Dandelions, Rediscovering The Wild Greens

I was working out in the garden a couple of weeks ago, pulling weeds, when I finally decided to taste my first dandelion leaf — right then and there on the spot, without bothering to wash it. Before, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, it never would have occurred to me that dandelions are edible. I have childhood memories of my grandmother showing me how to eradicate them from the garden and lawn, stressing how important it was to remove the entire root, or else it would always grow back.

Nowadays I hear about dandelions a lot, both the green leaves and the roots, being used in cooking recipes and tea. I've even seen it in the grocery store. So here I am, standing in the sunshine, finally tasting my first dandelion leaf, and I'm shocked to find that not only is it not bitter — as everyone seems to be saying it would be — but it is also delicious! I picked a whole bunch of them and cooked them up for my lunch and they tasted even more delicious, again, no bitterness to be found.

The next week, I found a big bunch of dandelion greens at the grocery store and decided to buy it. The leaves looked much better than my straggly little dandelions back home — longer, bigger, and brighter green. But you know what? They tasted bitter! Even after I cooked some, they tasted bitter. But I liked them anyway. I looked up a bunch of recipes for cooking them and tried the simple method of boiling them for 15 to 20 minutes and then seasoning them with soy sauce. Not so much bitterness, but it was still there.

Okay, this morning I happened to be looking at a dandelion in our back yard and began to wonder. Do dandelion greens start out tasting sweet and become more bitter the longer or bigger they grow? Does the process of cultivating them using rich, loose soil, fertilizers, and lots of watering, actually cause them to become more bitter? Do they become more bitter when they're flowering? 

I don't know, but I'm going to go pick that dandelion right now and see how it tastes!

Well, the verdict is not entirely in, but I will say this: I just tasted two wild dandelion leaves, one from a plant that has no stems or flowers and one from a plant with lots of stems and flowers. I could not detect any real difference in the taste and once again, they were not bitter like the ones from the store. There is a faint bitterness, but it's very faint. So, later, I shall cook them and see how that changes the taste, but I suspect that cooking will only make them taste less bitter.

I think my wild dandelions are better than the cultivated ones from the store!


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