The Good Season, a cookbook featuring recipes with edible weeds, was released this spring by Michelle Arseneault and Michelle Carkner.
Michelle Arseneault is now a grad student in Plant Ag working under professor John Cline.
The book introduces wild edibles, showing readers how to identify and harvest the plants, and also how to cook them into delicious recipes.
Weeds are defined as wild plants that are unwanted. But, with their various uses in the kitchen, this book tells readers why they'll actually want these so-called weeds in their gardens! These plants are equitable to cultivated plants. The fact that they are wild has nothing to do with their edibility.
In the recipes, a variety of "weeds" are used, including:
- Dandelion: The leaves are slightly bitter and flowers can be used for tea
- Lamb’s-quarters: The leaves are tender and mild flavoured, similar to spinach
- Common chickweed: The plant tastes like peas, but takes less effort to grow
- Purslane: The flavour is crunchy, lemon, pepper
- Nettles:They grow abundantly, and can also taste like spinach
- Common mallow: The leaves are edible, and the flowers can be an edible dessert decoration
Weeds are ideal plants to grow and eat because they are "hardy in drought and flood, in high temperature and low temperature…and they grow everywhere!"
According to the book's website, "the chef wanted to eat the food, while the photographer wanted to take more photos. We were impressed by taste and appearance." Each recipe was tested and approved before its inclusion in The Good Season.
For more information on the book, and additional information including weed identification, and video tutorials, see: http://thegoodseason.com/