Dandelion Salad With Wild Strawberries; Free Food at Falling Downs

I was doing some grounds-keeping here at the Falling Downs estate the other day when I came across some dandelions with three-foot stems. Normally, I only encounter dandelions when I’m cutting the grass, and they never grow much taller than the deck height on the lawnmower.

That lawnmowing shit is something that’s troubled me for years. Every time I’m pushing that mower back and forth across the two acres of lawn, I’m saying to myself, get some goats or something. Not only will they keep the lawn trimmed; you end the summer with plump, market-ready goats! One of these years I’m gonna act on that insight. Keep a few around till Ramadan, and I hear they’ll bring two or three hundred bucks a head off any gas station parking lot in Brampton! Plus, they trimmed your lawn for free!

But I digress. I’d heard over the years that dandelions are an edible weed, and apparently folks also make tea and wine out of the plant, but I’d never before ingested dandelion, not as tea nor wine nor salad. So on finding these giant dandelions I also found their giant leaves. These were in a separate league from the dandelions we used to feed the rabbits my folks kept. “Kaninchenfutter” we called it.

Long story short, I’m standing there with these giant dandelion leaves in my hand, and suddenly I’m seeing a salad. I mixed up some olive oil with white vinegar and tossed in the shredded dandelion leaves. I must say, that’s a perfectly edible plant! It’s a little bitter compared to your typical romaine or iceberg. The leaves are somewhat sweeter than the stems. You could toss in pretty much anything from your regular salad ingredients; tomatoes, onions, feta… hell, how about strawberries? There’s an abundance of tiny wild strawberries growing in the lawn right now! Just imagine! A dandelion salad with wild strawberries! And all for free!