Title: Weeds Make Their Way from Garden to Gourmet
Article by Thomas Szymanski: Weeds, like dandelion, are becoming increasingly popular with reputable chefs and are making their way into farmers' markets and grocery stores alike.Common weeds that gardeners spend time and money combating may soon be finding their way into kitchens. The rise in popularity of incorporating plants commonly thought of as weeds into culinary repertoires is thanks in large part to recent interest in foraging.Noma, a Danish restaurant whose menu is crafted around locally foraged edibles, has solidly held a top spot as one of the world’s best restaurants for the past eight years and boasts two Michelin stars. Integrating herbage such as dandelion and stinging nettle into diets not only fosters biodiversity of gardens, but may also be a way to enrich meals with unique flavors and valuable nutrients. The idea of weeds as food has steadily been creeping into mainstream discussions of sustainability, farming, and nutrition. This past February, weeds made it to the main stage of the TEDxManhattan Changing the Way We Eat event, where corporate attorney-turned-weed forager Tama Matsuoka Wong expounded on the environmental and health benefits of regularly incorporating weeds into one’s diet. In her presentation, "How I Did Less and Ate Better, Thanks to Weeds",Wong claimed that “weeds are the ultimate, opportunistic, sustainable plants.” She places the cultivation of weeds as food in direct opposition to the nutrient-depleting monoculture systems currently dominating agricultural landscapes. Weeds naturally exist among and alongside other species, and with their presence, biodiversity of the growing area is often increased, and the soil subsequently enriched.
