tempus fugit

By ceridwen

Wintergreens

In the temperate climate of our Western seaboard one can be sure of finding plants to forage along the banks and walls even at this time of the year. I often collect this particular combination of  edible leaves  just yards from the house: juicy navel wort, tangy sorrel and crunchy sow thistle. Together they provide a tasty vitamin-rich winter salad. 

Nothing new about this of course. 'Old wives' have long absorbed  herbal knowledge from their fore mothers and passed it along to the next generation without being aware of the nutritional constituents. Even today you can see old women in peasant cultures out collecting leaves in the fields. Horta * they are called in Greece, eaten either cooked or raw. Does the word horticulture come from the same root (or stem!) I wonder? No doubt someone will tell me.

*More about that here.

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