As the summer sun rises and the food on your plate changes from lettuce to tomatoes, the dandelions will shrivel back and disappear. Then one cool day in September, they will be back, harbingers of a balmy new salad season. The dandelion has been cultivated for centuries: the flower for wine, the greens for salad and the roots as a medicinal herb. Gail Harshbarger won second place in the National Dandelion Cookoff with this recipe.
Core the apples with an apple-corer, leaving the apples whole. Dice the removed apple slices and add to the dandelion greens, along with the feta, onion, cranberries and bacon. Toss well. Whisk the mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar in a small bowl. Pour over dandelion salad, tossing to coat. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Spoon into the apple cavities.
Garnish with almonds. For nutritional information on raw and cooked dandelion greens, go to www. Seed sources include Seedman, Bream St. Dandelions were world-famous for their beauty. They were a common and beloved garden flower in Europe, and the subject of many poems.
In the terrifying New World, the cheerful face of the dandelion was a sweet reminder of home. In Japan for instance, whole horticultural societies formed to enjoy the beauty of dandelions and to develop exciting new varieties for gardeners. Dandelions are a green and growing first aid kit. The use of dandelions in the healing arts goes so far back that tracing its history is like trying to catch a dandelion seed as it floats over the grass.
In olden times, dandelions were also prescribed for every ailment, from warts to the plague. To this day, herbalists hail the dandelion as the perfect plant medicine: It is a gentle diuretic that provides nutrients and helps the digestive system function at peak efficiency.
Dandelions are more nutritious than most of the vegetables in your garden. They were named after lions because their lion-toothed leaves healed so many ailments, great and small: baldness, dandruff, toothache, sores, fevers, rotting gums, weakness, lethargy and depression. In eras when vitamin pills were unknown, vitamin deficiencies killed millions. Data from the U. Department of Agriculture reveal how dandelions probably helped alleviate many ailments: They have more vitamin A than spinach, more vitamin C than tomatoes, and are a powerhouse of iron, calcium and potassium.
Dandelions are good for your lawn. Their wide-spreading roots loosen hard-packed soil, aerate the earth and help reduce erosion. To our forefathers, the dandelion was a valuable source of medicine and food, and could even be used to make wine and beer. Dandelion greens have long been a relished food. They were eaten by the ancient Greeks and Romans.
Throughout Europe, dandelion leaves have long been eaten. The dark green leaves and sliced roots are often served on buttered white bread. Dandelion flowers are dipped in batter and fried to make a tasty dessert. During the War Between the States, Confederate soldiers used dried dandelion roots as a substitute for coffee. For thousands of years dandelions have been eaten because they are delicious.
Nutritionists now tell us the plant is also a great source of iron, calcium, magnesium, potassium and carotenoids, as well as vitamins A, B, C and D.
In fact, the dandelion contains 25 times more vitamin A than tomato juice. For centuries the dandelion also has been considered a natural medicine chest. It earned this reputation because it was commonly used to help relieve arthritis and as a laxative.
Other medicinal uses of the plant include improving appetite, and treating heart and liver diseases, gallstones and jaundice. It is believed this hardy plant is named dandelion because the jagged edges of its leaves look like the teeth of a lion. In China, it is called Nail in the Earth. A perennial, dandelions have a long taproot and leaves that rest on or close to the ground. This hinders other plants from growing nearby. Its bright yellow flowers are displayed on hollow stems.
On bright, sunny days, dandelion blossoms open by 8 a. Flowers often remain closed during rainy or cloudy weather. Yet what we call a flower is actually not a single flower at all.
It is composed of 50 or more individual blooms. When dislodged by the wind or an animal, these parachute-equipped seeds can drift for long distances.
Small wonder that people feel compelled to annihilate all trace of Taraxacum officinale , lest they be judged as lazy or lacking in means. The Park District stopped treating dandelions with pesticides years ago.
The irony of the lush, green lawn is that for pollinators, a monoculture of grass is the equivalent of a desert.
A food desert, that is. Dandelions fill that gap, providing an abundance of nectar. Killing these flowers removes a vital source of food, especially for butterflies, he said. A movement is afoot to rethink the notion of lawns in the U. Entities including the Chicago Park District have stopped using pesticides to get rid dandelions, relying instead on mowing techniques to control the plant.
Higher mower settings shade out the blooms. But these decisions often have more to do with concerns about chemicals than any love of dandelions. Paris-based botanical artist Duy Anh Nhan Duc creates ethereal sculptures out of dandelions.
What the dandelion really needs is a complete undoing of the past 75 years of wrong-headed thinking, Dillon said. For Paris-based botanical artist Duy Anh Nhan Duc , dandelions are not only a subject but the medium itself.
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