Forest cuisine, or a tourist's green breakfast

      Nettle is not inferior in nutritional value to beans or peas, and also contains many vitamins - A.B.S.K, pantheic acid... In a word, this plant can easily replace black currants, green onions, carrots, sorrel and sea buckthorn taken together. Nettle leaves are consumed raw and boiled, and its young inflorescences are brewed instead of tea.

      Beet salad. Immerse young nettles in cold water for an hour, then wash thoroughly and finely chop. Mix it with a small amount of boiled beets cut into thin slices and two cloves of crushed garlic, add salt to taste.

      Another salad. Chop the washed young leaves, mix with chopped green or onions (can be replaced with leeks, bear onions or wild garlic), lightly crush with a wooden pestle, add salt and, if possible, season with a mixture of vinegar and vegetable oil.

      Beats. Scald the nettle leaves, chop and boil for 2 - 3 minutes in boiling water. After this, mix with thick millet porridge, prepare the meatballs and bake. Products: 100 grams of nettles, 200 grams of millet porridge.

      Nettle refrigerator. Nettle leaves have strong phytoncidal properties. In the heat of summer, you can wrap freshly gutted fish or meat in them, and they last a long time.

      Burdock. Young leaves and stems of burdock contain vitamin C, essential oils and tannins, and the roots contain polysaccharide, inulin, protein and other useful substances. Young leaves and stems are used in vinaigrettes, borscht, broths, and botvinya; and the roots are used raw, baked as a potato substitute, and fried to make a drink similar to coffee.

      Soup. Boil peeled, chopped potatoes and rice until tender. Add chopped burdock leaves and sautéed onions to the soup 10-15 minutes before consumption. Products: 300 grams of burdock leaves, 80 grams of onions, 40 grams of rice, 200 grams of potatoes, salt and pepper to taste.

      Salad. Dip the washed burdock leaves into boiling water for 2 - 3 minutes, dry, chop, mix with flour and horseradish, and then add salt. Ingredients: 150 grams of burdock leaves, 50 grams of green onions, 30 grams of horseradish, salt.

      Puree. Chop the burdock leaves, add chopped sorrel and dill, then add salt. Ingredients: 1 kilogram of young burdock leaves, 100 grams of sorrel, 25 grams of dill, salt to taste.

      Burdock and sorrel jam. Soak the sorrel and finely chopped burdock roots in a small amount of water for 2 hours. The polysaccharide, inulin, in an acidic environment will partially transform into fruit sugar - fructose, and you will get a delicious sweet and sour taiga jam. Products: 400 grams of burdock roots, 200 grams of sorrel.

      Dandelion. In Rus', it has long been considered a vital elixir." Young dandelion leaves contain vitamins C and E, carotene, easily digestible phosphorus salts, carbohydrates and other beneficial substances. They regulate digestive processes, enhance the activity of the glands of the internal section, and improve metabolism.

      Virtually the entire plant can be used for food. The leaves are used to make salads and seasonings for meat and fish dishes, and to cook soups and cabbage soup. To remove bitterness, they are soaked for 20 - 30 minutes in salt water.

      Flower buds are pickled and seasoned in salads, vinaigrettes and game dishes.

      A coffee drink is prepared from the roasted roots. Heavily roasted roots acquire a sweetish taste and are used instead of sugar.

      Salad. Soak 100 grams of fresh dandelion leaves in salted water, then cut and add salt. You can add green onions or wild garlic, parsley, dill.

      Med. Separate 400 inflorescences from the cups, drink 1 liter of water, cook for 10 minutes, and let it brew for a day. Then strain, add 1 kg of sugar, the juice of one lemon or 1 teaspoon of citric acid and cook over high heat for 1 hour with constant stirring.

      Snooze. Green leaves of snot contain vitamin C and trace elements. You can eat them fresh, as a salad, or boiled, as caviar. Snot cuttings are pickled, dried and used as sauces and seasonings.

       Broadleaf cattail. People call it reed. Young cattail shoots are served seasoned with vinegar and other spices, and also pickled and dried.

      When fried, they are used as a complement to fish and meat dishes. They also eat rhizomes containing starch, sugar and proteins. They are boiled and dried.

      Rinse the roots in cold water and dry. Then grind them on a grater and sift. From the resulting cereal you can cook porridge or jelly, bake flat cakes, pancakes or biscuits. A drink similar to coffee is prepared from roasted rhizomes.

      Sorrel. Young sorrel leaves contain a lot of iron and magnesium, which are necessary for hematopoiesis. Therefore, it is better to eat it raw, adding it to salads.

      Kissel. Wash the leaves, chop and simmer in a small amount of water. Then rub through a sieve, add the rest of the water, sugar and cook for 3 minutes. After this, pour in the starch diluted in water and bring to a boil again. (Instead of starch, you can use cattail flour.) Ingredients: 2.4 kilograms of sorrel, 6 liters of water, 2 cups of sugar, 150 grams of starch, salt to taste.

      Hogweed. The name itself speaks for itself. People have been using it for food for a long time. The children peeled the juicy stems and gnawed them. The stems and leaves were cut into borscht and soups. In the Volga region, young stems were doused with boiling water and fried.

      Fireweed (Ivan-tea). You can use almost all parts of this wonderful plant for food: flowers and leaves, young shoots and rhizomes. Brew the leaves instead of tea (hence the second name). Young root shoots are prepared in a similar way to asparagus or cauliflower.

      Dry the rhizomes and make flour from them. The flour is suitable for making porridge, baking flatbreads and pancakes. If you add it to bread, it will turn out sweetish. This is where the popular nicknames for this plant came from - “breadbox”, “miller”. Young May leaves of fireweed (cockapple) can be cut into salads.

      In the forest, you can brew the following plants or mixtures thereof into tea: knotweed (ground part); buckwheat (leaves, flowers); oregano (stem with leaves and flowers); strawberries (leaves, flowers and berries); fireweed (leaves); drupe (leaves, stem, flowers); nettle (leaves); linden (flowers and leaves); raspberries (leaves, flowers); coltsfoot (leaves); lungwort (flowers, stem, leaves); cloudberry (leaves); lemon balm (leaves, branches); primrose (flowers, leaves); black currant (fruits, leaves, twigs); blueberries (leaves, fruits); rosehip (all parts of the plant); St. John's wort (stem with leaves and flowers); mint (stem with leaves and flowers); blackberry, jasmine.

      What to add to this? Eat to your health, bon appetit.

from the magazine "Around the World" - Tourist's backpack 1993