My obsession with recipes and cooking began on a warm spring afternoon when I was about eight years old. Mom was still at work and wouldn’t return for at least another two hours. I was alone, bored, and itching for some kind of adventure.
We lived in a suburb of Minneapolis in a cracker box house on a dirt road lined with other cracker box houses. We kept our spacious backyard mowed and weeded, but beyond the property’s rear boundary lay a verdant meadow, as yet untouched by voracious developers. In this early spring the meadow was already alive with green plants, grasses, and budding wildflowers. Perhaps some of them were good to eat.
Although I was curious about cooking and had asked repeatedly to try it or at least help out in the kitchen (other than drying dishes), Mom always refused.
I took an old aluminum pot from the kitchen cupboard and a pair of scissors and ventured to the far edge of the backyard. There I found a green tangle of leafy plants and a few wildflowers about to burst into bloom. I knew nothing about the plants – just that they were pretty. I wondered what they would taste like if I cooked them. After stuffing the small pot with cuttings, I returned to the house.
Placing the pot on the stove, I added a little water and stirred. Then, in a flash of inspiration, I reached into the cupboard over the kitchen counter and pulled out a bottle of Tabasco. Mom had made it clear to me that Tabasco was strictly for adults. I had seen her use it, and thought it must be very special, like other things that sat in back of the dark cabinet – brandy, gin, and whiskey – that were forbidden to children. Of course, turning on the stove in her absence was also forbidden. I’m sure that made my experiment seem all the more delicious. Then I unloaded about ¼ cup of Tabasco on the pot’s contents, stirred it in with a wooden spoon, set the pot on the burner, and turned on the heat.
After about ten minutes, I saw that what had once been a potpourri of bright green leaves and tight yellow buds was now reduced to black mush. As I leaned over the pot for a whiff, the bitter-smelling mixture made my eyes sting. I turned off the heat, and at that moment, Mom walked through the door. She was early! Seeing what I had done, she turned toward me, furious. It was a long time before I was allowed to unleash my creative talents in the kitchen again.
Did my early cooking fiasco have anything to do with recipe magic? Of course not. I didn’t have a recipe, a formula to guide my actions. I just threw ingredients with unknown properties together, added a bit of liquid, and heated them. The basic process was there, but the result was disastrous. Good, even acceptable results, take knowledge and discipline, and I had neither.
Mom wasn’t interested in teaching me how to cook. All I had to go on was that I had watched while she put ingredients in a pan, added flavorings, and applied heat. So that’s what I did.
A cook without a recipe, either in the mind’s eye or on paper, is like a ship without a rudder. That was me on the day of my first cooking adventure, so I inevitably veered off course and ran aground. After that I gave up foraging and got interested in recipes.
Foraging is back in vogue after a long dormancy. Euell Gibbons’ Stalking the Wild Asparagus and other titles spurred a huge uptick in the popularity of foraging in the 1960s and 70s. Now, with concerns about the inroads of big agribusiness, people are once again interested in wild foods. Books, classes, and Internet resources abound. With even a little knowledge, here’s what I could have come up with on that day long ago. It’s kid-friendly and it doesn’t need cooking!
Dandelions, the scourge of green lawn aficionados, sprout up almost everywhere in early spring. The greens should be picked very young, well before stems appear. As the plant grows, the leaves become increasingly bitter. They may even taste bitter when young. Nevertheless, dandelion greens are packed with vitamins and minerals, making them a worthwhile addition to spring salads.
Salad of Dandelion Greens with Raisins and Honey-Roasted Peanuts
½ cup very young dandelion greens
2 cups torn green leaf lettuce
2 T. dark raisins
2 T. honey-roasted peanuts
1 heaping tsp. grated orange peel
Simple Vinaigrette
2 T. fruity olive oil
1 T. red wine vinegar
½-1 tsp. sugar
salt and pepper to taste
1) First, taste one of the dandelion leaves. If it seems too bitter, you’ll want to add sugar to the dressing.
2) Combine the first five ingredients in a small bowl.
3) Whisk together the oil, vinegar, sugar (if using) and salt and pepper to taste.
4) Pour the vinaigrette over the salad and toss. Or substitute another dressing if you prefer.
5) If you and your family are fans of bitter greens, substitute more dandelion greens for part of the green leaf lettuce.
Sasha's Recipe Magic 