Part 5 Carver on Lamb's Quarters
Courtesy of The New York Public Library
More on the work of Food Rebel George Washington Carver. Carver wanted farmers the dominant caste had pushed to the margins to look at the plants already growing for free along their fields and roadsides and see food worth eating. Wild greens cost nothing, returned every season without planting, and often carried more nutrition than the crops people paid to raise. Teaching families to gather and cook them was, in his hands, one more small act of economic independence. I chose this entry because learning to live off the land in the woods where I live is on my bucket list. If you know a seasoned forager who offers that kind of training, please send them my way.
Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album)
Lamb's quarters is a wild vegetable familiar to almost everyone. Many people prefer it to spinach when it is prepared the same way. It is good boiled with meat, like mustard, collard, or turnip greens, and just as good mixed with other greens.
George Washington Carver, Nature’s Garden for Victory and Peace, Bulletin 43 (Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, Experiment Station. Tuskegee, AL: Institute Press, 1942)
