An Island of Nettle Eaters

 

Aigul, plucks them with her bare hands, eats them 

raw. Valeria fries bright green pancakes in lots of 

olive oil, serves them with very creative sauces.

Kathy feeds us all Oysters Nettlefeller 

we eat around the beachfire.

The Olesko sisters make Green Goddess soup, 

serve it up at the April  Bread and Jam;

and for the PAC plant sale this year

Kirsty made Nettlekopita.   

 

Jazmin brews nettle beer, Domena presses steamed nettles into balls to dip in peanut sauce. She brings them to book club. I make Season Turning Soup: the last of the winter-stored squash, the first tender nettle tips. 

 

We make pesto for pasta, sauce for the polenta,

nettle lasagna. We tincture leaf, root, and seed 

for medicine. We even compost them to nourish 

our soil. And when the cycle is winding down we 

dry them for tea to sip slowly through the dark days until next year.

 

It’s spring and the kale is sweet and sprouting 

in the gardens but still we go to the 

untamed places to gather the feisty weed. 

Isn’t that why we have all come here? To feast on 

what the wild offers; to feel that slight sting. 

- Sophia Rosenberg, 2018