Pissenlit

Now is the time. The pissenlits are just beginning to pop up all over your lawn, in the fields, everywhere. One of the most succesful weeds on the planet, the pissenlit, or dandelion is everywhere you don't want it to be. But in the early spring, this plant is a truly great treat and extremely healthy to eat,

Pissenlit is the common name in French and the literal translation is Wet the Bed...a very good description of the diuretic qualities of the greens. An older plant can produce a crown of greens like a head of frisse lettuce. The idea is to get them before they set buds then they become much more bitter. The young greens may be bitter, but very tasty and everyone in the Dordogne traditionally eats pissenlit as a spring tonic. You can buy them here commercially raised in the markets. You can collect them yourself if you take care to go where you can be sure they they haven't absorbed toxic emmisions from road ways...

Traditionally, the plant is used to treat viruses, jaundice, endema, gout and acne, but it is the powerful diuretic and laxative properties which give it is reputaion as a spring tonic and hence its name.

I, myself, love the bitter flavor and look forward to collecting them every year.  

The traditional salad is made by cleaning the leaves, like a lettuce, and making a vinagrette. I usually make a simple vinagrette of red wine vinegar, a little dijon mustard and oil. For a big salad that makes a meal, you could fry lardons...which are like bacon strips and stale bread croutons fried in the bacon fat. This is one of my all time favorite lunch salads.

I also use crushed walnuts and make the vinagrette with a little walnut oil added to the regular oil as walnut oil is very powerful. here in the Dordogne, the land of walnuts, we even have walnut flavored vinegar, which unlike walnut oil, does not get rancid. You could add roquefort cheese to the salad as another variation. 

I spentmost of  the day outside and saw the beginning of many salads unfolding in the fields around my house. Maybe spring is really here?