Burdock Stems Taste Like. .

Burdock, that plant with the Velcro ball seed pods that get stuck in everything they touch, is food worthy. Yep. Hard to believe, but true. I read it is from Japan, brought here as a garden crop. In April, I found a patch along my roadside. I can just imagine what my neighbor Sarah was thinking when she drove by and saw me crouched in the ditch yanking on this big hunkin weed trying to pull it up. I had heard the roots are good (Japanese told me). Well, they might be. But I’ll have to wait until summer to find out. I pulled up all two-year-old plants with roots too old to be edible. So I went for the stems of the leaves. Stems are so much easier to gather than the roots.

To collect stems, I just snip them off and drop the leaves right on the ground, taking only the part from the stem-base to the leaf-base home. I lightly peeled these little stalks and boiled them for 20 minutes. They had the taste and texture that reminds me of fresh artichoke hearts. I served them with butter and salt. Such a taste treat and simple to collect and cook.