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Looking for plants to eat was no different in prehistoric times. The park or park in front of your house is still full of edible treasures, writes cook and writer Yvette van Boven in her latest book. Naturalist Arjan Postma warns that you can’t just pick just about anything.
By Hannah KönigThere are many plant books about wild harvesting, but according to Yvette van Boven they are often complicated. That’s why she made a herbarium, edible plant guide & recipe book in one: From Above in the wild, which came out this week. The book is for anyone interested in recognizing, collecting and processing edible wild plants from the nearby nature or urban environment. Van Boven deliberately kept it simple: “I’ve reduced it to easy, unthreatened plants that you find around your home, to show that anyone can do this.”
Many edible plants that were planted long ago in vegetable and herb gardens are now labeled as weeds. Van Boven thinks that is crazy and a pity. Fortunately, there are still plenty of edible weeds to be found. “Take nettles, you can find them everywhere and are horribly delicious in risotto or on a pizza.” It can already pay off to walk around your own backyard. “If you haven’t looked at your patio pots for a year, there’s a good chance that field cress will grow in them. These are delicious, peppery leaves that you can sprinkle over your cheese sandwich.”
Nettles are everywhere and are horribly delicious in risotto or on a pizza.
Pick only for yourself
Naturalist and writer Arjan Postma thinks wild picking is a nice hobby, but advises not to get too adventurous: “You have to know well where you are going to pick. It is forbidden to remove plants in a protected nature reserve. Also, first find out which plants are edible. are: there are more poisonous plants than poisonous mushrooms and it is easy to be mistaken.”
Van Boven has a dog and therefore always has a roll of small bags in her jacket pocket: “A perfectly sized bag to keep some leaves in if I come across something on the way. If you go out especially for it, you can take a basket or linen bag with you .”
Both nature lovers see often enough that people harvest shopping bags full of wild garlic and they don’t think that’s the intention. Postma: “Just pick a little of the same species in a certain area. That way there is enough left over for bees and insects and the plant species can survive.”
Yvette van Boven: †I have been getting provisions from nature all my life and have never gotten sick from it.” (Photo: Nijgh & Van Ditmar)
Roads full of edible plants
In restaurants you will increasingly find wild plants on the menu and in luxury greengrocers you will also see greenery that you can easily harvest yourself. Van Boven: “Pissenlit, a French word, sounds very chic, but this ‘mole lettuce’ is simply the young leaf of the dandelion and you can really find it on every street corner.”
With her book she wants to encourage adults and children to take a good look at what beautiful nature has to offer. She made a separate pocketbook of the plant guide that you can take with you on your wild-picking missions. In the detailed photos of the herbarium you can study the leaves well. Cleavers, clover, trout and ground elder: if you look closely, you’ll find it all around your house. Because mowing takes place later and later in the Netherlands, verges are also excellent places to harvest. They are full of rapeseed, wild parsnips and carrots.
There are more poisonous plants than poisonous mushrooms and it’s easy to be wrong
Afraid of dog pee
Pesto with ground elder, wild nettle risotto and dandelion honey: the book contains more than a hundred inspiring recipes in which wild plants are used. According to van Boven, you don’t have to be afraid of dog pee: “Pick high or a little further from the edge of the sidewalk and always wash your harvest: I have been getting provisions from nature all my life and have never gotten sick from it. “