Baked goods are back at the market! Fried pies, fresh bread, and jams and jellies will satisfy your sweet tooth. The season's first green onions and watercress put fresh greens back in your diet. After getting messy eating hot wings and barbecue, wash up with locally made goat milk soap. Pick up a couple dozen farm fresh, free range eggs for breakfast and superior baking. Get an early start to your garden and choose out some beautiful tomato plants. Come on out to the DeKalb Farmers' Market in Smithville behind Ace Hardware on Saturday morning and support your local producers.
One of the delights of spring for the forager is the return of color their wild meals. Violets in purple hues and even white, magenta redbuds, and yellow mustard flowers will add a stunning palette to the vibrant green watercress spilling out of running springs right now.
You can use the low growing violets currently blooming in a surprising number of ways. Pick and dry the flowers and young leaves on an old screen in a spot with good light and air circulation, then store in a jar in the fridge or a cool, dry place. Garnish deserts and salads with the dried flowers or make a hot tea with the leaves and flowers
Harvest violets with some of the stem still attached to use as a handle. While still very fresh, dip the flowers in egg whites, sprinkle with sugar, and let dry completely. Stored properly, they can keep for a long time and make a delightful decoration for special cakes and deserts.
Make a beautiful violet jelly with just a couple cups of flowers, lemon juice, sugar, water, and pectin. There are many recipes with good pictures on the internet.
The profusion of magenta flowers currently adorning the redbud trees are appreciated by bees and people alike. Use the tiny flowers in salads or just nibble them out of hand. They have a pleasant but mild flavor. I eat them as much for the fun of eating flowers as for the flavor.
Wild mustard is putting on a spring show right now. The cheerful yellow flowers lining rural roadways are also edible. If you find unopened buds, they are great raw or lightly cooked in stir-fry. If you'd like to see less mustard growing in a waste space, grab those buds and flowers, since eating them will prevent the plant from making seeds.
The same argument can be made for having a dandelion omelet for breakfast in the morning. Gather the young buds and a few newly opened flowers. After a good rinse and dry, saute the buds and flowers gently in butter or olive oil and then incorporate into your favorite omelet recipe.
Dandelion flowers can also be made into wine and even a unique golden jelly.
Any time you harvest wild foods, be cautious about the presence of livestock, use of chemicals, like herbicides and pesticides, and always respect property rights.
Foraging gets you out in the environment and connects you to the seasonal change of the landscape. Redbuds only bloom in the spring, so their magenta flowers are ephemeral delights. Much of our lives are spent staring at screens in chairs. You can't collect violets any way other than meandering around a grassy field, bent at the waist, hungrily examining the ground.
This is a beautiful and abundant place we live in. What better way to enjoy it than to immerse yourself in its wild bounty?