The year’s first taste of Hosta and Udo shoots (dug in the autumn, stored in the cellar and forced in the living room in the dark), used in today’s delicious salad. Easy when you know how! The ingredients list is below the pictures!
Aralia cordata, udo
Aralia cordata, udo
Hosta
Hosta
Hosta
Horseradish shoots
Salad with udo, Hosta, sea kale, Begonia flowers and more
Salad with udo, Hosta, sea kale, Begonia flowers and more
Salad with udo, Hosta, sea kale, Begonia flowers and more
I’ve changed full circle from the days when I fought against the dandelions to nowadays actively encouraging them in my perennial beds as they will be my most important veg all winter when we eat them every day (digging the roots for forcing like chicory before the first hard frosts). They fill all the gaps between my perennial edibles on the beds in the video and provide food for a range of insects and birds (directly feeding on the seeds and indirectly picking off the insects). At the same time I’ve become a much happier person looking at the seed heads, representing hope rather than disASTER (get it? Dandelions are in the Asteraceae)!
Video Player
Media error: Format(s) not supported or source(s) not found
I probably wasn’t aware, when we bought the house 40 years ago next year, how important the cold cellar under the house would be. It is largely unimproved since we moved here. It has allowed us to be self-sufficient in all our own fresh vegetables, root crops and fruit with minimal pre-processing. There are 4 full size rooms in the cellar which are kept dark (there are small windows which are kept covered) and without heating. Even though it is relatively early in the winter, it is at the moment just about as cold as it ever gets down there thanks to the freezing temperatures since the end of October. First are some pictures of the stairs and doors. Below is another album of pictures of the vegetables in storage; explanation with the pictures!
Steep stairs down to the cellar from inside the house
There’s an outside door in the only outside wall that is exposed to the air, leading to the first room being coldest, sometimes down to slightly below zero
The first room from the outside can freeze (just) ad is currently about 1C
The first iDoor to the middle room at the bottom of the stairsnside room to the left when you go in from the outside door is a plant and veg storage room behind this door). Currently about 2C
Door to the middle room at the bottom of the stairs
The door from the middle room into the warmest room where the previous owners stored potatoes. Currently +3C
Swiss chard (mangold)
Swiss chard (mangold) and pots with turnips and swedes, stored in slightly damp leaves
Onions (kepaløk) Allium cepa
Potatoes stored in sacks
Large amounts of apples – Aroma
Apples – Aroma with one of the old turnip varieties which will be grown on for seed next year.
Swiss chard (mangold)
Various less hardy edimentals
Various less hardy edimentals
Chicory (sikori)
Carrots in leaves and leeks (purre) behind
Turnips in leaves for eating
Various beetroot (rødbete og hvitbete) varieties …usually these would be stored in damp leaves
Burdock (borre) roots stored in leaves
Chicory (sikori) and dandelion (løvetann) ready to force for greens
Dandelion (løvetann) ready to force for greens; this one was moved up to the kitchen to bring on the greens as it’s too cold in the cellar
Being the focus of an art installation wasn’t something I ever imagined, but since February an installation has been exhibited at the Trondheim Art Museum Gråmølna based on my January winter vegetables and very nicely put together it was too, by a group of international artists working on the Meatigation (get it?) project through the MOREMEATLESSMEAT exhibition. This was designed to stimulate debate on why it is difficult to get Norwegians to reduce their meat consumption in the face of climate change. They visited me in January filmed me harvesting in the cellar, in the living rooms and outside and took away about 30 of my winter vegetables that were then scanned and exhibited with narrative provided by yours truly: JANUARY HERBARIUM For those that don’t know me, I am more or less 100% self-sufficient in vegetables and fruit all year round without using a greenhouse, additional heating or light (we use far less heating than most) and not owning a freezer.
Last Sunday (30th April 2023) between 14 and 16 the closing event focussed on the myth that one cannot avoid importing vegetables in winter here in Norway through the UNPACKING THE EDIMENTALS HERBARIUM event. It was fittingly also the #internationaldayofthedandelion a plant I eat most days year round (forced from roots in winter in my cellar and living rooms). To accentuate that vegetable diversity is possible even in cold Norway in winter, with snow showers outside the venue, at a time of year known as the Hungry Gap (I call it the Full Gap as it really can be the time of greatest abundance!) I (#extremesaladman) prepared my most diverse winter/spring salad ever (and probably anywhere) with 163 botanical species, 199 different plants (including cultivars) and in total 211 ingredients (includes different plant parts, such as flowers and leaves from the same plant). I prepared two different looking salads from the same ingredients! The list of ingredients can be found at the bottom (a list was also hung up on the wall so that the participants could read what they were eating!)
The second salad:
The centrepiece of both salads was a complete rosette of the moss-leaved dandelion (Taraxacum tortilobum) in recognition of the International Day of the Dandelion!
I was asked a series of questions and gave answers supported by various plants I’d brought with me: Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk) Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde) (both are available most of the winter outside) Allium pskemense x fistulosum (Wietse’s onion / Wietsesløk) Allium stipitatum (Persian shallot / Persisk sjalott) Vicia faba (dried broad beans / bondebønner) Beta vulgaris “Flavescens” (swiss chard / mangold) Angelica archangelica “Vossakvann” (Voss angelica / Vossakvann) Taraxacum spp. (dandelion / løvetann – demonstrating dandichokes / løveskokker and dandinoodles / dandinudler)
The questions were: BIODIVERSITY: Why is agricultural biodiversity important? PRESERVATION: Why preserve heritage varieties of edible plants?EMOTION: Why joy, pleasure & humor in food and farming? WINTER: What could we eat in the winter? Preservation & fresh. FUTURE: What could a Norwegian food future taste like if plants were at the center?
There were of course also many questions from the participants about what different plants were in the salads. I mentioned that the salads were originally not just the result of a slightly mad collectomanic’s work in Malvik but also had an important message. My second and still current world record salad was made 20 years ago in August 2003 (see https://www.edimentals.com/blog/?p=294). It had been inspired by the Mediterranean diet, where ethnobotanical studies on the back of the discovery of the low levels of cardiovascular disease in people eating traditional diets had revealed a huge diversity of plant species used in the Mediterranean region (over 3,000 species). Not only that, but traditional multi species salads, soups, calzones etc., often with over 50 different species had been discovered – more in my book Around the World in 80 plants). This week just 4 days before the event national broadcaster NRK had published an article once again pointing to the Mediterranean Diet as being the healthiest one! See NRK article.
The previous winter / spring record with 140 ingredients was made for Credo Restaurantat the Kosmorama Film Festival in 2017.
PREPARING THE SALAD ON MY BIRTHDAY The pictures below show me collecting the salad ingredients the day before which was my birthday, what better way of spending the day :) Picking nettles (which were cooked)Documenting as I went along! On the way to the event, waiting at the bus stop with salad and plants as the snow came down!
Pictures from the event (taken by Anne Maisey from TKM Gråmølna): Organising before the event The opening talk Voss Angelica / VossakvannAnswering questions about the salad ingredients
Wietse’s onion (Allium pskemense x fistulosum and Persian shallot (Allium stipitatum)Dried broad beans (bondebønner), leaf beets (mangold) and forced chicory (sikori)Svedjenepe / svedjerova – an old Scandinavian turnip variety grown in the Svedjebruk tradition (slash and burn), A variety that KVANN (Norwegian Seed Savers) are popularising again in the area in south eastern Norway where this tradition was practised (with Vossakvann roots)The list of salad plants was hung up next to the saladsAn Instagram postAn Instagram postAn Instagram postAll the plants (forced Hosta bottom right) and the salads, Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk) near the centre
Many thanks to Liz Dom who lead the event and project leaders Cat Kramer and Zack Denfeld and Anne Maisey from the museum, who took part remotely from Porto in Portugal at the start, for a great collaboration!
This bucket was planted in the autumn and stored until now in the cellar. Within a few days of bringing it up into my living room there are usable shoots. Garlic bulbil shoots are seen behind. Nowadays, I LOVE the taste of dandelion although in my youth I found it so bitter that I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to eat it. I think the reason is a combination of giving up eating sugar and getting accustomed to eating bitter plants. In addition, nobody ate a dandelion salad alone. The following box from my book describes various methods og de-bitterizing dandelions if you want to benefit from one of the most nutritious and valuable plants on the planet but find the taste too bitter:
There are Allium species that can be harvested year round in the garden, notably nodding onion / Norw:prærieløk (Allium cernuum) which I’ve blogged about before. In autumn, new shoots of Allium carinatum subsp. pulchellum (keeled garlic / Norw: rosenløk) appear and with the mild weather we’ve been experiencing they’ve already reached about 20 cm high. They are hardy and can survive to at least -20C. It’s now in the autumn that this edimental Allium is most useful. I use the shoots in a similar way to chives (Allium schoenoprasum), which died back some time ago and won’t reappear until spring (unless I force them indoors), in salads, cut and sprinkled on sandwiches, in scrambled egg, quiches etc. I use them from October to April.
December shoots
March shoots
8. mars: Pizza greens, all harvested outside after most of the snow disappeared during the day. From the top and clockwise; Ficaria verna (lesser celandine / vårkål), Allium cernuum (nodding onion / prærieløk), Hablitzia tamnoides (Caucasian spinach / stjernemelde), Allium carinatum, Allium senescens (or hybrid), Primula veris (cowslip / marianøkleblom), Alliaria petiolata (garlic mustard / løkurt) and Taraxacum spp. (dandelion / løvetann)
There are two colour forms, pink and white which are particularly valuable as they last such a long time and are popular with pollinators:
Attractive also in bud
A beautiful delicate form I collected in Cinque Terre in Italy many years ago
A beautiful delicate form I collected in Cinque Terre in Italy many years ago
Still in flower in September
There are also forms with bulbils which can be a bit invasive:
You’ll see the flowers used as a tasty decoration in my multi-species salads (bottom right in the picture):
At top with the long spathe (keel)
Bottom right
Allium carinatum is also popular with pollinators:
Save your own pea seed and sprout your own in winter indoors, some of these used for a stir-fry dish last night! If sown in soil, they can be cut to come again once or sometimes twice!
Fresh 100% course barley/rye/oat sourdough bread with olive paste and nodding onion
Allium cernuum (Nodding onion / Prærieløk) is one of the few plants that can be harvested in winter if one can find then under the snow! An important food plant for both Native Americans and “colonists”. I planted up a bucket full of these onions in the autumn leaving it outside and brought into the living room frozen solid about 10 days ago. The plants have now started to grow and I had some for lunch :)
Perennial vegetables, Edimentals (plants that are edible and ornamental) and other goings on in The Edible Garden
The second salad:
