Foraging for Field Garlic • Insteading - 2022世界杯四强亚盘赔率

Winter is long. Even if you have a well-stocked root cellar brimming with canned goods and root vegetables, by the time January and February roll around, most anything that was green is long, long gone. And if you’re like me, your eyes and palate might start yearning for that verdant, lively color to return.

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The first plants to start growing at the end of winter, then, are of special significance to any forager. They tell us that our seasons of gathering and savoring have returned, that the bleak, gray landscape isn’t dead — just waiting (and soon) to wake again.

For me, field garlic is that hope-filled plant. Its long, grassy leaves emerge well before the grass begins to regrow, and its bright, spicy flavor is a welcome, fresh taste for the seasonal eater.

Finding and Identifying Field Garlic

Allium vineale,sometimes called field garlic (orconfusingly calledwild onion, onion grass, crow garlic, or wild garlic) is a common plant found in much of the eastern United States and along the western coast. Since it easily hitches a ride in fill dirt, however, it can also be found in many places outside its normal range. It thrives in sunny areas and can be found in lawns, pastures, vacant plots, and parks. You’ll likely never find it in the forest or in really old fields succumbing to forest succession.

Of all the wild alliums — onion family plants — field garlic is certainly the most successful. It’s everywhere! Though it’s called “field” garlic and sure enough, is found in fields, it could easily be named “next to the path” garlic, or “I just weeded that lettuce, how is it there???” garlic. That tenacious growing tendency is a tip-off that this plant isa non-native invasive. We have several native alliums such asramps(Allium tricoccum)and similarly-named wild garlic (Allium canadense), and while they do sometimes make large colonies in their own right, they typically will not be found in a lawn or pasture.

In the early spring, garlic is often the first plant to appear green in what is likely an area of dried brown grasses. It may look like grass at first, but the earliest growth often has wonderland-like curlicues. And if you inspect a clump of it more closely, you’ll soon see that each leaf is a distinctive round, straw-like tube — not a flat blade-like grass. As with every member of the onion family, these leaves have a strong, distinctive oniony smell when broken.

The first spring leaves are the most tender. As the spring turns to summer, the plants will grow taller and straighter, usually reaching past your knees. By this point, they will be much tougher in texture. They produce an edible, pinkish flower that becomes a bizarre cluster of bulblets (complete with bitty leaves) once fertilized. It becomes so heavy that it drops back down to the ground and ends up planting a whole clump for next year — a key to field garlic’s wide-spreading success.

Beneath all that upper growth, there is a white bulb, usually firmly rooted, growing a few inches under the soil. It’s much, much smaller than any garlic bulb, and has a great flavor. Usually, when talking about wild bulbs, this is the part where I should caution you about overharvesting, and advocate for not removing bulbs. But since field garlic is invasive, and since harvesting the bulb often loosens tiny side-grown bulblets and leaves them behind to grow next year, there’s little chance you’ll eradicate field garlic when harvesting … even if you tried.

All the same, the leaves and roots pretty much have the same great, garlicky flavor. If you want to harvest sustainably — or if you are on someone else’s land and they don’t want you to dig — the leaves easily tear away from the deep-rooted bulbs without disturbing the roots.

相似人物:当心伯利恒之星!

Be aware of one significant lookalike.Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalumumbellatum) is a similar-looking spring flower that you need to know (as well as you know field garlic) before you begin your spring harvest. Every part ofOrnithogalumis toxic, and so it obviously shouldn’t make its way to your dinner table.

The glossy, green clumps of leaves emerge well before the attractive flowers that lend their name. It is also a rather invasive, early-emerging plant that likes the same sort of environment that field garlic enjoys. The problem is, it often grows side-by-side with field garlic, and without its distinctive white, starry blooms, it may be easy to overlook while gathering your early spring greens.

Here are three ways to distinguish Star-of-Bethlehem from field garlic. Be sure to use all three in tandem to harvest safely and confidently.

Smell: Star-of-Bethlehem notably lacks the onion smell of the allium family, which is one easy way to distinguish individual plants from each other. This, however, makes a strong case for not gathering indiscriminate handfuls when you are out in the field. It would be very easy for a fewOrnithogalum叶子隐藏在闻着洋葱味的田蒜叶之间。

Sight: The leaves ofOrnithogalumare solid blades with a u-shaped cross-section, and they’re full of a gooey sap — not hollow (like straws) as with field garlic.

Bulb: Field garlic leaves start out as dark green, then gradually fade to white as they join up with the bulb. Additionally, field garlic leaves are sheathed over each other.Ornithogalumleaves are the same bright green all the way down to the root, where they abruptly join with a white bulb. Additionally, the leaves do not sheathe one inside the other.

Harvesting Process and Tips

The entire field garlic plant, from stem tip to bulb-y root, is edible. If you want a simple harvesting endeavor, however, just grab the leaves. The green tops readily break from their bases and have the same spicy flavor the whole plant shares. The best time to harvest leaves is early in the spring when they’re still tender.

如果你想要更多的食物，而且不介意挖，你当然可以把整株植物都挖出来。它通常需要挖掘——至少在我住的地方，球茎很顽强地插在地里，只有在土壤松动的时候才能拔出来。我通常会用一把菜刀在整块菜叶上划一划，然后花点时间在周围晃一晃，然后再去拔。如果你拔得太快，叶子就会脱落，然后你就不得不在没有把手的情况下把球茎拔出来。鳞茎可以在一年中的任何时候挖掘，但在夏天，当地里的蒜叶变黄后，鳞茎就会最大。当你在地里挖大蒜的时候，一定要把洞填好。

Bulbs will usually be caked with mud, so give them a rinse in a bucket before you bring them inside the kitchen. I usually douse my haul in a bucket and give it a few good shakes in the water to loosen up any grit and rocks. Wash them again once you bring them inside, of course, but doing a field rinse like this is an easy way to keep the mud from dirtying your kitchen.

Field Garlic in the Kitchen

chopped-field-garlic — Cleaned and ready to be enjoyed

正如它的名字，田蒜尝起来非常蒜味!在我看来，它的味道更有青草味和黄油味，而且味道更强烈。在早春时节，这是一个美妙的变化，与我们一直吃的香醇的树根和面包不同。然而，田地里的大蒜本身就很有分量——把它当作调味品来考虑。你可以像使用香葱一样使用这些幼苗。它们加入了同样明亮的绿色活力和时髦的洋葱味。大蒜在汤、炖菜、煎蛋、意大利面以及任何你想要新鲜洋葱蒜味的地方都能大放异彩。我最喜欢的吃法是将整株茄子切成小块，sauté放入一汤匙黄油中，然后用美味的绿色斑点锅做煎蛋卷。如果你发现叶子已经变得太硬，不容易切割或咀嚼，它们仍然是一个很好的汤的调味品。Bundle thembouquet garnistyle and simmer away in your next broth.

You can eat the whole thing raw as well, and my favorite way to use it raw is to finely chop the tender spring plants and mix them with salt, pepper, and hot pepper flakes. Douse it in olive oil, and use it as a dip for fresh-baked bread.