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You don't have to be trying to eke out a meal in the wild in order to enjoy eating plants from Florida's woods, fields and swamps. You can try them anytime for a different taste.
When using wild plants make sure they have not been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides and make sure you have correctly identified the plant you plan to eat. Cooking With Wild Florida Plants
Ingredients: Pine Tea
A handful of pine needles
A cup of boiling water
Pick tender, green pine needles from the tip of a pine tree branch. Break the needles into a cup of boiling water and let them steep for about 5 minutes. The tea will be stronger with more needles and a longer steeping time. Experiment with the taste that pleases you best. Add some honey and lemon or orange slices, or you can try it plain. The tea contains lots of vitamin C.
Ingredients:Lamb's Quarters
(Also called Pigweed and Wild Spinach)
1 cup of young leaves per serving
Butter, salt, pepper to taste
Water
Wash the leaves and stems, but cut off the roots. Chop them or leave them whole. Put them in a pot and just cover with water. Bring them to a boil and cook until the leaves are tender. Drain. Serve with butter, salt, and pepper.
You can also use Lamb's Quarters in salads.
The leaves have much vitamin A and C.
Prickly pears are the fruit of a cactus that grows all over Florida. The pears are purplish/green and have stickers on them. Handle them carefully. The stickers are very fine and get into your hands and are difficult to remove.
Ingredients:Prickly Pear Jelly
31/2 cups juice of prickly pears.
71/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 bottle Certo (liquid pectin)
Place the whole, washed pears into a large pot. Pierce each fruit several times with a knife. Barely cover with water and cook for a few minutes. Strain the juice through several layers of cheesecloth to remove the stickers.
Boil the juice, sugar and lemon juice stirring constantly. Stir in the Certo and boil hard for one minute. Stir constantly. Remove from the heat and pour into jars and seal. The jelly will be lovely reddish-purple.
Don't get stuck by the sharp points when you pick the flowers. Be sure to pull out the center part of the flower (ovary) since it has a bitter taste.
Ingredients:
Yucca blossoms can also be dipped in batter and fried.
Bake the Yucca fruit in foil for abaout 30 minutes and serve with butter, salt and pepper. Remove the hard seeds.Yucca (or Spanish Bayonette) Flower Salad
3 cups washed Yucca petals
About 2 cups fresh lettuce
1 small diced cucumber
1 small onion, chopped
Stir together in a large bowl and garnish with your favorite dressing.
Information from Wild Edibles Identification for Living off the Land< by Marian Van Atta, Published by Palm and Pine Press, Melbourne, FL, 1985.
