Food For Thought: What's a Weed?

There's a place for weeds on your plate

Human beings are very good at organizing things, making lists, and seeing patterns. You could even argue that it’s part of what makes us human.

A recent re-reading of Northrop Frye’s 1962 Massey Lectures “The Educated Imagination” (mandatory high school reading for me many moon ago) got me thinking about the nature of weeds.  At the beginning of his lectures about the origins of literature he explores how we create a human world that is separate from the natural world, and uses the example of a person stranded alone on a deserted island:

So you soon realize that there’s a difference between the world you’re living in and the world you want to live in. The world you want to live in is a human world, not an objective one: it’s not an environment but a home; it’s not the world you see but the world you build out of what your see. You go to work to build a shelter or plant a garden, and as soon as you start to work you’ve moved into a different level of human life. You’re not separating only yourself from nature now, but constructing a human world and separating it from the rest of the world. Your intellect and emotions are now both engaged in the same activity, so there’s no longer any real distinction between them. As soon as you plant a garden or a crop, you develop the conception of a “weed,” the plant you don’t want in there. But you can’t say that “weed” is either an intellectual or an emotional conception, because it’s both at once.

While Frye is delving into the human motivation to create literature (and the benefit of studying literature), there’s something that any gardener can relate to: a weed is the natural world intruding into the carefully constructed human reality of your garden or lawn.

The natural world is full of “weeds” of various kinds: plant, fungi, and animal species that are natural to the ecosystem but aren’t where want them, or that are newcomers to an ecosystem through either natural or human-driven means. Sometimes the “weeds” are benign, but other times they can be quite invasive and destructive.

But what if we re-defined how we view weeds?

We live in a world where, for the most part, we can have anything we want at any time of year (our wallets-willing, of course). We’ve constructed very elaborate “gardens” of the type that Frye described - a very human world super-imposed over the natural world, with the boundaries defined not only by what we need, but what we want. We want fresh raspberries, avocados, and lettuce in any season.

Our ancient ancestors foraged most everything and made little or no distinction between a weed and dinner. Even a generation or two past our ancestors picked “weeds” as a food source, and not only because of hard times. Wild plants, berry picking, mushroom foraging, hunting, and fishing were part of the changing seasons and rhythms of the year. There are many things in the natural world that are edible, we simply choose not to eat them, or don’t take the time to find out whether they are edible.

There are countless “weeds” that I routinely step over and around in my own backyard that I’ve only recently come to learn are edible. The ramps and wild strawberry aren’t hard to find. Lamb’s quarters, chickweed, and pineapple weed are all edible. Then there’s plantain and milkweed, and countless others.

And then there is the queen of the weeds, the one that needs no field guide to find or identify: the dandelion.

Dandelions are obvious, prolific, persistent, and ubiquitous. They define what it is to be a weed and do it with an insouciantly cheery yellow flower. They are nature’s middle-finger to flowerbeds and lawns. They are an affront to the notion of human control. They are also completely edible.

Every part of the dandelion plant can be eaten by humans. The flowers can be mixed into baked goods and tossed with salads. The roots can be roasted and eaten or made into a tea. The leaves are best when young and tender, though a slightly acquired bitter flavour not unlike endive. Dandelion soda is a thing. And our Great-Grandmas were on to something making dandelion wine (you’ve heard about Prohibition, right?)

And while the word “dandelion” comes from the French “dents de lion” or “lion’s teeth” after the shape of the leaves, the French have bestowed them the charming nickname “pissenlit”, quite literally “piss the bed” in honour of their diuretic properties. Take it easy until you get used to them, eh?

If you decide to check out your neighbourhood weeds you’d do well to consult local information about species and safe places to pick (not areas close to roadways or that have been sprayed). This goes a million times over if you are interested in mushrooms - there’s no room for error when it comes to toxic fungi or as one naturalist put it “All mushrooms are edible, but some only once.”

If we accept Frye’s assertion that defining the human world of “what we want” from the “what is” of the natural world is the first step towards a world of human imagination, perhaps cuisine is one of our greatest forms of literature. There are few things so curated by the human experience as what we eat - the history, skill, and imagination of all humanity comes together on a plate.

But when we eat a weed we make a conscious decision to step out of our carefully curated gardens. So rather than reach for the weed killer perhaps reach for the vinaigrette and take a moment to consider the world as it is, not as we wish it could be. There will always be more dandelions, so use your imagination.