My sister Lina and I say often enough that we are regularly reduced to conversation topics such as “what are you having for dinner?”
Her contributions to this mundane topic recently began to pique my interest.
So I asked her about it. “I set a goal to eat something every single day that was harvested from my property,” she said.
Her options for ingredients vary throughout the year. Warmer weather has her harvesting fresh ingredients. Because it’s early for her garden to produce much, Lina has been foraging.
“Yesterday I made a pasta salad that had a bowl full of hairy bittercress, chickweed, parsley (that is coming back from last year), arugula from a cold frame and miner’s lettuce,” she said.
“Foraged Flavor,” a book about a chef working with foragers to create gourmet dishes with plants such as chickweed and bittercress, inspired Lina to start eating the above mentioned “weeds.”
Already familiar with these plants growing readily in her garden, Lina said she hadn’t thought to eat them. For example, she mentioned dead nettle — a weed lacking much flavor, which added to a soup stock can provide a variety of nutrients.
Other wild greens growing now (such as hairy bittercress which has an almost horseradish flavor) are a bit strong just as a green salad. But Lina enjoys them in pasta salad, with beans or with wild onions in an omelet.
Through the winter she met her daily goal with her own canned goods. Lina’s staples include homemade salsas, roasted veggie tomato sauce and a variety of pickles.
The tomato sauce did include produce she didn’t grow. But since she did grow some of the ingredients, it fulfilled her requirement.
“It’s meant that even when I’m busy and tired, and just making a dish of pasta, I have to make it a bit more interesting,” Lina said. Simply adding her homemade/grown sauce to a dish elevates an easy meal.
“It’s pushed us a little more toward eating more Mexican-style meals,” she said. Adding a jar of salsa to rice and beans makes a delicious dish.
The Indian-style pickled relish she canned, served on top of Indian-style pancakes, also makes a simple ethnic dish.
Another garden product contributing to her goal is winter squash. She had a good crop last year, and they’ve stored well in her garage. The squash can be cooked into a variety of meals. As a bonus, many are large and she shares them with her chickens and dog.
Once the garden gets going, she said, the idea of adding fresh products to her meals is pretty obvious.
Part of the inspiration for her goal of eating daily from her micro environment was her tendency to “save” homegrown food for a “special” meal. “We all have this urge to save for a rainy day, and that’s important,” she said. But it is also important to eat what is growing.
“I was finding that sometimes with the garden, I was kind of saving things,” Lina said. “Next thing I knew, they were overgrown. Deciding to eat something from the garden kind of helps that.”
Another motivation was adding variety to her diet from a wider nutrient array. “It has definitely broadened the number of [plant] varieties I use,” she said.
I have a similar inclination to save for a rainy day or special occasion — both in my garden and in my pantry. I plan a spring time resolution to follow in my big sister’s footsteps, and eat something from my property every day.
ALDONA BIRD is a journalist, exploring possibilities of local productivity and sustainable living in Preston County.
