Also known as: Blowball, Cankerwort, and Irish Daisy
Family: Taraxicum
Origin: Eurasia
Growing worldwide, sometimes, seemingly everywhere – except Antarctica – we’ve the Dandelion, with around 250 different species. (Applicable to my series of Jungle books, they are found in tropical realms up in the cooler highlands!) Globally, this species is the most common sort.
Symbolically representing hope, perseverance, and transformation, many a child – and adult alike – have blown the seeds of the dried seed “Dandelion clock” or “blowball” away, with their wishes carried into the wind, in the hopes of fulfillment. But, beyond that and their reputation as a pesky lawn weed, be prepared to be shocked. Dandelions are more nutritious than most of the vegetables in our gardens!
Their name comes from the Latin Dens Leonis, with the French translation, dent de lion, meaning lion’s teeth, describing the “lion’s tooth-like leaves.” The English changed this to “Dandelion.” A folk name is piss en lit (“piss in the night”) because Dandelion tonics have strong diuretic properties.
Fossil seeds of Taraxacum tanaiticum – a forerunner of this much maligned plant – were found, from the Pliocene period (5.3 million to 2.6 million years ago) in southern Belarus. Recorded in ancient writings, Arabian physicians used the plant in medicine in the tenth and eleventh centuries. For centuries, the Chinese and Indians have grown the Dandelion to treat liver diseases and digestive problems. They were long grown alongside vegetables and herbs in home gardens to create remedies for dandruff, depression, fevers, gum problems, lethargy, sores, toothaches, weakness, and even baldness!
In his sixteenth-century book, Garden of Health, physician and herbalist William Langham asserted: “The [dandelion] juice often applied, layeth downe the staring of the haire of the eybrowes, and causeth newe haires to grow.”
Various tonics were made from Dandelion roots to aid digestion and remove toxins from the liver and bloodstream, stimulate salivary and gastric juices and improve bile flow alleviate assorted inflammations in the body. So perceived, the Dandelion arrived in the Americas at the time of the Mayflower.
Nicholas Culpeper, another English botanist, herbalist, and physician, described in his 1789 book, Culpeper’s English Physician and Complete Herbal, the Dandelion’s qualities of removing obstructions in the liver, gallbladder, and the spleen: “…it wonderfully openeth the passages of urine, both in young and old; it powerfully cleanseth aposthumes, and inward tumours in the urinary passages, and, by during the temperate quality, doth afterwards heal them; for which purpose the decoction of the roots and leaves in white wine, or the leaves chopped as pot-herbs with a few alisanders (once a common pot herb), and boiled in their broth, is very effectual.”
A cup of Dandelion greens provides around 112 per cent of our vitamin A and 535 per cent of our recommended daily amount of vitamin K, along with calcium, iron, and magnesium.
One can eat all parts of a Dandelion, including the leaves, in salads prepared with raw or cooked leaves. Sautéed greens with Garlic and Onions are rather tasty (boiling the leaves reduces their bitterness). Fried fritters can be made from their flower heads. Or consider their use as a substitute for other greens in dishes like pasta, quiches, or scrambled eggs. While roasted Dandelion roots can make a good coffee substitute and their flowers can be used to create jelly or a sweet syrup.
However, perhaps that which is best known is Dandelion wine – celebrated in 1957 as part of American culture in Ray Bradbury’s novel of that name.
Dandelion Wine
Ingredients:
Dandelion blossoms, two quarts
Water, four (4) quarts
Oranges, fresh, two (2)
Lemons (fresh), two
Yeast cake, one (two and one-quarter [2-1/4] teaspoons active dry yeast or one [1] one-quarter [1/4] ounce package)
Instructions:
- Snip off stem and flower collar of blooms
- Place Dandelion petals in a large pan and cover with four quarts of water. Boil for twenty minutes.
- Cut Oranges and Lemons into small pieces and place into a bowl.
- Pour the hot liquid and petals over oranges and lemons.
- Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature, then add one yeast cake and let stand for forty-eight (48 hours).
- Strain mixture through cheesecloth, squeezing to remove juice.
- Return the mixture to a bowl and add three and one-half pounds of sugar. Stir well to dissolve.
- Pour liquid into a glass cider jug and cover with lid. Gently screw on the lid. Let stand for six weeks. Strain and bottle.
- Age for about six months.
- (Makes about five (5) wine bottles.)
(As found in the soon-to-be-published “The Edible Jungle, Volume I”, available – with seven others of the Jungle series on Amazon Books.
