up in large quantities and salted like cabbage in a tub, after cleaning and washing. It is harvested for the winter and in the form of mashed potatoes (passed through a meat grinder and mixed with salt), and in a dried state.
Mention should also be made of the sour sorrel brethren: small and horse sorrel. Small, less sour sorrel is squat, and its stems are tough, and the leaves are like spears. Horse sorrel is known to a greater extent as a medicinal plant. Young leaves of the latter can be added to various flour products.
To dream
Various edible herbs grow very close to people, among which there are plants, the edibility of which very few people know. Parks, gardens and woods in places are overgrown with dark green plants. Many people do not even realize that cabbage soup, cooked from snow, is not inferior to cabbage soup in its taste.
Common snake belongs to the umbrella family. Umbrella inflorescences sit on the needles, which diverge in rays in a radial direction. Usually, young petioles and leaves that have not yet developed are collected. And the stems are suitable for the table, only without the skin. The petioles and stems of the salads give a piquant aftertaste.
Previously, the leaves and stems of the dream were eaten boiled, stewed with other vegetables, in the form of caviar, meatballs, in soups and borscht. The very name of the plant "sleepy" has the concept of "food".
Leaves fermented in winter are an original product for cabbage soup and for simple consumption. Even in ancient times, the plant was salted like cabbage and mashed potatoes. It was an important nutritional and vitamin-containing product that relieved people of the consequences of a lack of food.
Conclusion
As early as the 18th century, approximately 700 species of edible leafy vegetables (flowers and herbs) were known. Forest grasses have fed people at all times and saved them from various diseases. In the people, edible wild-growing useful plants are called edible weeds.
And in the garden plots in the form of a weed, many useful edible plants grow. In this regard, it makes sense to pay attention to such plants in the spring, to collect them for use in cooking, in order to take full advantage of the wonderful gifts of nature for the healing of the body.
We completely forgot that wild herbs can also be eaten. Especially when we are outside the city limits, wild plants can become not only a tasty reinforcement, but also a source of many vitamins and microelements, a source of "live force". And in emergency situations and save from hunger.
Run away. Young leaves of dream are suitable for food.
Dream Leaves
Rogoz... Boiled or fried young shoots and rhizomes are suitable for food.
Blooming Sally... Young root shoots and shoots are used boiled like asparagus and cabbage. The rhizomes taste sweet and can be eaten raw or cooked.
Burdock... Young leaves and shoots are edible (old leaves are edible, but tasteless), roots in any form are suitable for food: raw, boiled, baked, fried (but only the roots of the first year are edible). You can't eat burdock in large quantities, you can get poisoned.
Dandelion. Dandelion leaves are edible; to get rid of bitterness, you can scald them with boiling water, or soak them in salted water.
Cuff... The cuff has edible leaves and young shoots.
Wheatgrass... Wheatgrass rhizomes are eaten raw and boiled; during the war, wheatgrass rhizomes were boiled in salted water.
Troll flower swimsuit. Boiled unblown buds are used for food. The roots are poisonous, they can be eaten only after heat treatment.
Sagebrush. Wormwood leaves are bitter, they are used as a seasoning for fatty foods.
Goose foot edible. Leaves, young shoots, roots are good for food.
Shepherd's bag, young leaves are edible.
Naked licorice. She has an edible root, it tastes bittersweet.
The plantain is large, ordinary. Young leaves are used for salads, cutlets, soups, mashed potatoes. The taste becomes more pleasant if sorrel leaves are added to the plantain leaves. Seeds fermented in milk can be used as a seasoning for meals.
Sorrel. Everyone knows about sorrel, the soup from it is simply delicious, well, you can also raw, the leaves are edible.
Clover is edible. Blooming clover heads are used for brewing tea, soups and seasonings, while young leaves are used for salads and soups. Clover greens are very tender, boil quickly, and when you add sorrel to it, you can make delicious nutritious soups.
! ”, Will be dedicated to wild plants. I decided not to stick to the middle zone of Russia, but to describe the types that can be found and useful to you in all regions of the Russian Federation. In the forest, tundra, in the desert, you can find many wild edible plants.
Some of them are ubiquitous, others have a precise geographic address. Different parts of plants are eaten: fruits, roots, bulbs, young shoots, stems, leaves, buds, flowers. Plants that are eaten by birds and animals can usually be safely eaten. However, it is rare to find such plants, all parts of which are edible. Most of them have only one or a few parts suitable for eating or quenching their thirst.
And so, here is a list of some edible, wild-growing plants:
Nettle
Young shoots are used for green cabbage soup, mashed potatoes, salads. It grows mainly in the temperate zone in the Northern and (less often) Southern hemispheres. The most widespread in Russia are stinging nettle and stinging nettle.
The strongest sails were sewn from nettles in Russia and in other countries, and also the strongest sacks, 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 bowstrings for bows were made of the strongest nettle fiber, twisted and rubbed with wax.
By the way, you can shift the caught fish with nettles, it will stay fresh longer.
Sorrel (common and horse)
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).
For the treatment or prevention of certain diseases, all parts of the plant are used.
Sorrel is also used in the treatment of vitamin deficiencies, scurvy, anemia.
Sorrel leaves and fruits have an astringent and analgesic effect, wound healing, anti-inflammatory.
In Russia, it grows mainly in the European part (about 70 species).
It goes for sweet and sour jelly and jam, belongs to the buckwheat family.
It grows on rocks and stony 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 East Kazakhstan region, in North-West Mongolia, Sayan. Rhubarb is widespread in Asia from Siberia to the Himalayas and Palestine, and is also grown in Europe.
In medicine, the roots and rhizomes of rhubarb 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 rhubarb is edible, the leaves and root of rhubarb are considered poisonous.
It grows widely in many areas of the European part of the country, in the Urals, in Western and Eastern Siberia, in the Far East, in the Crimea and the Caucasus. It grows in water, along the banks of rivers, ponds and lakes, in wetlands.
The edible underwater tubers of the plant contain up to 35 / v starch, 10.5 / v proteins, 0.5 / v fat, more than 3 / v sugars, tannins. Dry in tubers up to 55 / o starch and about 9 / o sugar substances.
Tuberous formations that develop in the fall at the ends of the shoots are eaten. rarely - rhizomes. Cooked or baked tubers taste like chestnuts, raw - nuts, baked - potatoes.
For long-term storage the tubers are cut into circles and dried in the air, and dried in the oven for grinding into flour.
It grows along the banks of water bodies, often at a considerable depth - up to one and a half meters, it is found in swamps and flooded meadows, in the vicinity of groundwater in forests and salt marshes.
The most valuable for food use is the long fleshy rhizome of the reed containing starch (over 50%), carbohydrates (up to 15%) and fiber (up to 32%). The largest number the rhizome contains these substances in late autumn and early spring.
Rhizomes are eaten raw, baked, fried; they taste tender and sweetish.
In hungry years and periods of long crop failures, the rhizomes were dug up, dried, ground into flour, which was added in large quantities to wheat and rye (up to 90% by weight). However, long-term use of such bread (apparently due to the high fiber content in cane flour) caused undesirable consequences: swelling of the stomachs, 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 substitute for coffee.
It is ubiquitous on the shores of water bodies and flood meadows. Many are familiar with its peculiar black-brown velvety inflorescences on a long (up to 2 m) straight stem. Many people mistakenly call it a reed, but they are not even of the same family. Cattail is widespread throughout the European part of the country, in the Urals. The Caucasus. Ukraine, Siberia and Central Asia.
The rhizomes contain up to 46 / v starch, up to 24 / v protein, 11% sugars, tannins, ascorbic acid in the leaves, and fatty oil in the seeds. V folk medicine rhizomes are used for dysentery, leaves - as a wound healing and hemostatic agent.
In years of famine, cattail was one of the most important food sources. Rhizomes and young stems have been and are still used for food. Collect young shoots that have not yet emerged from the ground. Before use, they are boiled in salted water. Pickled for the winter. Soups, mashed potatoes are prepared from rhizomes and young stems, they are stewed with potatoes, used as a seasoning for meat, fish, mushroom and vegetable dishes.
Most often now they use baked rhizomes for food. They can be used to make flour, bread, pancakes, biscuits, biscuits, jelly and other products. To prepare flour, the roots are pre-broken into pieces up to 0.5 cm thick, dried and crushed.
Roasted rhizomes can replace natural coffee. Bulb-like cattail sprouts are tasty raw. Rhizomes are harvested in autumn or spring, when there is a lot of starch in them. Dried, they can be stored for a long time.
There are about 20 species 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 reeds are edible. If you grind the rhizome and cook for 40-50 minutes, you get a sweet broth. By boiling the broth over low heat, you can prepare a thick and even sweeter syrup.
The root white part of young reeds is eaten raw. They are edible as a substitute for bread. From the dried rhizome, flour is obtained, which is added to grain for baking bread.
In field conditions, the rhizome of the reeds can be baked on coals or in ash. People in extreme conditions are not in danger of hunger if there is a reed nearby.
The people call the reed "cut grass". The rhizome peeled from the skin is applied to a fresh wound, and the blood stops.
They are often used for making salads and borscht. Roasted roots can serve as a substitute for coffee. For tourists, dandelion is undoubtedly capable of diversifying food. Whoever 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 for several hours in cold salted water.
It is very easy to make a salad from a dandelion, it is done like this: pre-scald the leaves, add finely chopped leaves of willow tea, nettle. We mix all this.
A "coffee" drink is made from the roots according to the following recipe: digging the roots, rinsing thoroughly, chopping finely, frying until dark brown. Then grind in a coffee grinder and prepare in the same way as coffee. This drink is very healthy.
It is found everywhere in the temperate climate of the Northern Hemisphere. Grows in clearings, forest edges, among bushes.
Ivan tea is widely known as a powerful antioxidant and is used to cleanse the body of toxins and toxins. V medicinal purposes both the leaves of Ivan tea and its flowers are used.
Residents of the Far East use ivan tea for sore throats, bleeding, constipation, and also as an anti-inflammatory and astringent. In Tibetan medicine, herbs, 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 willow tea, and fresh roots can be eaten raw or boiled instead of asparagus or cabbage.
Dried roots are used to make flour, bread, pancakes and flat cakes are baked, and toasted roots are used to make "coffee".
The dried leaves are brewed for a strong and delicious tea.
It is widespread in Siberia, the Urals, the Far East, Central Asia, the Caucasus and in many regions of the European part of the country. Grows in stagnant bodies of water and slowly flowing rivers.
Rhizomes are rich in starch - up to 60% and protein - 13.4%, they contain sugars, fats, and ascorbic acid in the leaves. The dried rhizomes contain 4% fat, 13.5% protein and 60% carbohydrates. In addition, cellulose - 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, the susak is known as a very valuable food plant, it was called Yakut bread. People went to shallow creeks, lakes, bays, ditches, uprooted the 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 cereals and flour, from which they baked bread, cooked porridge, prepared coffee and coffee drinks. From 1 kg of dry rhizomes, 250 g of flour of a yellowish-white color and a pleasant sweetish taste are obtained, reminiscent of flour from unhulled wheat. This flour is usually added with 30% rye or wheat. In the years of famine, bread was baked from the umbrella sushik.
Harvest the rhizomes of the susak better in autumn or in the spring before flowering, when they are high in starch. Delicious and nutritious roots are baked over a fire.
Distributed almost throughout the territory of Russia. It grows in wastelands, in garbage places, near dwellings, in kitchen gardens and orchards.
Due to the presence of inulin and protein, burdock roots are used for food. Ground into flour, they can be added to the dough when baking bread. They can be eaten boiled, baked, fried, fresh; you can replace potatoes in soups, make cutlets, flat cakes.
The roots are boiled with sour milk, vinegar, sorrel, and inulin undergoes hydrolysis with the formation of sugar - fructose. This produces a sweet and sour jam. Roasted roots can serve as a substitute for coffee or replace chicory.
In Japan, burdock is cultivated as garden culture called "gobo".
Blockade delicacy... This stunningly simple recipe is taken from a unique book published in besieged Leningrad in 1942 for the few who are still alive. It is no coincidence that the recipe omits an indispensable condition - pre-wash the root. There was not enough water even for drinking. The gas station was not indicated either - it simply was not there. Surely, today you will not use this recipe in its original form, but let it once again remind us all of those loyal green friends who helped the people to withstand and survive in mortal conditions. Here is the recipe: “Boil the roots of burdock, cut into small pieces. Serve dressed with some sauce. "
In the wild, it can grow up to the tundra zone. Grows for the most part in shady forests in valleys near rivers. The 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 been known as a reliable doctor. The plant has strong phytoncidal, antibiotic, tonic, antiatherosclerotic. wound healing properties. This is an excellent anti-scurvy early spring plant.
It is best to eat fresh wild garlic in salads and vinaigrette. Appetizing wild garlic with black bread and salt. Very tasty early spring cabbage soup and soups are made from it, minced meat is prepared. It is used both as a seasoning for meat and fish dishes, and as a filling for pies.
In many places wild garlic is prepared for future use: fermented, salted and pickled, and finely chopped dried in the sun. Bulbs of these plants are also used in nutrition. The leaves of wild garlic are similar to the leaves of the poisonous plant lily of the valley, so some care is required when collecting.
“I’ll add on my own. I lived in Kamchatka, and so, in the forests there, wild garlic, apparently invisibly, is very similar to a lily of the valley and grows just like it - in small but frequent plots. "
Kislitsa ("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.
She is familiar to many from childhood by the graceful outline of the leaves, as if consisting of three light green hearts. 100 g of the raw mass of acid leaves contains up to 100 mg of vitamin C, a lot of potassium oxalate, malic and folic acid. They have a pungent, sour-astringent taste and can be used in salads, vinaigrette and cabbage soup instead of sorrel.
Sour soft drinks are prepared from sour. You can find a sour cherry in the winter under the snow. It is just as green and delicious.
Well, this is not a complete list of wild plants that can be used for food. More than 1000 species of edible plants grow in our country, so it is somewhat problematic for me to master this kind of work. Attention is paid to the most common types.
Living in middle lane Russia can get a tasty and rich plant-based diet without any money. Even without cultivating a summer cottage.
For example, people get sick and are treated. What for? If you can engage in disease prevention. How? Very simple! Eat medicinal herbs! Edible more, and purely medicinal or toxic - in small quantities!
Wild edible plants grow literally under our feet. Of course, you shouldn't collect them within the metropolis, but in your free time you can get out somewhere farther. In a pine forest, broad-leaved forest. Or walk around the field and pick up a bunch not for beauty, but for tea, soup or salad :)
So, we are going to the spring forest, warmed by the Sun. Snow may still be on the ground, but hazel (hazel) is already beginning to bloom. One has only to lightly tap on his hanging yellow earring, as a whole cloud of pollen flies out of it. One hazel earring gives up to four million pollen grains. First of all, we can collect this wealth. Earrings, as a source of valuable pollen, can be brewed into tea together with other herbs for immunity, male power and general strengthening of the body.
If hazel and alder are blooming, then healing sap is already moving in the veins of the birch. By itself, it is already useful, as it is structured and filtered water. It also contains sugars, organic acids and vitamins. You need to collect birch sap carefully, little by little. After the end of the collection, the holes need to be processed garden pitch... For future use, birch sap can be frozen or preserved.
Recall that sap can also be collected from maple. It is much sweeter than birch. In Canada, for example, they make excellent maple syrup. Maple can be identified by leafless shoots. Maple is characterized by an opposite arrangement of buds, three leaf traces and contact of leaf scars with the formation of an angle.
After the snow melts under the forest canopy, one can find both overwintered green plants and young early spring ephemeroids.
Wintering horsetail, hoof, celandine emerge green from under the snow.
They are inedible, as well as young greens - anemone and corydalis.
But snake and lungwort are very tasty and healthy!
Snyt belongs to the Umbrella family. Many of this family are poisonous plants but is incredibly tasty and useful herb... In summer, it will become harsh and will only go into soup, while the spring young one is happy to be eaten raw right in the forest and goes to prepare salads. No wonder, according to legend, Seraphim of Sarov only ate her for two years.
Lungwort, dazzling with pink and blue flowers, has been known to many since childhood. The flowers of the lungwort are very sweet, and the leaves are also edible. Like dreaminess, it goes well in a spring salad.
For bitterness, blooming bird cherry leaves can be added to the salad.
Goose onions also taste great and will only complement the salad composition.
Even in deciduous forests, we can find a valuable spring vegetable - the spleen. Its leaves and stems are edible, reminiscent of watercress. The name speaks for itself, before it was used for diseases of the spleen.
And on open areas we meet the well-known mother-and-stepmother. Its flowers are edible too. And the leaves that appear later are very popular as medicinal raw materials.
And the spring primrose, which is widely used in medical practice as a pulmonary and vitamin, in decorative floriculture, is also edible. Both flowers and leaves go great in spring salads and teas.
Separately, we will consider what is more nutritious - edible roots and tubers. wild plants, food mushrooms and ferns.
Porcini mushrooms, boletus, aspen mushrooms are harvested in autumn. And there are mushrooms that grow in the spring. These include red pepper. Sarcoscifa is a little-known edible mushroom, consumed fresh.
Morels are often found in coniferous forests. These mushrooms are conditionally edible; heat treatment is required before using them for food!
Now let's look at edible roots that can replace the potatoes we are used to. In the first place, of course, burdock! It is better to dig young plants 1 year old, they are softer and more edible. But if you have been digging an old two-year-old root for half an hour, then it doesn't matter! It will make a good broth too! :)
It will be difficult to eat only nodules of spring peel, since they are small, but if you try, you can pick up a handful and add to the spring soup. It is not recommended to eat them raw, because the peel, like many other plants of the Buttercup family, is poisonous. Cooking destroys toxic substances.
Finally, let's admire one of my favorite plants. This is Kupena, also called the Solomon Seal. The prints on the root testify to the age of this perennial plant... Purchased raw is poisonous, so the root should be soaked for a long time in salted water and then boiled. But after all the events, we will get a delicious delicacy with a peculiar and interesting taste. True, it must be thoroughly cleaned, otherwise your tongue will then be scratched all over :)
How many I want to tell, but all the plants cannot fit into one article! Whole volumes and stories can be written about edible flora .. One of the most best books on this topic, I consider the book by FV Fedorov "Wild Food Plants".
And, in conclusion, I will tell you about edible ferns. The fact is that not all of them, descendants of the dinosaur era, are edible. The ostrich and bracken are incredibly useful, edible and tasty.
But they are not consumed in their raw form, but are boiled, fried or salted for future use.
The ostrich never has sori (groups of spores) on the underside of the leaf. Ostrich spores develop on separate brown spore-bearing shoots! These shoots look like an ostrich feather, which is why the fern was named that way.
Bracken can be easily distinguished from all other species by the curved edge of the leaflet and the longitudinal covered row of sporangia. The bracken fern does not form bushes and the bracken frond has a triangular shape.
So our article comes to an end. Unfortunately, the edible flora species illuminated here are only a tiny fraction! Yes, and it is difficult to really know all these plants from pictures and text. Live, by immersion in Nature, touching, smelling and tasting each plant - this is the only way to fully know and get acquainted with herbs!
All the best to you and good health!