Rediscover the Garden’s Treasures : Horticulture: Enthusiasts are relearning what is edible among plants.
A decade ago when I harvested my garden for the family meal, I would come to the kitchen with a basket of pea pods, carrot roots, onion bulbs or broccoli heads. Occasionally my basket included baby lettuce or beets after I had thinned their beds, but as a rule my basket looked quite conventional--as if it came from the produce market.
In the last few years, though, a veil has been lifted from my garden and I now behold treasures I long overlooked. Nowadays, my basket is apt to include the usual vegetables but, in addition, it often includes a few pea tendrils or pea blossoms for a salad, young broccoli leaves or even ferny carrot tops to use in my soups and radish blossoms for garnishing.
Why was it for years I had composted these treasures? And how and why had I and my garden changed so much throughout the years?
Like most Americans brought up in the last 50 years, I knew little about what parts of most plants were edible. I enjoyed the produce from the store and garden, and assumed the usual vegetable harvest was all my garden plants had to offer. When the grocery clerk offered to take the tops off my carrots I assumed no one ate them and composted my own garden’s carrot tops as well. When the seed catalogues mentioned the virtues of only the broccoli heads or mustard leaves, I surmised their flowers were not edible and pulled the plants out when they started to bolt.
Somehow, I figured, the produce managers and seed companies had chosen the best parts of the plants and the rest of the plants were either not very tasty or maybe even poisonous.
Throughout the last four or five years my research for a book on vegetable gardening yielded an unexpected bonus--a new view of the potential of the vegetable garden, as gardeners and chefs told me about first one, then another unusual part of an edible plant.
I first remember being amazed when some Laotian gardeners showed me a basket of tender shoots from their pumpkin vines that they were going to use in a stir-fry. Later, I spoke with an Italian gardener who served me delicious fritters from squash blossoms. Next, a restaurant gardener mentioned that when the leaves of her arugula got too pungent, she harvested the flowers.
Eventually, as my awareness developed further, I became fascinated and began to routinely ask all gardeners and cooks about what parts of the plant they ate and how they prepared them. And I never stopped being surprised when another familiar plant yielded yet one more new edible.
An interview with Oriental cooking school chef and author Ken Hom revealed that the emperors of China savored a delicate stir-fry made with pea tendrils and ginger shoots. Chef Tom McCombie spoke of French cooks having long used tender carrot greens in a cream soup, and Chez Panisse chef Paul Bertolli had glowing praise for cooking with immature green garlic shoots.
Other chefs used chive and onion blossom florets in soups, salads and dips. Native Americans have for eons enjoyed immature pumpkins and winter squash in stews, and Thai cooks seek out the roots of the coriander plant to give many of their traditional dishes their characteristic flavor.
I’m sure not all the edible parts of plants have yet been discovered. For instance, I’ve not yet found documentation but I’ve been told some types of pepper leaves are used in Mexico for seasoning. I also want to know what species of strawberry leaves are used for herb tea. Obviously care must be taken not to sample any plant or part of one without research--some, like potato and rhubarb leaves, are poisonous. But clearly, more treasures await in the average home garden.
The following list of edible plants point out the parts of common vegetable plants that are edible and ways to prepare them. For the parts of the plants with which we are most familiar, there are no preparation suggestions. Again, remember some vegetable plant parts are poisonous so eat only those listed.
EDIBLE PARTS OF VEGETABLE PLANTS
Beans, runner: Flowers, young pods, seeds. The red, white or orange flowers of runner beans are slightly sweet and “beany” and can be floated over a cream soup or used in salads.
Broccoli and cauliflower: Young leaves, broccoli stems, flower buds, flowers. The young leaves of broccoli are tasty in soups and omelets, the stems can be peeled and used in any dish calling for broccoli, and the flowers can be used in salads and as a garnish.
Cabbage and Brussels sprouts: Leaves, flowers. The bright-yellow flowers of these vegetables are attractive floated on soups and placed in salads.
Carrots: Tender leaves and roots. A wonderful cream soup can be made with the pureed roots and tender young greens. Use the leaves for a garnish as well.
Chard: Thinnings, stems, leaves. The thinnings (young plants that must be removed to prevent crowding) of chard are especially nice in a salad or steamed as a delicate green.
Corn: Young ears. If you fear the corn season will be shortened by an early frost, young cobs only three or four inches long can be shucked and used in pickles or in Chinese stir-fry dishes.
Fennel: Stalks, leaves, flowers, seeds. Fennel plants can be utilized from the seedling stage to full maturity. When thinning seedlings, the young plants can be chopped and added to sandwich spreads or used to season salads and soups. Even before the succulent stalks have reached ideal harvest stage, the ferny leaves can be used in the same manner as the seedlings.
Garlic: Bulbs, shoots, leaves. Garlic shoots are a sweet mild version of the mature plant and are truly an undiscovered treasure. They look like small green leeks. In his cookbook, “Chez Panisse Cooking,” Paul Bertolli gives recipes using them in souffles, soups, mayonnaise and butters. Other chefs experiment with them in stir-fries and omelets. The tender young leaves too are rich, finely chopped and added to cream soups and egg dishes.
Kale and mustard greens: Thinnings, leaves and flowers. The thinnings of kale and mustard can be used as succulent greens for quick stir-frying or in soups and salads. After the mature plant has bolted, the flowers can be used as suggested for cabbage. Chef Doug Gosling at the Farallones Institute uses the young red and gray-green leaves of ragged Jack kale as a spectacular lining for an hors d’oeuvre tray or salad bowl.
Onions: Bulbs, young leaves and flowers. The young leaves of onions can be used as green onions. If the plants bolt before they bulb up, the flower buds or the just-opening onion flowers can be used as a garnish, in salads or floated on cream soups. If you let the flowers become too mature they get papery and tough.
Peas: Shoots, flowers, pods and seeds. Pea shoots, sometimes called tendrils, are used in fancy Chinese cooking, primarily in a stir-fry with ginger or garlic. Quickly braising them and adding them to pasta primavera is also wonderful. Pea blossoms (not sweet pea blossoms that are poisonous) can be used fresh in salads, as a garnish for soups or candied and used on desserts.
Radishes: Sprouts, leaves, roots, flowers and seed pods. Radish sprouts are spicy in salads and sandwiches. Young leaves of the winter Oriental radish, usually called daikon, have been used for generations in the Orient. Radish flowers add color and a tangy taste to salads. Radish pods are pickled or used when young and fresh in salads in much of northern Europe.
Salad greens: Leaves and flowers of chicories and arugula. When these plants become mature and go to seed they become too strong and bitter to use in most cooking but the flowers remain mild and are lovely used in salads.
