Forest bounty blooms in kitchen

PALMER -- When Palmer residents think of the agricultural history of their town, they're likely to conjure up images of cabbage, potatoes, hay, and other hardy crops flourishing under the midnight sun.

Yet there's another bounty sprouting in the area's woods and fields. Chickweed, wild chamomile, dandelion, fireweed, lamb's quarter, willow bark, sticky cottonwood, devil's club, stinging nettle…

Stinging nettle?

Tenderfoots may be skeptical, but the prickly plant, when steamed, bears an uncanny resemblance in both appearance and smell to spinach. And it has 76 mg of vitamin C, more than you'll find in a whole orange.

Janice Schofield is well-versed in the assorted virtues of stinging nettle. In fact, she's written a whole book on the subject, in addition to spending 20 years instructing other Alaskans about the value of common plants found in their own backyards.

"Alaska is a vegetable gardener's pharmacy," Schofield said. "Nettles, for example, provide a virtual checklist of all your vitamins and minerals."

Schofield's yearly Palmer herb workshop finished off at a homey plot of land off Farm Loop Road on Sunday. Participants from as far away as Fairbanks, Chickaloon, Kodiak, and Seattle bustled about tables and tents, and the sharp, pungent smell of cooking plants filled the air.

One participant triumphantly held aloft a jar full of a honey-colored mixture of devil's club root, cottonwood, and Arnica flowers. A few hours of heating in a Crock-Pot would turn this mixture into a salve for soothing aching muscles and joints.

Devil's club also featured prominently in a salad being prepared under a nearby tent. Once stripped of its tough, spiky covering, the unfriendly plant yields a pulpy, almost woody interior that can be chopped, sliced, or grated.

Nettles also showed up in the salad, though a few of the women chopping up the plant glared at it reproachfully.

"You have to be careful when harvesting it," Judy Ehrlich said. "You have to be sure to wear gloves."

The nettles turned out to be a little less hostile than one might imagine.

"Once you steam the nettles, they lose all those little owies," Ehrlich said. "I was a little fearful of them at first, but after working with them, I'm not afraid of them anymore."

Ehrlich is the founder of Alaska Soapers, a free Yahoo! group that specializes in creating natural soaps and salves. More information is available about this group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/alaskasoapers/.

Another delicacy being prepared from wild herbs gathered that very morning was a curry and herb fried rice dish containing chickweed, pineapple weed (sometimes known by the more flattering moniker "wild chamomile"), lamb's quarter and angelica root, in addition to the ever-present nettle. The angelica plant also yields a tincture when placed in alcohol, and can be used to make tea.

Even the humble fireweed, more commonly used as a dining table centerpiece than an item on the plate, can be consumed. The flowers, buds, and pulpy interior of the stalk are all edible and have a slightly sweet flavor.

Fried herb cakes and currant-watermelonberry crisp were also on the menu.

The former contained lamb's quarter, nettles, dandelions, shepherd's purse, and wild mustard, while the latter used assorted berries and brown sugar.

Both of these dishes employed store-bought items to some extent, including flour, sugar, baking soda, and pancake batter, but the emphasis was still on the wild aspect of the foods.

"You have to use some store-bought items," said a woman preparing the crisp, "but when you think of buying four cups of blueberries as opposed to four cups of currents, you see the advantages."

The convenience also can't be beat. Some participants making wild herb won tons at another station decided they needed a dipping sauce.

Five minutes in a nearby garden patch with gloves and trowels yielded dandelion roots, which were washed and grated to create a sauce.

"You never look at a plant the same way again," said Catherine McDermott, a first-time herb cooker. "One day you're hiking through it, the next you're eating it."

Schofield's yearly classes typically involve mornings spent in the field identifying and gathering plants, followed by afternoons occupied by plant and herb preparation. Being able to identify and distinguish the harmful from the beneficial in the vegetable kingdom can be a tall order, however, and Schofield thus attempts to tailor the identification aspect to each individual participant's interests. "Taxonomy is another realm in and of itself," she said.

However, Schofield added that only about 12 of Alaska's 1,200 common plants are dangerous to consume, so even a little bit of training can go a long way. Though some might be wary of going out into the backyard every morning and filling up a basket with lunch or dinner, Schofield says herbal practices have a long history of widespread use.

"People have been using plants ever since they've been on the earth," she said. Schofield has written two books on the value of Alaska's wild plants in general, in addition to the one devoted entirely to nettles.

Schofield typically offers the class every year, though next summer she'll be off in New Zealand.

In August, she'll be teaching a similar workshop in Seldovia. For more information, contact the Good Earth Garden School at goodearthgardenschool@ hotmail.com or at 745-0758.

Contact Daniel Spoth at daniel.spoth@frontiersman.com.