I went out this morning, and lying in the long grass of the meadow were a thousand fallen suns. The dandelions were out. Taraxacum officinale is one of the countryside’s more common wildflowers (or ‘weeds’ if you are chemically inclined in garden and field), and its ubiquity is a sort of curse.
We overlook the flower’s extraordinariness because it is, in a word, common. There is the intense, almost molten-gold, yellow of the flower head, and the green basal rosette of leaves, a precise 360 degree span, a magician’s fan-flourish of playing cards, and the fierce regularity of the ‘teeth’ on the leaves. To the imaginative Medieval mind, these serrations summoned leonine fangs – dandelion being derived from the Old French ‘dents-de-lion. Botanically, the dandelion is a wonder. The milky sap from the broken stem is latex - effectively the same emulsion of polymer micro-particles as emitted by the Amazonian tree Helvea Brasiliensis. Rubber, in a word.
The downy bristles of the seed head, the distinctive spherical ‘clock’ which children puff at to tell the time, disperse by a means possibly unique in the natural world. Such is the structure of the seed-parachute that, as it is blown along by the wind (or child’s breath), a low pressure vortex is created; this invisible ring travels above, but separate from, the seed-parachute, generating lift, and so prolonging the flight of the dandelion. The English poet and artist William Blake in a revolt against the reductionism of Isaac Newton, suggested in ‘Auguries of Innocence’ that there were miracles in the familiar, and that a world could be seen in a grain of sand and ‘heaven in a wildflower’. He might have had dandelion in mind.
A dandelion and its parachute.
Dandelion’s delights continue with its use in the kitchen. The serrated leaves of springtime are a traditional salad. (In France, indeed, dandelion is cultivated in the veg garden from packeted seed.) Some find the leaves bitter; our tongues have become conditioned to sweetness over the centuries. The 17th diarist and naturalist John Evelyn adored dandelion leaf salad, believing:
‘With this homely salley Hecate entertained Theseus.’
Dandelion leaves can be made mellower by blanching them in cold water for an hour or by growing them under a bucket, so they grow pale and thin, but you lose the piquancy which is dandelionness. Eat dandelion leaves, and you taste the cuisine of the past, link up with your ancestors.
Anyway, dandelion leaves are a salad to be eaten in moderation, almost as an aromatiser, a factor in a melange, a mesclun. In quantity they are diuretic, which explains their French cognomen, pissenlit, ‘piss in the bed’, and their other common British folk names of ‘piss-a-bed’ and ‘wet-a-bed’. The golden flower of the dandelion is often overlooked by foragers, but try one raw, deep fried as a fritter, or use to brew beer or make a cottage light white wine in springtime when the flowers are at their most abundant.
Dandelions flourishing in Spring.
Even more neglected are the buds, usefully pickled by the forager as a substitute for the buds of the caper. To dig up the long tapering roots of the dandelion you will need a spade, because they can be a challenging foot or more in length. The roots are at their fattest in autumn and winter, when they make an excellent vegetable. Cut them up into 4–5cm sections and boil for 15 minutes, change the water and boil for another five.
But the better use of the root is as a coffee substitute (cut into sections, gently, roast, pulverise to powder) or as a contribution to dandelion and burdock beer. This drink was reputedly invented by the theologian St Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century AD; on walking from his place of prayer on a spiritual wandering, Aquinas trusted to God to provide his needs. After concocting a drink from the first plants he encountered, so stimulating did Aquinas find his patented dandelion and burdock beer that it helped him formulate his masterpiece, Summa Theologica. It is a good tale, but likely belongs in the The Apocrypha.
What is certain, is that Medieval dandelion and burdock was mildly alcoholic. Somewhere in the course of history, the British did the inverse of alchemy and turned golden alcohol into a soft drink. One note of warning. If Aquinas did truly find dandelion and burdock to be a stimulant of the brain, a legion of medieval herbalists considered it a provoker of lust
Recipes
DANDELION AND BURDOCK CORDIAL
Ingredients:
2 tsp ground dandelion root
2 tsp ground burdock root (foraged) 1.5 litres water 2cm root ginger, sliced 1 whole star anise 1 lemon 600g caster sugar
Equipment:
large saucepan/cauldron coffee grinder/mortar and pestle muslin funnel bottles (sterilised before use)
Method:
Dry the dandelion and burdock roots by cutting into 5cm segments and sticking in the oven on a low heat for 1–2 hours with oven door slightly ajar, turning every half hour. Take out and grind to a fine powder in a coffee mill or a keep-fit pestle-and-mortar.
Meanwhile, bring the water to the boil. Add in the powdered dandelion, burdock, ginger, star anise and juice of the lemon. Simmer for 20 minutes, then add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Allow to cool, then strain into bottles through the muslin, which should be folded over several times inside the funnel.
Serve one part cordial to four parts water. If you want fizz, use soda water instead of mineral water.
HOT DANDELION SALAD
Serves 4 (as an entrée; for a main course double the amounts)
Ingredients:
4 strips bacon or 200g lardons 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil 20–30 young dandelion leaves, washed 2 hardboiled eggs, sliced salt and pepper cider vinegar
Method:
Fry the bacon strips /lardons in the oil until crisp, then crunch to bits and place to one side. In the hot pan, lay the dandelion leaves and stir over medium heat until they have wilted, which will take a minute or so. The leaves will splatter, so take care. Put equal amounts onto four plates, top with the crumbled bacon and sliced egg. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and vinegar and serve immediately.
My own dandelion salad, prepared just before writing this!
A lovely post on this splendid wildflower (not weed).
I have always been struck by how genetically diverse the dandelion species is said to be, with all its sub- and micro species. And for me there are few more beautiful things in nature than an unblown dandelion clock - it is a neglected beauty.