Pretend it is the 1930’s and the depression is on. You live in a rural area with no stores available with which to purchase food. You have no money and are trying to provide for your children. You have managed to catch a couple of rabbits which you have skinned and stewed. The children need some nourishment to sustain them. Everything in the garden has been eaten and you are trying to figure out something for a vegetable that would be edible and nutritious. You look out across the yard and see what your Mother had called Fat Hen growing next to the manure pile. You have known it as Goosefoot ,Pigweed ,or its better known name; Lamb’s-Quarter. Your mother used to harvest its seeds for chicken feed which made really fat, plump hens; with dark colored yolks in the eggs. This nutritious weed is also grown as food for sheep and pigs hence the name Pigweed.Your mother ,as her mother before her, used to serve it to the family. You decide to cook a “mess of greens” to go with the rabbit stew.

During the depression years Lamb’s-Quarter was a staple for many American families in both rural and urban areas. It can be foraged from vacant lots, wooded meadows, and road sides; just about any where. When foraging, pluck the young tender leaves from the top of the plant for meals. Harvest on a weekly basis and the plants should yield food all during the growing season. Towards the end of summer the plants will seed out and form flowering green seed spikes. People from the depression era usually fried the leaves and stems in lard or stewed them in a pot and served it with vinegar. It was also used as a potherb for seasoning. They also made use of the tougher bottom leaves and the stems by cooking and canning them for winter at the end of the season.

The scientific name for this plant is Chenopodium album L. It is an annual weed and a member of the goosefoot family.The plant leaves of this group look like a webbed goose foot. The leaves of Lamb’s-Quarter also remind me of a Christmas tree. This family also includes beets, spinach and quinoa. Lambs quarter is beneficial in that it is a wild food and thus more nutritious than cultivated foods. It grows in temperate regions through out the world and can be harvested from early spring to late fall. It grows from one to five feet tall. The seeds may be harvested after the first frost. They may be eaten raw or dried and ground into flour for bread or gruel the way Native Americans have done for centuries.

It is a valuable remedy for constipation particularly for older people. It is a blood cleanser and helps to improve the liver and lungs. In my opinion many of today’s diseases stem from a lack of nutrition. If we can get as close to our natural food source as possible we can get that nutrition our bodies crave which is so essential to becoming a vital human being. Processed food just doesn’t do that. The answer is whole and natural foods.

When harvesting any plant food from the wild, be sure you have identified the plant correctly. A field guide handbook is very useful for this purpose. If ever in doubt never eat of a plant until you are certain of its classification and that it is safe to eat. Be sure to harvest only from areas you know have not been sprayed with chemicals. Lamb’s-Quarter is a mild tasting plant, never bitter. The tender young leaves are especially delicious in a green salad. The stems and lower tougher leaves are wonderful cooked or steamed. It is a very tasty plant. It has more vitamin A than carrots and three times more calcium than broccoli. It also has other trace minerals and is very revitalizing and nutritious. Let me tell you a little secret about the minerals. That white stuff on the backs of the leaves is a source of highly digestible calcium.

In Ruth Underhill’s book Papago Woman this plant is mentioned.

We always kept gruel in our house. It was in a big clay pot that my mother had made. She ground up seeds into flour. Not wheat flour-we had no wheat. But all the wild seeds, the good pigweed (goosefoot) and wild grasses… Oh, good that gruel was! I have never tasted anything like it. Wheat flour makes me sick. I think it has no strength. But when I am weak, when I am tired, my grandchildren make me a gruel out of wild seeds. That is food.

While I like wheat, I believe there is very little that can surpass the nutrition obtained from wild, edible herbs and seeds.

Some resources for information are:

The New Whole Foods Encyclopedia, by Rebecca Wood

A Modern Herbal, by Mrs. M. Geieve

Medicinal Plants and Herbs, Peterson Field Guides