Spring Garlic

Spring garlic, sometimes referred to as fresh garlic, is nothing more than the immature, baby garlic plant. Its stalk is extremely tall and lanky, its bulb small and tender. This bulb, if left in the ground, would eventually develop into individual, pungent cloves of garlic with a thick skin surrounding it all. But for a fleeting few weeks in the spring, the garlic plant is entirely edible, bulb, stalk, and all. For some reason, I've never noticed spring garlic before. In years past, we've thoroughly enjoyed garlic spears during this time of the year, but they are nowhere to be found this year. Magically replaced with spring garlic, instead!

We've had spring garlic a few times now, but the only way we've cooked it is on the grill. For those of you who have grilled any type of sweet salad onion before, the result is very similar. All they require is a sprinkle of salt and pepper and a quick rub of olive oil before grilling slow and low until thoroughly tender throughout. To eat, I just put the entire bulb end into my mouth, bite down and pull out all of the delicious garlic. They taste absolutely amazing! Even up into the green stalk, the soft, tender inside tastes like sweet, roasted garlic. It's the perfect partner to anything else you might be grilling, as it is not overwhelmingly garlicy at all. But spring is almost over, so go grab some while you can!

Knotweed

It is a beautiful time of year at the market right now. Brimming with tulips, voluptuous lettuces, and new growth of all kinds, it is a welcome change from our previous dark months. The excitement is palpable; summer is coming! On a recent trip there, I loaded up on some of the usuals like eggs, kale, and goat cheese before stumbling into this oddity, Knotweed at Foraged and Found Edibles. I was told that it was similar to celery, but hollow. At $4 a pound, how could I pass it up?Knotweed, more commonly known as Japanese knotweed, is literally a weed. It is in fact an invasive species in areas where it grows, and most of the literature about it has to do with how to get rid of it. It was the Japanese who decided to eat it to control its aggressive tendencies, but it is only worth eating for a few short weeks in the spring when it is short (6 inches tall or so) and tender. After that, it apparently more closely resembles bamboo, both in appearance and texture. Knotweed is hollow and has small nodes and leaves along the length of its shaft. The leaves are not edible and should be removed before eating. Knotweed is a member of the same family as sorrel, buckwheat and rhubarb.

It turns out that a pound was, well, too much knotweed. Yes, it is somewhat similar to celery but it is also incredibly tart, the kind of tart that makes your face get all knotted up. Maybe that's why it's called knotweed??! Imagine eating a stick of raw rhubarb as you would a piece of celery. That is knotweed. Well, with a bit more "weedy", dirty flavor. Knowing that rhubarb is great with a ton of sugar, I decided to treat it as I would rhubarb after our first use as a Bloody Mary stir stick proved to be too offensive for a Sunday morning. So I threw some into a pie with some strawberries and a bunch of sugar. The pie was delicious when eating the strawberries but the bites with knotweed just tasted like dirt. I'm sure the knotweed added to the overall texture and depth of flavor of the pie, but I guess there's a reason you don't find any knotweed pies at your local bakery; they would have to call it dirt-weed pie. Fortunately, it didn't ruin the rest of the fruit. I want to say that it would make a good chutney due to all of the acidity but I'm not willing to spend half of my Sunday making jars of something that may end up tasting like dirt.