The Pregnant Kitchen

This morning we had some standard breakfast fare, with a little added green from the never-sprayed, never-mowed lawn: dandelions. I am told that they came over from Europe with the English, who paradoxically gave Americans a love of lawns (without sheep to trim them) and the scourge of dandelions.

My first inkling that dandelions had some other use came from my high school reading of Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. As I have always like anything fermented, this idea of making something out of a weed fascinated me–and I loved the book, too. Since then, I’ve always wanted to try dandelion wine, or any wine, but have made do with simply eating the green parts of the weed.

But these greens are lovely to eat. I’ve been eyeing greedily, perhaps even lustfullly, the little patch of dandelions growing up through the cracks in our driveway. Every time I come home, I see them.

"I will eat you."

They are no longer the annoyance that most people see them as, they are a welcome-home-for-dinner greeting. I have been just waiting for them to pop up this year, and little have they known my sinister plans for them.

But this particular bunch is waiting a few days to await a dinner later this week. For this morning, I picked some very nice young dandelions from out back, so young that they barely had the bulb that would become the yellow flower we all know so well. I washed them and sautéed them in olive oil with a little garlic salt. Incredible!

The dandelions are center, with some yellow beet tops on the left. Since these dandelions were picked so early, they were almost devoid of bitterness–just a smooth spinach-like taste with a hint of spicyness that ended with a buttery flavor. The older the dandelion, however, the more bitter. For mature greens, it sometimes helps to parboil them for 2-3 minutes before sautéeing.