In Germany, cheese with stinging nettle is a thing and I remember eating it a few times as a child (Brennnesselkäse), typically Gouda-like types.
I grew up in Ukraine and stinging nettle soups were a popular part of our diet in the summers. It is delicious and I definitely don’t agree that it is bland. But I suspect a big part of it is what else you add to it. My suggestion is to look up “суп с крапивой” and use your favorite method of translating it to your language of choice to look at the variety of recipes.
The key is to add lots of onions and garlic and some butter to give it base flavor. The nettles give off great colour and a more subtle flavor and of course add more nutrients.
The real key though is stinging nettles just simply grow like crazy in your backyard (at least in Ireland) so it's a two birds with the one stone kind of deal, you're gardening as well as cooking. There is also the 'badass' feeling of eating something that previously was dangerous. The heat will denature any stingers in the soup.
As a kid is somewhat rural western washington our backyard bordered on a many acred wood and just beyond our backyard fence was just a huge tangle of blackberry and nettles. As kids we'd get our dads machetes and carve a path into the woods proper every spring and every few years our family and the families on either side would spend a day trying to eradicate the encroaching blackberries to no ultimate avail.
We never ate the nettles, just had 1000 remedies for stings, but we did eat a lot of blackberry jam, cobblers and pies.
I'm in western washington and some people (not me) do eat the nettles. The blackberries are of course, delicious and well used. Always a good idea to pick above waist height of dogs. ;)
You ate it in a hearty soup, likely made on pork bone broth, with a boiled egg, and sour cream added. It makes a lot of difference for culinary experience :) The other commenter probably just tried to add it to some rice, or as a "side green". On itself nettle is more or less like spinach, but with weaker taste
Axe head soup strikes again
I've always heard it as Stone Soup, but I presume it's the same thing.
I know it as Stone Porridge. These stories probably share an origin. https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type1548.html is sitting in my browser bookmarks, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup has some variations not listed on that page.
One of my all-time favorite stories.
My dear mother told me this story when I was just a boy. I was enchanted by the idea of this magical stone, too young to consider the clever trick the tramp was playing on the woman.
The sense of cooking being a magical endeavor has stayed with me ever since.
Hah I misinterpreted it a different way as a kid, for a long time I thought it was like a collective delusion where the shared experience of contributing insubstantial garnishes to a pot of water tricked everyone into finding it filling and enjoying it.
In Sweden it is "Koka soppa på en spik". "Make soup with a (iron) nail".
We also eat nettle soup with a boiled egg-half. I would not call it bland, it is just a dish that does not scream with its loudest voice in your face.
I'd also like to add that I'd consider it a delicacy. Because it is pretty much the first vegetable that you can harvest in spring. And you don't have to have a garden, you can just go out and pick it from anywhere.
I'm also from around there. Another very effective flavor enhancer for pretty much any soup or stew or chowder is cold smoked pork. Ribs, pancetta, sausages...
I remember it as borsch with nettle. Nettle was one of the first green things in the spring, just after snow melted. Nettle borsch was cooked just like the regular one but with nettle instead of cabbage.
Thank you for the correct google term to plug in! I do this all the time in Chinese, but have no idea where to start with other languages I don't speak.
I dunno man. A soup with “crap-ivoi”. Sounds sketchy.
Stinging nettles taste good. They have a long history of human consumption. They're in a family of plants (Urticaceae) containing no other common food crops, so they increase variety of diet, which to me seems like a good idea. The main drawback is the bad texture. The stinging hairs have an unpleasant furry texture even after you cook them (which stops them from stinging but does not remove them). This is why they're traditionally served blended or finely chopped in soups. If somebody could breed a version without the stinging hairs (not merely inactivating them) I think they would make a good commercial crop.
We eat some thistles, which have basically the same issue - see artichokes. Gotta boil them to deactivate the needles, though I have no idea how the thistle and nettle needles compare biologically. Anyways, I guess my point is that it shouldn't be too hard to get Americans to eat these.
Every time I go out for hotpot, I get as many greens as possible; I love boiling them down in a tasty broth and chowing down on an entire football field of vegetables, sometimes wrapped around a piece of meat. I could see adding them in here easily.
There are also a lot of dishes you can add a big handful of chopped, frozen spinach to for some additional nutrition. These would be another incredible option in scenarios like that.
Blending it down to add a more herby flavor to a puree, or to bulk up a pesto, or something along those lines could work well.
It’s not uncommon to eat nettles in the PNW! I knew people who would fold the leaves a specific way to break the stingers off so you could eat the leaves raw even.
You can scrape the needles off artichoke hearts, and you can buy them canned with the needles already removed. This isn't practical with stinging nettles.
I thought nettle stings were made of silica. Isn't that basically glass? How does water deactivate it?
On nettles, they're trichomes[1]. Probably somewhat similar to a skin tag? So it deactivates them by weakening the cell wall, just like when you cook the rest of the plant down.
>Both trichomes and root hairs [...] are lateral outgrowths of a single cell of the epidermal layer.
I would assume it denatures the chemicals the sting delivers
Oh yeah my polish grandmother (100 and still kicking!) cooked some. Tastes like spinach and was great.
Fun story (semi related) she visited us in the US in 2015 and my sister served her kale. She amusingly said: “I haven’t had this since ww2” apparently when food was scarce they grew kale which was easy to grow in Poland and packed with nutrients
Funnily enough around a decade ago or so it was fashionable in some circles in Poland to eat kale and it brought all kinds of ridicule from people questioning the plant's purported benefits.
A lot of the more recent examples of Polish cuisine are dishes originally invented out of poverty and made largely out of cheap ingredients and which now took a new form using stuff unheard of at the time because the real recipe is not to contemporary taste.
My favourite example of that would be cold cheesecake - originally made largely from cottage cheese, nowadays has mascarpone as the main ingredient.
Mascarpone! Hardly anyone knew what mascarpone even was in the 70s.
My family in Belarus used to make a soup with it. Exactly like spinach, maybe more fibery texture.
Yeah it's not as common here (Zurich) as the USA. Also, collard greens just don't seem to exist here.
"I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States but they just don't get the spices right."
Yes, my grandmother told me how the "Greek diet" was the one they ate while the Nazis tried to starve them out.
In my childhood in Greece, stinging nettle pie (τσουκνιδόπιτα), a dish much like spinach pie, was a traditional recipe often prepared by grandmothers. Today, younger generations may not even recognize stinging nettle, though it once held a valued place in our culinary heritage.
My Bosnian grandmother used to collect stinging nettles from our garden and make burek with it. I remember that it was even more delicious than her spinach burek.
Similarly in Romania, though it is not a pie, "Mancare de Urzici" some kidn of mash, young nettles are boiled, puréed and cooked into a sort of spinach-like mash. I remember my grandmother preparing this quite often during the warm months.
Sounds a lot like "Stoemp", from Belgium. Spinach and carrot are classic, but any veggie works. Funny how very similar dishes can be found across the world under different names.
Anyone that doesn't recognize stinging nettle soon will, after coming in contact with it.
same in Italy, it was common when I was younger my grandma made fritters with nettles, ground ham, breadcrumbs and eggs and we would eat them cold as a snack in the summer
I've tried various stinging nettle dishes. For me, they fall into the long list of things that are technically edible, but I see no reason why one would eat them today aside from cultural history/connection/tradition reasons. Every way I've tried them, they basically just taste like plant.
If you like it, great, but I think the value to those who don't have some pre-existing reason to be interested in the dish to be overstated. Similar plants in the category are miner's lettuce and dandelion greens.
If one has a great abundance of it, and one likes to spend time preparing ones own food, or if the idea of wild gathered plants has special appeal, then nettles (etc.) can indeed take the place (ish) of things like lettuce and spinach, but don't expect some dramatically unique experience.
You eat them because they are abundant and nutritious. I can't gather wild arugula where I live, but there is plenty of Nettles.
"just taste like plant" the same can be said of Matcha which tastes like eating grass.
>People think that when you become vegan you have to give up lots of food. It’s true that I stopped eating animals but the number of different species I eat has grown considerably. This is because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species of animals over and over again – pigs, cows, chickens. Whereas there are some 20,000 species of edible plants in the world.
I was vegetarian for 10 years until around COVID. I often want to go back to vegetarianism, not for ethical or health reasons, just for the sheer diversity of what I ate and the fun of cooking with limitations.
I can't see how using plants diversely in cooking implies having to go full vegetarian.
The term you're looking for is "creative constraint". Some people (I am one of them) need the constraint enforced more brutally in order for it to work at all.
Sure, I could develop a minimalistic game using the Unity engine – but I find it much easier when I'm using the Pico-8 fantasy console to force myself to do so.
Similarly, I could cook a varied vegetable meal any day of the week – but I find it much easier when I'm using vegetarianism to force myself to do so.
I have casually wondered what term to use to describe this phenomenon myself, and now I have it.
It’s why I like pixel art, chiptunes, polaroids, one-pot stews and modern video games for retro consoles among many other things. Sometimes I feel like this is why so many great artists come from restrictive religious backgrounds as well.
It's why chip tunes are so great. Different constraints force people to rethink basic assumptions.
That’s an interesting perspective, I found out something similar when travelling as a vegan.
The limitations put up forces you to go hunt for smaller, and sometimes fringe restaurants, located off the beaten path run by passionate people.
This is true. I’m not vegan or vegetarian, but I look for restaurants that cater to those audiences when traveling. It’s probably because they’re putting a lot more attention into the ingredients, which reflects as a more thoughtful end product.
We have a family policy when traveling to never eat anywhere we could frequent at home.
That's interesting. I tried vegetarianiam for a while and I found that it incredibly limiting and difficult.
I don't have the time to cook and ready-to-eat or frozen vegetarian meals just aren't a thing around here. I think if I went full veganism I'd starve.
As someone who became vegetarian after reading a Glenn Greenwald article I found on HN about how the pork industry does awful things and gets the government to prosecute people trying to expose it, the key I've found is to look to world cuisine.
Many cultures around the world have awesome food that's easily convertible to vegetarian or is vegetarian already, where meat might be a luxury.
Central America and the Caribbean have tons of dishes with rice, beans, plantains, and flavorful sauces with flatbreads. Or a million ways to prepare corn. West Africa has peanut stew that's amazing. Across the rest of the continent jollof rice and githeri are good solid bases for a meal. Misir wot is a spicy hearty lentil stew. North Africa has a rich vegetarian tradition of soups, stews, and rice dishes. In the middle east there's falafel, hummus, mujadara, shakshuka and about a million ways to combine spices, onions, tomatoes, flatbreads, etc. South Asia obviously has a massive vegetarian cultural tradition, as does Southeast and East Asia.
When I started, I found it hard. I kept thinking "beans and rice... I guess?" Once I started going, "ok, I'm going to pick a small region of the world and see what they eat there and try it" I had WAY more success. The first time I made tteok-bokki or sushi or vareniki I suddenly realized just how much of the world is really already preparing vegetarian meals for many of their meals.
In the quote it sounds like they're conflating veganism and vegetarianism.
Nettle omelet
it's doubly perplexing since they cite stinging nettle risotto, a dish that started out as non vegan, and was born out of a community of meat eaters.
Apparently some of the nettle family have edible berries.
Jared Rydelek's channel is about eating exotic fruits. It's a bit long winded but pretty neat to see the unusual fruits from around the world.
A recent video has him eating a berry from the Gympie gympie/stinging tree/Dendrocnide moroides from the nettle family.
I know I'm subscribed to the right channels when I come to HN to post a (rather obscure) YT link and someone's beaten me to it!
I've been watching weird explorer for years and I had never considered I didn't know his name. I had _no_ idea he's caled Jared Rydelek!
His videos are incredibly interesting and fascinating
> This is because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species of animals over and over again – pigs, cows, chickens.
Tangential, but this is one of the things I like about eating fish. There are so many species you can eat, some of which you can only find in certain regions or have to catch yourself. My list of aquatic animals I've eaten has 47 entries on it and I've surely missed some because it's often hard to tell exactly what species you're getting at a restaurant. I'm always excited to add more to the list.
Some less common ones I've had are sickle pomfret ("monchong") and moonfish ("opah") from a fish market in Hawaii, cobia from a fishing trip in Florida, and many perch and bluegill that I've caught myself.
I've had them. They're fine. But this is overselling the variety angle. The meat eater equivalence of forage like this would be game animals. In my experience and extrapolating, the taste difference between game and farm animals is generally greater than among the green vegetables.
Not sure I agree, I think there's as much difference between spinach, leek, fennel and Brussels sprouts as between beef and deer and that's without foraging into fancy vegetables...
Of those four, only really spinach would be considered "greens" I think.
Ah interesting, I thought greens were all green vegetables. It's a bit of a moot point though, since the blog post is about edible plants in general.
Sure, but spinach, kale, mustard greens, chard, and arugula are all pretty wildly different. With different textures, flavors, and other things going on.
Blanched as a pizza topping is one of the ways we like to eat them.
I'd disagree that they're bland. Are they more towards the bland end of the scale than mustard greens or something, sure, but they're definitely not tasteless.
I love them in pizza, I don't think we even blanche them, cook them Napolitan-style on a very hot oven quickly. Definitely tasty.
Also works as a pesto ingredient
Relatively common in Finland to use young nettles like you’d use spinach in hot dishes (soup, blanched, pancakes).
> pancakes
Is this a frittata-style baked pancake? I've made rye pannukakku from the family cookbook here in the US Midwest but never seen any Finnish pancake with spinach or nettle.
Stinging nettles are often touted as free abundant superfood, but the truth is it is rather bland and boring. Yes, edible, but you would be better of grabbing some established greens from a local grocery store.
Are other greens really much more tasty? Either way, many superfoods are not eaten solo - you can mix with basil for a lovely pesto for example, or simply add some nettle to your normal stew/soup for added nutrients.
I have nettle tea every morning and now thinking about the standard black tea, I see that as "bland/boring". I admit it didn't appeal at first, but now I love the earthy taste, so maybe it's slightly acquired taste?
I've always liked nettle tea, but perhaps that's because I grew up with it. I also "invented" catnip tea. Yes, I know, everybody knows about catnip tea. But as I kid I didn't, and I noticed that catnip and nettles often were growing together wild on our farm. I suspected the catnip had evolved to hide in the nettles, because it looks very similar to it. Don't know if that's true or if it was just because they liked similar conditions. But, since I was often taking the nettles for tea, I figured I'd try the catnip. It was good.
Interesting - never tried catnip tea, so if I see some, i'll give it a try!
> superfood
Most superfoods are what we ate when we were poor growing up. Nettles, collards, mustard greens, kale...
My opinion, the word superfood, gets people to pay a premium for cheap and easily commercially grown plants.
That's awesome they gave you greens. All I seemed to get were bricks of moldy cheese, dried milk and occasional bread and mayo sandwiches.
> bricks of moldy cheese
That's the good stuff!?
Tell me you had a single mother who got WIC without telling me directly.
funny, did you come up with that one yourself?
They were actually correct, though. I thought it was funny. There were a lot of us back in the day especially in the rust belt.
Honest question, what was your intent with your reply?
Kale has entered the chat.
As a cyclist occasionally brushing against stinging nettles when the city can’t clear them fast enough after a growth season, I do applaud everyone picking and eating as much as they can carry :)
In Eastern European countryside a hundred years ago, nettles used to be the last resort in early spring when winter supplies were growing thin, and anything growing and not poisonous would be cooked. Sure, they have some nutritional value, but there are reasons why they're not really eaten nowadays...
I thinks is mostly a matter of effort, not just taste. I'm Italian and my grandma used to forage dozens of wild plants, some very tasty (not nettles, I'd agree), and I still forage a few.
But it takes a morning to have the equivalent of 5 minutes in the vegetable isle of the supermarket.
Young ones can readily replace spinach
This is not clarified on the blog, and is an important point. The mature plant is not tender or tasty.
Yeah, these are usually only eaten right around Easter.
And right before morel mushrooms are harvested.
In the Netherlands it's quite common to eat stinging nettle cheese. It's quite tasty. Fenugreek is another crowd favourite.
Over here (England) we have Cornish Yarg that is cheese wrapped in nettles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_Yarg
Apparently it's possible to make nettle rennet for coagulating milk into cheese, though it's not recommended for making aged cheeses.
Back in the early '80s we ate a lot of English nettle cheese that we bought in the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta. It was delicious. I've watched but never found it in the US since.
It looked like this: https://www.northumberlandcheese.co.uk/nettle-cheese
Wasn't expensive.
I live about five minutes by car from that shop. Weird when that happens on HN.
My mom likes stinging nettle soup, she used to make it occasionally when I was a child. I didn’t like it back then, no idea if I would like it now.
I also use it for tea regularly in Spring/Summer. Once they're seeding I use the seeds for tea. If I have enough time to collect them I'll store the seeds for a garnish over winter.
For those reading this and wanting to pick nettle, it is important to pick young leaves, and not from plants that are in flower.
Once the leaves are older, there are all sorts of oxalates, and you should really avoid them if you are sensitive to kidney stones.
These plants also absorb pollution very effectively, so keep in mind where you pick them from.
>Once the leaves are older, there are all sorts of oxalates, and you should really avoid them if you are sensitive to kidney stones.
I've heard this before but I've never seen reliable evidence for it. I searched PubMed for "Urtica dioica oxalate" and found this study:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23009884/
The full text is paywalled, but from the abstract:
"Four examples of typical wild edible plants were evaluated (stinging nettle, sorrel, chickweed and common lambsquarters), and based on substantial equivalence with known food plants the majority of the bioactive components reported were within the range experienced when eating or drinking typical food stuffs. For most compounds the hazards could be evaluated as minor. The only precaution found was for common lambsquarters because of its presumed high level of oxalic acid."
There are also several animal studies suggesting a potential protective effect of stinging nettles against kidney stone.
Oxalic acid is a component of the toxin injected by the stinging hairs, but this is removed by cooking.
It's possible that there's confusion because older stinging nettle leaves grow cystoliths (hard mineral deposits in the leaves). Cystoliths are usually calcium carbonate. I'm not aware of any plant that produces oxalate salt cystoliths. If anybody has some hard evidence for the composition of stinging nettle cystoliths I'd like to see it, even though I personally only pick stinging nettles when they're in season and the leaves are still young.
Nettles & fresh jalapeño salad with mayo-miso dressing is one of my favorite inventions.
> "nutritious source of iron, calcium, potassium, and silica"
Hold up, is silica (SiO₂) supposed to be a nutrient? That's a striking sentence.
Yes, silica deficiency may cause bone deformities.
I think it's also involved in collagen formation? There is an herb (horsetail herb) that allegedly helps with bone remineralization/regrowth as well as hair/skin/nail growth and it is loaded with silica. (Beware it also contains thiaminase, which can deplete vitamin B1. Some supplements contain B1 to compensate but it is mostly taken as a tea).
In the spring I get nettles and wild garlic and a bit later elderflower. Summer is berries (including elderberries), plums, wild cherries (not as good as they sound). Fall is wild mushrooms and sloe and monkey butt fruit and persimmons, apple, pear, etc. Winter is drinking elderflower vodka and sloe gin and eating frozen and dried stuff from the rest of the year. I'm sure I'm forgetting things.
Foraging is definitely a fun hobby, and not limited to vegetarians/vegans.
I haven't tried nettles yet, mostly because people say it's bland and there's so much else to choose from. In particular, nettle season is also meadowsweet season, and that is incredibly good. It's in the same taste family as vanilla, almond and cinnamon but it's its own unique thing.
No dandelion? I can't recommend it enough.
About every part is edible too: new leaves are sweet, old leaves are bitter, buds can be pickled, roots you can make teas and coffee substitute.
A few related plants are also good (e.g. wild chicory), and it's one of the easiest plants to identify.
There is also ‘nettle beer’, dunno if my batch failed but it was undrinkable
My batches turn out excellent. Some tips, if you'd like to try again:
- Harvest the younger leaves, remove the stems.
- Harvest before they go to seed, or remove all seeds.
- Make a tea from the leaves by soaking in hot water. Do not let the water boil or simmer with the leaves!
- Add a healthy portion of lemon juice. I'll use 1/2 to 1 cup for a 20L batch.
- Use brewing sugar, or invert your sugar.
- Choose a yeast that doesn't impart too much of its own flavour (I like ale yeasts, like for ciders).
For me, the choice of yeast was key.Nettle tea's nice, from what I remember. Use the young tips of the plants.
Thirding. Extremely wholesome and warming. I need to get some more of that it has been a while.
I can second this, add just a tiny bit sugar and it is delicious
It can help improve Testosterone processing. If you are showing male pattern hair thinning try a Stinging Nettle Extract, and get a medical workup.
Animal research reveals that this powerful plant may prevent the conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone — a more powerful form of testosterone (12Trusted Source).
Stopping this conversion can help reduce prostate size.
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stinging-nettle#TOC_TIT...
A link to the relevant paper: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21806658/ [Ameliorative effects of stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on testosterone-induced prostatic hyperplasia in rats]
100% thought this would be about eating jellyfish (which I'm completely on board with because they've stung me upwards of a dozen times and that old Klingon proverb that says that revenge, much like jellyfish, is a dish best served cold).
Apropos of stinging plants though both of my parents are supposedly very allergic to poison ivy. I maintained an immunity to it until I was around 27-28 when it began to affect me very slightly. Now if I graze it I can get away without ill effects merely by washing the urushiol off with dish soap within a half hour or so. I've heard of gardeners and outdoorspeople eating it in small quantities to maintain their resistance to it. While I'm not particularly keen to try this there is something poetic about it.
I have severe food allergies and have used desensitization to expand what I can eat. It can take months and occasionally backfires, but it works.
Subsequent exposure to poison ivy definitely increases, not decreases, the reaction, at least in my family's genes.
My dad got exposed a few times in a row and had to stop eating cashews (same plant family) for awhile.
> eating it in small quantities
Risking your throat closing up seems Darwinian.
People don't usually have an Epipen within reach?
Eh, jellyfish isn't really any good. For the money, there's many better things to eat. I should admit I've only had it the once, but that's enough for me.
Random fact:
You only get stung by nettles around the edge of their leaves. You can touch the middle of the leaf and you won't get stung.
Another thing my dad demonstrated to me a few weeks ago: you can grab a nettle by the base, move your hand upward, and as the nettle is sliding through your closed hand, it won't sting at all. This is because the sting cells are oriented perpendicular to the surface of the plant (or pointed slightly upward) so their pointy end doesn't come in contact with the skin at an angle where it would penetrate the skin.
Queen Anne’s lace is sort of the same way. When I grab it to pull it, I do it fingertips first, then roll my fingers and palms down onto the stalk which flattens the hairs due to the angle.
Works on a few types of thistle with small thorns but a stick works better.
The grippy skin on your hands is also often thick enough on its own to protect you, especially when callused, same for bare feet (so you can pinch them without getting stung).
The problem is all the thin skin (ankles, wrists, lower leg/arm) that you are very likely to graze them with.
is this a trap :D
If you live by nettle you’ll should learn to identify plantago (plantain) and yarrow. Both are used for herbal poultices and grow in the same biomes. Grab one, bruise it a bit and rub it on the insulted area.
their stalks also sting
I can testify that steamed stingy nettles with gomasio (toasted sesame seeds and salt) is very delicious.
There's a restaurant in Sarajevo which specializes in this stuff, called The Singing Nettle. Recommended.
I first tried nettle soup in Bulgaria. So delicious. FYI you can replace spinach with nettle in almost any recipe and vise versa.
The most appealing vegetable foraging to me has been Japanese these fiddle-leaf looking things, also these tree nubs that is like asparagus and a huge strawberry leaf that gets deep fried
Fiddleheads? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead
yeah that's right, the asparagus I was thinking of is called bracken
I gotta find this guy's videos I follow he's actually Japanese/lives in the woods
Milarepa's skin and hair supposedly turned green from living on nettles for a while while meditating in retreat.
https://buddhaweekly.com/milarepa-explains-happiness-story-n...
I enjoyed the humorous back and forth in the middle. “What about meat?” “Nettles” “Grain?” “Nettles” “Seasoning?” “Also nettles.”
Just make sure not to pick them from fertilized ground (like garden beds) as they may have high levels of nitrites (?).
Pick them from wild areas
Milarepa (famous Indian saint) lived on nettle soup for a while (while living in a cave and such). Turned him green. Neighbors were freaked out.
Great way to 'other' a group of folks who don't tend to stick to an all veggie diet. It wasn't enough just to say you can eat nettles and they're ok, but they had to take a dump on meat eating while they're at it
They were common in the mountains of Southern California. In Scouts, we would eat them, make twine, and even use them for toilet paper :D
I grow stinging nettles. I used to just steam them for 10 or so minutes. Then they're a normal green. Can mix with eggs, eat plain on the side, add some salt.
Pretty good stuff.
If you do grow them, make sure you situate them in a corner of the yard--no fun to get stung.
I'm curious why they are beneficial for rheumatoid arthritis diseases and how to prepare them for that purpose.
My grandma used to make stinging nettle soup a lot (I think a Swedish thing) - it tasted great, mostly like spinach and vegetable stock! Always feel nostalgic whenever I see it anywhere.
I confirm, it’s good! I’m from a northern region of Italy where you can even find risotto with ortiche (stinging nettles) in restaurants.
My neighbor uses the stinging nettles out of my yard to make an amazing risotto. Every spring there’s a part of my yard that gets covered with them.
We used to have nettle salad as a kid. IIRC if you cut them fine enough, they stop stinging or something like that. Can’t quite remember, so maybe DYOR before you make a salad ;)
My godfather’s wife made this. They were from Waloonia.
I was surprised the first time I saw her making it but it was creamy, tasty.
My mom made soup from them when I grew up. They are not particularly special taste-wise but I can believe they have vitamins, like every green.
Ate a lot of nettle soup growing up. I'd say it tastes a lot like spinach. It's also nice to put a little milk (sorry vegans)
No need to apologise, oat/almond milk very easily available (or made in a blender as I do!)
Why the hate on the alcachofas?
> People think that when you become vegan you have to give up lots of food
Well, that’s kind of the point no? You do.
I think they mean people imagine you’d give up on variety of food.
Which you also do… if we’re really being honest about it.
They make a nice tea.
Agreed. I can only get dried nettle leaf tea here, although seems to be going out of fashion, same with Ginkgo.
I got spoilt for teas when I was contracting in Germany. Nettle was very common along with some other traditional teas, including one that was good for flu/fever that I can never remember.
The loose leaves are for sale at my food co-op, but many years I go out and harvest them from nettles I see on the roadsides.
Stinging nettles are quite popular in Romania. We make a puree and we eat them with eggs and polenta.
See also the Nettle Eating World Championships; no boiling allowed there though. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6152l8z20o
2018
Is Dock Leaf soup good?
Stinging nettles are probably my favorite condiment, you sure don't need to be vegan to appreciate them
When people mention nettles, they also mention dandelions too. Both are good sources of nutrients
As an aside, dandelion and burdock may very well be the best soda in the world, so delicious, and sadly quite difficult to source outside of the UK.
Possibly worth trying root beer (sassafras) or sarsaparilla if you go to the USA. Not quite the same, but similar in flavour.
Ha, you know me well random stranger. :) Root beer is tied with dandelion and burdock as my fav soda.