Stinging Nettle - Food

Food

Stinging nettle has a flavour similar to spinach and cucumber when cooked and is rich in vitamins A, C, iron, potassium, manganese, and calcium. Young plants were harvested by Native Americans and used as a cooked plant in spring when other food plants were scarce. Soaking nettles in water or cooking will remove the stinging chemicals from the plant, which allows them to be handled and eaten without incidence of stinging. After the stinging nettle enters its flowering and seed setting stages the leaves develop gritty particles called "cystoliths", which can irritate the urinary tract. In its peak season, stinging nettle contains up to 25% protein, dry weight, which is high for a leafy green vegetable. The young leaves are edible and make a very good pot-herb. The leaves are also dried and may then be used to make a tisane, as can also be done with the nettle's flowers.

Nettles can be used in a variety of recipes, such as polenta, pesto and purée. Nettle soup is a common use of the plant, particularly in Northern and Eastern Europe. In Nepal and the Kumaon & Garhwal region of Northern India, stinging nettle is known as Sisnu, Kandeli and Bicchu-Booti (बिच्छू-बूटी in Hindi) respectively. It is a very popular vegetable and cooked with Indian spices.

Nettles are sometimes used in cheese making, for example in the production of Yarg and as a flavouring in varieties of Gouda.

Read more about this topic:  Stinging Nettle

Famous quotes containing the word food:

    When no food is given to the ear,
    Then let a little be given to the stomach.
    Tiruvalluvar (c. 5th century A.D.)

    Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
    and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
    in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
    with its store of food and little cooking pans
    and change of clothes,
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    To give money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement of the real payment, a bribe paid for silence, a credit system in which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of liquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to man.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)