Pleasant House

lamb's quarters growing in the sidewalk

The funny thing about wild foods is that many of them are weeds. I grew up thinking that weeds were evil and needed to be eradicated by all means. I was once even a chemical arms dealer in the war against them by working at a lawn-and-garden section of a hardware store. I found myself helping customers with products used to kill things more often than to grow things. But my passion for food and cooking gave me a new perspective on all plants and weeds. I’ve learned that a weed is a weed if that’s all you see when you look at it. But a weed can be dinner if you look at it and call it lamb’s quarters.

Lamb’s quarters grow just about everywhere. They’re found throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. They grow in fields, forests, sidewalks, and even in my planter boxes, without any help from me. I’m sure birds transfer their seeds, but the wind also helps to blow their seeds around town. In the fall, flower heads containing the seeds–up to 50,000 per plant–are also harvested and cooked as you would other vegetables. You may find these bundles of lamb’s quarter flower heads at Mexican markets labeled as huazontle. In the photo below, I made a Mexican-inspired dish of chilaquiles with blanched and sauteed huazontle combined with green garbanzo beans.

huazontle with green garbanzos

lamb's quarters in my flower box

The tender leaves of lamb’s quarters are easy to prepare. Simply pick them, rinse them, and sautee them like spinach. I prepared mine with minced shallot, olive oil, and black beans, and seasoned them with salt and fresh-cracked black pepper. To appreciate their subtle, earthy minerality, I didn’t add anything acidic such as lime or vinegar to the vegetables. Instead, I added a bit of sour Mexican crema to the salmon that accompanied the dish.

sauteeing lamb's quarters

seasoned lamb's quarters

grilled salmon with sauteed lamb's quarters

Lamb’s quarters are a great example of modern society’s ability to pick and choose what they want to eat. We’ve outgrown the need to eat local and have the luxury of deeming wild-local foods that grow prolifically on their own–in nutrient-poor soil, with few natural enemies–as noxious and unwanted. Instead, we choose to devote our own energy and resources to cultivating and marketing a few domesticated food crops. Of course, we have a lot of mouths to feed and we’d probably starve if we had to live off of foraged foods. But it can’t hurt to start re-acquainting ourselves with our wild-food neighbors. A quick search on Wikipedia taught me that lamb’s quarters also happen to be a major enemy of corn, soybean, and sugar beet crops, which makes them a natural enemy of corporate crops–even more symbolism. In closing, make sure you do your research before you forage and “consume” anything that grows wild.

field of "weed" growing next to a field of lamb's quarters

field of lamb's quarters growing next a field of "weed"