I know you usually come here for the recipes
but I decided to try something different this month. Instead of plant profiles and recipe recommendations, I wanted to share a story about the first time I found watercress. I'm heading back to that stream next week for the first time in years, and I can't wait to get my forager's fingers on that crunchy green deliciousness.
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Mark and I had been at it for hours. We'd harvested daylily shoots, dock, ginger stolons, mugwort, and shagbark hickory bark. Along the Delaware, one gravel road leads to another, each one more intriguing than the last. So even though it was getting late, we turned onto one more unpaved road lined with cinnamon fern, then into an overgrown driveway next to a stream.
The further in we walked, the more interesting the abandoned homestead looked. Mark stopped to peer inside one of the deserted buildings. I pretended I wasn’t interested but really I was afraid it would collapse while I was inside and I didn’t want to die over a period of several days, pinned in place by a fallen beam while probing insects and wild animals caused me to lose my mind as I lapsed in and out of consciousness.
Instead I clambered down to the stream where it passed under the road, and noticed a modest mat of greenery in the water. A small colony of plants seemed to be floating on the water’s surface, but was actually rooted in the mud of the streambed. Each plant had dark green, compound leaves about six inches long.
Watercress (Nasturtium officinalis) is a member of the mustard family, although the taste reminds me more of horse radish or wasabi than mustard. It stays green and harvest-able as long as the water it grows in doesn’t freeze, which means you can often pick it almost year 'round.
This was a small patch of watercress, and conscientious foragers never pick all of what they find (leave some for fellow-foragers, some for hungry wildlife, and some to propagate the species). Still, this was the first time I'd found watercress, so I was happy. We were about to get back in the car when something made Mark look on the other side of the road, where the stream emerged from its underpass.
“Ellen.”
The land on the other side dipped downhill, and the stream emerged into a tangle of wild roses and smilax. Twenty feet further on, the underbrush cleared to reveal two pools, one feeding into the other. And each pool was completely covered with floating mats of watercress. This was the motherlode. This was watercress soup.
Happy Foraging!
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Want to know more? Go to www.backyardforager.com.
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You can find watercress almost year 'round, but I especially welcome its flavor in spring, when I crave its fresh and spicy bite.
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Now that spring greens are popping up all over, it's time to figure out how to make the most of your harvests. My new book can help, and it's available in bookstores and online now!
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