uses of the dandelion
(from Godey's Ladies Magazine, edited by L.A. Godey, Sarah J. Hale, 1862)
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Its uses are endless: the young leaves blanched make an agreeable and wholesome early salad; and they may be boiled, like cabbages, with salt meat. The French, too, slice the roots and eat them, as well as the leaves with bread and butter, and tradition frays that the inhabitants of Minorca once subsisted for weeks on this plant, when their harvest had been entirely destroyed by insects. The leaves are ever a favorite and useful article of food in the Vale of Kashmir, where, in spite of the preconceived prejudices we all have to the contrary, dandelions, and other humbler-samples of our northern "weeds," do venture to associate themselves with the rose or the jasmine of its eastern soil. On the banks of the Rhine, the plant is cultivated as a substitute for coffee, and Dr. Harrison contends that it possesses the fine flavor and substance of the best Mocha coffee, without its injurious principle; and that it promotes sleep when taken at night, instead of banishing it, as coffee does, Mrs. Modie gives us her experiences with dandelion roots, which seem of a most satisfactory nature. She first cut the roots into small pieces, and dried them in the oven until they wore brown and crisp as coffee, and in this state they appear to have been eaten. But certain it is that she ground a portion of them, and made a most superior coffee. In some parts of Canada they make an excellent beer of the leaves, in which the saccharine matter they afford forms a substitute for malt, and the bitter flavor serves instead of hops. In medicine, too, it is invaluable.
Photo by Benjamin Zwittnig, CC2.5
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