Wild Foods and some Northumberland and County Durham photos

[herbwormwood]

I have just joined this forum and wanted to let you know about my amateur web site which is about wild food and meanderings in County Durham, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland. There is a recipe for nettle soup and dock pudding on it.
http://members.lycos.co.uk/herbwormwood

[Dave]

Hello, I can see this is an old post so you may have come and gone by now. I just wanted to ask about eating dock, is this the same dock leaves you use for nettle stings? It grows in such abundance that it would be good to have some more recipes for it. I might have a dig around my books to see if there's anything more about dock as a food source. Does it need to be cooked and what does it taste like?

[Wombat]

G'Day Dave,

I had a quick look at my library and have come up with stuffed dock leaves and dock and mince meat parcels form "The Wildfoods Cookbook" by Joy Spoczynska .

Interested?

Nev

[Shirley]

http://members.lycos.co.uk/herbwormwood/ if you look at the links thru the first picture it gives a recipe for dock pudding but tells you not to confuse the leaves that you SHOULD use (common bistort) with the common dock!! Just thought you should know

http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Rumex+crispus - if curled dock is the plant you use for nettle stings than it looks like you can eat it although there are some warnings about the oxalic acid content.

[Dave]

Thanks Nev and Shirlz, I'll look into this one and there may be some dock recipes on the site soon. I've recently re-descovered that plants for a future website, it's fantastic,accourding to the site Dock is the same family as buckwheat and Japanese knotweed, how mad is that?

[Wombat]

Yes mate!

Sort of like tomatoes and capsicums and deadly nightshade being related. (Even though it's mostly not deadly........ )

Nev

[Dave]

...or me and Andy being related

[Wombat]

You got me!

[herbwormwood]

Hello, I can see this is an old post so you may have come and gone by now. I just wanted to ask about eating dock, is this the same dock leaves you use for nettle stings? It grows in such abundance that it would be good to have some more recipes for it. I might have a dig around my books to see if there's anything more about dock as a food source. Does it need to be cooked and what does it taste like?

Hi,
I am still here. My mother used to eat this pudding when she lived in the Calder Valley as a child. Unfortunately Bistort is a lot less common nowadays, probably as the habitat is declining. The pudding is traditionally known as Dock Pudding but it is actually Bistort which is used and not the Dock which grows near nettles. There are some mail order supplers of Bistort which you can obtain it from, it spreads in gardens so you have to be careful where you put it.
Google Polygonum bistorta if you wish to obtain some to grow.

[Dave]

Cheers mate, that clears that up a bit. It says early spring so should be up soon. If I manage to find any will do a bit of experimenting and will perhaps put up some recipies (for the bistort not dock).

[Wombat]

Wow! I never heard of bistort!

Nev