Spring is FINALLY here. Geez, did it take long enough?? So now I feel like I have to be outdoors as much as possible to catch the warm weather. I ran into a neighbor and she pointed out all of the Nettles growing right now.
Her: “Will you be making Nettles soup? Look! They are perfect right now.”
Me: “You mean those things growing like crazy wild weeds everywhere?”
Her: “Yes! Aren’t they lovely? Nettles make a delicious soup. Just remember to handle them with care. Maybe use some gloves.”
Me: “What??! Gloves!? WHY FOR?”
Her: “They can hurt you. They are stinging Nettles…with tiny thorns.”
Me: “Tiny thorns? Cooking with gloves? Sounds fun.”
Her: “Also, try not to breathe when handling them.”
Me: “I like breathing.”
Her: “Once cooked you should be fine.”
Me: “Man. That is one high-maintenance recipe for a weed.
Her: “You shouldn’t think of it as a weed. One last thing: you must use the young leaves and don’t use them after June.”
Me: “June bugs?”
Her: “The leaves of nettles begin to have an acid (oxalic acid) which will be bad for your stomach.”
Me: “Do I want to know what happens to the stomach? No. Never mind.”
Me: “This recipe does NOT sound worth making. I mean, it’s a frickin’ weed! You need gloves. You can’t breathe. It does something bad to your stomach. Next thing you know, you’ll be telling me to make some weird dandelion dish.”
Her: “Dandelions are delicious!!”
Me: “Ah yes, what the French call, pissenlits? (Literally: Piss in bed) Speaking of which…I have to go now.”
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I think I’ll pass on the nettle soup, thank you very much, and go immediately to the coucougnettes. But I guess it’s a good little piece of info to know, however, in case you find yourself lost in the wild, with nothing but nettles surrounding you. Just hope it happens BEFORE June, right? Besides, as ‘they’ say, “Life is uncertain…eat dessert first.”
Comment by PretzelBug 05.05.06 @ 5:50 amNettles were just one of those things when I was growing up. You ended up with welts all over your legs and arms if you stumbled in a huge patch of those things (of course, by then I had never heard of poison ivy – which, by the way, I am not sure actually exists in France – I am not allergic to it, though.)
I had never heard of nettle soup before, and my family never ate pissenlits either. For us, those two things were just undesirable weeds.
My brother, who is a PhD chemist, wrote this comment on rhubarb on a post I had written on April 2 of this year: “Rhubarb leaves contain large amounts of oxalic acid, which is a strong poison for the kidneys. Make sure you never eat any…” Just to enlighten you about the lethal nature of oxalic acid.
Comment by Elisabeth 05.05.06 @ 6:28 ampretzelbug, eating dessert first always seemed like the right thing to do!
elisabeth, i’ve heard since that nettles soup is very tasty but to me it seems to be too much of a hassle to make. i believe you can buy these at farmers markets in the cities in france but still you have to prepare them. (but! that does remove the step of having to harvest them with gloves)
thanks for the info on rhubarb. i didn’t know that about the oxalic acid. i didn’t grow up eating it and when i tried it as an adult, i didn’t really like it that much. i think it also grows like a weed!
Comment by ptinfrance 05.05.06 @ 8:06 amNettles! Already!! Reminds me of the time my husband said that he got invited over for a dinner of gnocchi made with nettles…hmmmm. He reported back that it was pretty good! Okay. I, personally have no desire to experiment with them in cooking. Sounds way too much like kitchen warfare to me!
Comment by rowena 05.07.06 @ 2:14 pmmmmmmmm i bet the gnocchi in italy is yum. i guess the only way i’ll get to eat nettles is if someone else prepares them AND before june! 
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