Some foods simply beg to be eaten. Take peaches, for instance. The scent of a ripe peach is pure ambrosia. The pungent smell of tomatoes ripened on the vine and warm from the sun is irresistible. Chocolate’s rich bouquet is almost sexy. And the aroma of a Sunday roast sparks appetites the whole time it’s cooking.
Certain other foods don’t have a real come-hitherness about them. The bold souls who first slurped raw oysters and nibbled artichoke leaves should be awarded culinary medals of honor. Our forebears were daring experimenters in the cooking department, but times were tough, and food was often in short supply. Therein lies the answer to early culinary creativity. If a substance wasn’t deadly, it went into the stew pot.
The nettle is a prime example of ancient Irish ingenuity with extremely odd ingredients. In the field, nettles grow in two-foot-tall tangled masses with nasty thorns and stickers on every surface. One grazing touch of the tiniest leaf will cause skin to burn as if it were on fire. It’s simply amazing that anyone would ever consider eating such a forbidding plant.
My first encounter with nettles took place at sunset one April evening in the elegant dining room of Arbutus Lodge on a hill overlooking Cork City. Nettle soup was on the menu, and as I am always on the hunt for a new taste sensation, I ordered a bowl. It was delicious and unlike anything I had ever sampled — vividly green with a fresh spring flavor somewhere between earthy spinach and tart sorrel.
Having no idea what a nettle looked like, I asked if any uncooked leaves were in the kitchen. A waitress brought one out, cradled in a thick white napkin. Thinking the presentation was merely another example of Arbutus elegance, I picked the leaf up to examine its prickly surface. The server hurriedly cautioned me not to touch it, but I had moved too fast to be saved by her advice. My fingers began to sting immediately, and I dropped the leaf like a hot potato.
The poor girl was mortified, and assured me the sensation would pass in a few hours. She explained that the folk remedy for a nettle sting is to rub it with a dock leaf, a plant that Mother Nature almost always places conveniently within a few feet of the nettle. Then she added that the remedy works best if one simultaneously intones an old Gaelic chant: “Neanntog a thoit me, biolar sraide leighis me” — meaning “nettle has burned me, a dock leaf will cure me.” Unfortunately, there were no dock leaves lying about the pantry since the kitchen staff knows very well never to handle nettle leaves without wearing gloves. Thus began my Irish wild foods education.
Nettles have been eaten in Ireland for about 6,000 years. Researchers believe they made their first appearance when Neolithic farmers began clearing forests to sow crops. As one of the first plants to appear in spring, people believed that soup made with tender new nettle leaves would purify the blood. It was traditionally eaten three times during the month of April to ward off sickness for the rest of the year. Like many other foods with ancient roots, modern science has proved that nettles truly are rich in vitamins and trace minerals. Nettle soup was thus an excellent spring tonic for people who didn’t have easy access to fresh vegetables during the barren winter months.
Nettle leaves were also employed as medicine. Nettle tea, made by pouring scalding water over young leaves, then boiling them for fifteen minutes and stirring the strained tea into milk and sugar, was taken as a cure for shingles or given to children with measles. Poultices made from chopped leaves were used to treat all manner of sores and swellings. In those cases, it seems that the cure might have been even more unpleasant than the cause.
One of the oldest references to nettles is found in the Lismore Lives of the Saints. A story about Saint Colmcille has it that one day while out walking he chanced upon an old woman cutting nettles. When asked how she would use the leaves, the woman explained that she had no milk because she was waiting for her cow to calve and until that time she would live on nettle soup. Impressed that the woman could exist on such meager fare as she waited for the uncertain birth of a healthy calf while he ate much better waiting for the guaranteed reward of heaven, the saint vowed thenceforth never to consume else but nettle broth. Time went on and Colmcille remained in such fine health despite his austere diet that he began to suspect his cook was slipping other ingredients into the soup. On questioning, the servant replied, “I know nothing that goes in your pottage unless it could come out of the iron pot or out of the potstick.” Colmcille then examined the cooking implements and discovered his concerned cook had hollowed out the stirring stick and was using it as a funnel to pour milk into the soup.
Another ancient green still found growing wild is charlock or praiseach bhui. Commonly known as the weed of cornland, it is a member of the cabbage family; however there the similarity ends. Like nettles, charlock is also approximately two feet tall, but it has a much less irritating personality. Reputed to taste like kale when cooked, in the twelfth-century poem “The Vision of MacConglinne,” it is described as `the priest’s fancy, juicy kale,’ a metaphor that could refer to the plant’s showy yellow flowers. Charlock is found in Britain as well, where it is commonly known as `wild mustard’ though it bears no resemblance whatsoever to our own Texas mustard greens.
Both charlock and nettles were mentioned frequently in eighteenth and nineteenth-century writings as food for the poor and food consumed during famine periods or during seasons when other vegetables were in scarce supply. Charlock is hardly ever eaten these days, but nettles now grace the menus of Ireland’s finest restaurants. Just one more reminder that as time passes, things change. Sláinte!
Recipes
Spring Soup
Note: Spring soup makes a fine Lenten lunch dish served with a poached egg floating in it, sprinkled overall with grated cheese.
1 large head of lettuce
1 bunch of watercress
1 bunch sorrel (nettles if available, but spinach makes a good replacement)
10 spring onions
2 ounces butter
1 pint stock
1 pint milk
1 tablespoon cornstarch dissolved in
2 tablespoons milk
salt and pepper
1 pinch of nutmeg
1 teaspoon sugar
4 thin slices of toasted bread
1/2 cup chopped parsley or chives
Wash the greens very well and peel the onions. Then chop them all up finely. Heat the butter in a medium saucepan and soften the greens in it for about 5 minutes. Add the stock and the milk. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer gently for about 10 minutes. Add the cornstarch mixture and stir until the soup boils, then simmer for another 10 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, nutmeg and sugar. Cut the toasted bread into thin strips, place them in soup bowls and scatter the strips with parsley or chives. Pour the hot soup over all and serve immediately. Makes 4 servings.
– Irish Traditional Food by Theorodra Fitzgibbons.
Nettle Soup
1 tablespoon butter
1 ounce flake oatmeal
4 cups chopped nettle tops
1 chopped onion
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups stock
1 tablespoon chopped parsley
2/3 cup cream
salt and pepper
Put the butter, milk and stock in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir in the oatmeal and return to a boil. Add the nettles, cover and simmer for about 45 minutes. Add the parsley and cook 3 minutes more. Stir in the cream. Put the soup in a blender and pulse until everything is well blended. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately in warmed bowls. Makes 4 servings.
– Irish Country Recipes by Ann & Sarah Gomar
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the April / May 1999 issue of Irish America. ⬥
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