Dandelion and wild lettuces are common in the Northern Hemisphere. During the growing seasons it is pretty impossible, even in a big city, to not pass dandelion and wild lettuce. But, I know for myself, that even though I love foraging that there is often some kind of impediment, like a force field, that seems to keep me from just reaching down and picking off a damn leaf! On most walks out of my house I stop to look at at a wild lettuce or particularly striking dandelion specimen, even take a picture, but the bending over, picking and taking home to eat — that part — extremely rare. I don’t think I am alone in being more of aspirational gatherer than an actual gatherer.
I’m trying to change the habit — break through the force field — and introduce wild greens into my daily diet so that I am no longer dreaming about it but actually doing it. Towards that end, I have made an entry-level program for myself. One leaf! One leaf of Lactuca serriola (or something) added to a salad of domestic greens every day. Such a no big deal that even for me it has been working. For the last couple weeks I’ve been adding one leaf, five leaves, tiny amounts of different edible urban weeds to salads and boiled greens. The smaller the ambition the easier it is to get started.
I like wild dandelion. Yesterday, I picked dandelion and a few leaves of the spiny lettuce, Lactuca serriola to blanch and eat with French lentils for lunch. As I eat wild dandelions reasonably often — the breakthrough yesterday was adding that little bit of lettuce that you see in the two left-hand images.
William Rubel 