Try this with nettles
Gabriola’s nettles are now a foot high in some parts of the woods. Have you picked some for your dinner? If so, you probably know that cooking removes the sting of nettles. Here’s an easy cooking method you may not have considered:
Filed in food,Gabriola Island 5 Comments so far
5 Responses to “Try this with nettles”
John Hudson on 12 Feb 2010 at 1:49 pm #
I’m a huge fan of Ray Mears. Most other television programmes related to bush craft focus on fairly extreme survival conditions and ‘one man against the wilderness’ situations. Mears is interested in how humans have lived — and in some places continue to live — in their natural environment: not merely surviving but flourishing in families and communities. This is most evident in this, probably my favourite Mears clip.
Michael Mehta on 12 Feb 2010 at 2:36 pm #
Thanks for this video link. I love the idea that this technology (the Internet) can teach us about traditional ways of gathering and preparing food.
I have never tried nettles, but have heard that nettle soup is a delicious thing. Here’s an interesting recipe. See http://localfoods.about.com/od/spring/r/NettleSoup.htm
rick on 13 Feb 2010 at 10:06 am #
Armed with surgical gloves, a paper bag and some scissors, I snip the tender tops of the young nettles. I steam them for a couple of minutes and then fold them into scrambled eggs. Very tasty and nutritious. They make a good ’tisane’ too.
John Hudson on 14 Feb 2010 at 12:08 pm #
One of the best uses of nettles is to make what I call nettlekopita: a version of the Greek spanakopita filo pasty made with nettles instead of spinach. A friend on Galiano made this for me. Very tasty.
John Hudson on 14 Feb 2010 at 12:18 pm #
PS. According to Mears, in another video in which he demonstrates making twine from nettle fibre, if you grasp the nettles firmly you won’t get stung. Mind you, having watched Mears calmly peeling apart the steaming flesh of freshly cooked eel with his bare fingers, I’m convinced that he has no nerve endings in his hands.
The belief that a firm grasp on a nettle prevents stinging goes back many centuries. The Elizabethan euphemist John Lyly recorded it in 1578: True it is Philautus that he which toucheth ye nettle tenderly, is soonest stung. It is apparently from this belief that the idiom ‘grasp the nettle’ derives.
I have to admit, though, that I have not had the nerve to test the theory.