Today “natural foods” are trumpeted in advertising. When I was growing up in Southern Minnesota in the 1920’s we took for granted a great deal of nature’s bounty which we harvested each spring and summer. That food was about as natural as one could get.
After the long and sometimes harsh winter came March, when we could experience an occasional wafting of warm breezes, though they were fleeting. However, Mother Nature was waking the dormant greenery that would soon arrive. We learned to watch for the signs of the first growing things.
Dandelions were among the first green plants to push through the warming ground. With no worries about contaminants we picked the early tender leaves, washed them, sliced up some onions to top them, and covered them with fresh sweet cream and a bit of salt. This was a spring salad over many weeks, welcome because green salads on our winter menus were pretty much limited to coleslaw made from cabbage stored in the root cellar.
Lamb’s quarter was another green weed that grew in abundance early in the spring. We gathered it by the dishpan full, washed it and cooked it. It was served with a bit of butter and a few drops of vinegar. The taste was somewhat like that of spinach, and we enjoyed it because it was fresh. Some might have coupled it with bacon or bacon fat, but we ate it “straight.” It taught me to like greens, mostly because it was a dish that meant spring. Once in a while my mother cooked the very young nettles as a green, treating them as she did the lamb’s quarter. Older nettles were pretty hard to pick because they “stung.”
Early in the summer there were wild strawberries to be picked. They weren’t very big, but they did taste like strawberries and we used them. Once in awhile we found a wild raspberry bush whose bounty we usually ate as we picked. When summer came in earnest the chokecherry trees put forth clusters of red berries which we picked. They were terribly sour, but we cooked them down to juice, mixed it with lots of sugar, and made jars of red jelly to use on slices of home baked bread as well as to store for the next winter.
Next came the wild gooseberries which grew along the fence rows. The bushes were thorny, and one variety of berry had scratchy spikes on the berries themselves. We cooked these with sugar for what we called “gooseberry sauce.” Some of them went into jars of pale pink jelly for the future. The cellar shelves, nearly bare by spring were beginning to fill again. By late summer the wild grape vines were producing. Again, those small grapes were picked and cooked into jelly.
One of my favorites as fall approached was the butternuts picked from trees that grew wild in the pasture. We picked gunny sacks full of them while the shell coverings were still green and sticky, putting them in the sun to dry. Many a squirrel helped itself to some of our supply. They were hard to crack, but with a hammer and a stone we managed to do it. Once they were cracked they had to be extracted from the shell with nut picks. We ate lots of them as we cracked them in the evening when we were “resting.” Most of them were saved to be used throughout the year in cakes and cookies. It has been years since I tasted a butternut and I’ve never found anything that tastes the same.
Together with these natural foods was a profusion of wild flowers that arrived in the spring. Bloodroot were the first we found, with their white blossoms and red sap. Next came “Dutchman’s britches” which grew among their lacy leaves, sporting their blossoms which did indeed look like pantaloons. Soon came a profusion of blooms– there were dog-toothed violets, Mayflowers, trilliums, moccasin flowers, purple violets and other small white flowers whose name I never knew. Later came wild honeysuckles.
The common denominator of all of these things was “work.” Everything took effort, first to pick and clean, then to prepare and cook. This we took for granted. I think it gave us, as children, an empathy for nature that would be hard to come by today. We were part of the cycle of nature, living close to it and experiencing all of its vagaries. I’m glad I had the experience.
Today “natural foods” are trumpeted in advertising. When I was growing up in Southern Minnesota in the 1920’s we took for granted a great deal of nature’s bounty which we harvested each spring and summer. That food was about as natural as one could get.
After the long and sometimes harsh winter came March, when we could experience an occasional wafting of warm breezes, though they were fleeting. However, Mother Nature was waking the dormant greenery that would soon arrive. We learned to watch for the signs of the first growing things.
Dandelions were among the first green plants to push through the warming ground. With no worries about contaminants we picked the early tender leaves, washed them, sliced up some onions to top them, and covered them with fresh sweet cream and a bit of salt. This was a spring salad over many weeks, welcome because green salads on our winter menus were pretty much limited to coleslaw made from cabbage stored in the root cellar.
Lamb’s quarter was another green weed that grew in abundance early in the spring. We gathered it by the dishpan full, washed it and cooked it. It was served with a bit of butter and a few drops of vinegar. The taste was somewhat like that of spinach, and we enjoyed it because it was fresh. Some might have coupled it with bacon or bacon fat, but we ate it “straight.” It taught me to like greens, mostly because it was a dish that meant spring. Once in a while my mother cooked the very young nettles as a green, treating them as she did the lamb’s quarter. Older nettles were pretty hard to pick because they “stung.”
Early in the summer there were wild strawberries to be picked. They weren’t very big, but they did taste like strawberries and we used them. Once in awhile we found a wild raspberry bush whose bounty we usually ate as we picked. When summer came in earnest the chokecherry trees put forth clusters of red berries which we picked. They were terribly sour, but we cooked them down to juice, mixed it with lots of sugar, and made jars of red jelly to use on slices of home baked bread as well as to store for the next winter.
Next came the wild gooseberries which grew along the fence rows. The bushes were thorny, and one variety of berry had scratchy spikes on the berries themselves. We cooked these with sugar for what we called “gooseberry sauce.” Some of them went into jars of pale pink jelly for the future. The cellar shelves, nearly bare by spring were beginning to fill again. By late summer the wild grape vines were producing. Again, those small grapes were picked and cooked into jelly.
One of my favorites as fall approached was the butternuts picked from trees that grew wild in the pasture. We picked gunny sacks full of them while the shell coverings were still green and sticky, putting them in the sun to dry. Many a squirrel helped itself to some of our supply. They were hard to crack, but with a hammer and a stone we managed to do it. Once they were cracked they had to be extracted from the shell with nut picks. We ate lots of them as we cracked them in the evening when we were “resting.” Most of them were saved to be used throughout the year in cakes and cookies. It has been years since I tasted a butternut and I’ve never found anything that tastes the same.
Together with these natural foods was a profusion of wild flowers that arrived in the spring. Bloodroot were the first we found, with their white blossoms and red sap. Next came “Dutchman’s britches” which grew among their lacy leaves, sporting their blossoms which did indeed look like pantaloons. Soon came a profusion of blooms– there were dog-toothed violets, Mayflowers, trilliums, moccasin flowers, purple violets and other small white flowers whose name I never knew. Later came wild honeysuckles.
The common denominator of all of these things was “work.” Everything took effort, first to pick and clean, then to prepare and cook. This we took for granted. I think it gave us, as children, an empathy for nature that would be hard to come by today. We were part of the cycle of nature, living close to it and experiencing all of its vagaries. I’m glad I had the experience.
Minnladywrites 