Plucking stinging nettles from my
fingers wearing nothing but a smile, my clothes laid in a foul heap outside the
inn’s heavy plank door. A morning spent trudging
through the wet English landscape filled baskets and baskets with easily
identifiable wood sorrel, wild garlic, watercress, dandelion and primrose. I was
introduced to the less familiar pig nuts, fat hens, chick weed, and gorse, the latter
in the pea family and apparently a good nitrogen fix for soils. All are edible, but those like the stinging
nettle need to be soaked or cooked prior to eating, for obvious, injurious
reasons.
Also referred to as burn nettle, burn
weed and burn hazel, stinging nettles have green, velvety soft leaves, belying
the intensity of their prickle. The
stems and leaves are coated with hairs, which implant themselves into those
foolish enough to rub against this herbaceous, flowering perennial. The needles inject the skin with a mixture of
chemical compounds, which burn and sting.
Oddly, nettles are the only plant food
for many species of butterflies during their larval phase, their feast before
metamorphosing into winged magic. Chock
full of protein and vitamins (A and C, calcium, magnesium, potassium), nettles
are also fed to chickens, the plant’s natural pigments creating vibrant
yolks. Their leaves and flowers can be
steeped for tea, blended for pesto, or sautéed with garlic and chili. Today, the nettles will make fine ravioli;
blanched, minced and mixed into flour for the dough, and into ricotta for the
filling.
The late morning sun finally emerged
from behind leaden clouds, illuminating the valleys below, verdurous hills dotted
with the woolly white backsides of sheep and their spring babes. Wild pheasant darted from the brush, their
coats the color of last year’s spring collection. The dozen of us, a motley lot
made up of all Brits and me, signed on for a foraging class held in Dorset, not
far from England’s southern coastline. Black
crows cackled overhead from their perches in trees still devoid of leaves,
watching us hunched over, scouring the meadows.
Our baskets and bags bulging with field finds and forest fortunes, and our
boots properly sullied, we hiked back to the farm, animated characters in a Turner
landscape. We arrived to find an old
wooden table in the middle of the stone courtyard piled high with a couple dozen,
stone dead woodpigeons. Hunted several days
prior, they were left to age in the chiller, whole and undressed, full of
feather and gut, which is understood to flavor to the meat. Shot in the fields behind us, the UK’s largest and most common pigeon is considered vermin
by the farmers, and can be hunted year round, without limit. Woodpigeon feast on valuable crops: cabbage,
sprouts, peas, tender buds and shoots, grains, seeds, nuts and berries. Their diet ensures their succulence. A dark
silver gray the hue of a late 60’s Mercedes, with a patch of white on the neck
and under each wing, the birds shimmer in flight.
We
pulled feathers, clipped wings, removed entrails and lopped off heads and
feet. The midday winds became brisk;
blowing a storm of feathers onto the cobblestones, and around our feet and
towards the large kitchen, grey cyclones of plumage reminding us of life’s
cycles. The man to my right elbow
confided that he motors his skiff out onto the English Channel and plucks his
birds in the middle of the ocean, alleviating both mess and withering looks
from the missus. Half of the birds would
be roasted whole, their cavities stuffed with the freshly found herbs. The
breasts were removed from the other half, their carcasses made into game
stock. Smaller than a palmful, the
purple-red breasts were seasoned and seared in a hot cast iron skillet, while the
rules of cooking to temperature were reiterated: touch your pointing finger to your thumb and
press on the protruding flesh next to that thumb. That’s what rare meat feels like. Pressing the middle finger to the thumb is the
feel of medium, and pinky finger to thumb represents medium-well. Beyond that, the chef said shaking his head,
he had a well-worn, leather flip-flop that would taste just as good. Lastly, we were instructed to allow the meat to
rest for the same amount of time it took to cook.
A
mountain of wild garlic and watercress picked during our morning’s walk sat
unwashed near the sink, its unmistakable acrid smell luring me to its
service. The long silky leaves of wild
garlic grow in grassy clumps from late fall to early spring. A perennial in the Liliaceae family, wild
garlic comes back strong every year. A study conducted by the University of Oregon found most wheat farmers detest it as it contaminates their crop, ruining the
flavor of bread and other products made with its flour, even suggested that cows
dining on wild garlic produce milk tinged with its flavor. Today, their leaves will create a piquant aioli.
As
I washed leaf after leaf of the wild garlic, I reached for a piece of
watercress, its hollow stem and tiny white flowers beckoning to be snacked
upon. The lead forager snatched the
cress from my hand, warning that watercress harvested in the wild should not be
eaten raw. He explained that a parasitic
worm’s eggs pass from cattle and sheep into water. The eggs hatch and infect a species of tiny snail
that attaches itself to water plants, such as wild mint, water lettuces and
watercress. Liver fluke disease is the
unpleasant outcome of munching contaminated leaves. And although not usually deadly, the illness’
name alone is enough to warrant cooking the cress.
Eaten
for thousands of years, the health benefits of watercress are well known. Hippocrates founded the first hospital on the
Greek Island of Kos, near a natural spring where he grew watercress to treat
patients with blood disorders. Ancient
Romans contended it cured baldness, and their emperors thought its consumption
helped them to make bold decisions. Irish
hermits used it as a mental stimulant, and the Greeks and Persians fed it to
their troops. It’s also said to be a
hangover cure and an aphrodisiac, although it may have been the wine drunk with
the watercress salad at dinner that made for celebratory and sensual evenings,
necessitating the greens’ consumption the morning after.
Watercress’ love of slightly alkaline soils
makes the chalk streams of southern England ideal for its cultivation, and
there are even festivals here celebrating the plant. The
botanical name for watercress, nasturtium officinale, comes from the Latin nasus tortus, meaning twisted nose, in
homage to its spicy aromas.
After
a long late lunch at a communal table, feasting on platters of our handiwork
and toasting with several glasses of local cider and beer, I bid adieu to my
new mates. As the sun was beginning to
set, I made my way to the farm not quite next door, where I’d taken a room for
the night. I tramped through pastures
shared with herds of cows and bulls, their silhouettes outlined against the
encroaching twilight. Not wanting to be
lost in the dark hills, I moved quickly through several unfamiliar and muddy
vales, the fourth of which had a particularly large pool of feculent, swampy
sludge. The oversized wellies, so graciously
offered to me for my walk, were sucked into the muck straight up to the knee, the
too-large boots easily slipping from my feet, dragging me down flat into the
mud, a human fly on one enormous cow pie.
My screams of obscenities and
cries for help unheeded by the bovine, I pulled myself out of the shit,
literally by my bootstraps; cold, wet and covered from head to toe.
A
hot shower and the removal of most of the stinging nettles from my fingertips
completed, I hitched a ride to the coastal town of Lyme Regis. Walking into a two hundred-year old pub, I
took a seat in a creaky wooden chair in front of the fireplace. Empty but for me and the barkeep, a Londoner
whose come to the sea to learn to build sailboats, I ordered a Laphroaig scotch
with two cubes and bag of crisps, a perfectly acceptable British supper. Each time a truck or bus drove the narrow
street outside the bar, the entire stone structure shook. By my second drink, the building had finally
stilled.
