Read Wild Spring Plant Foods: The Foxfire Americana Library (7) for Free Online

on it. Then sprinkle salt and pepper over it. Or just pour hot grease over it so that it wilts. It can be eaten like wild mustard or turkey mustard.
    Blue violet
(Viola papilionacea)
(family
Violaceae
)
(johnny-jump-up)
    The blue violet is common in meadows, lawns, and damp, open woodlands. It grows to eight inches tall, with heart-shaped, deep green leaves, and long-stemmed, deep blue flowers. There is a cream-colored form, and the common form with blue and white flowers, called “confederate violet” and naturalized around many home and farm sites.
    Violet leaves and flowers are both edible. The blue wood violet
(Viola cucullata)
is very similar, with darker blue flowers, and found in rich woodlands and wet places along streams. Leaves and flowers ofboth species can be used in any recipes. Leaves are very rich in vitamins A and C. Many people mentioned mixing them in with other greens such as wild mustards, creases, or lamb’s quarters. Leaves and flowers are also used in tea, and in a medicine supposed to induce sleep, and to “comfort and strengthen the heart.”

    I LLUSTRATION 30 Blue violet
    Violet flowers have long been used in fancy confections, candied or sugared. In the last century, a gift of candied violets was a “message of love.”
    Greens: wash and cut up leaves of blue violets. Cook with a little water twelve minutes. Serve butter over them, or cook with bacon or fatback. Or mix violet leaves with dandelion greens or milkweed shoots and top with bacon and chopped-up hard-boiled eggs. Or mix with lamb’s quarters or pokeweed and cook as above.
    Violet salad: add chopped violets to other spring greens for salad, or use alone with vinegar and bacon.
    Violet jelly: cook violet flowers with boiling water. Strain, add sugar, pectin, and juice of half a lemon. Simmer until it jells. *
    Sugared violets: cook two cups sugar, one-half cup water, a dash of cream of tartar. Stir until sugar grains. Dip fresh violet blossoms (free from stems) and place on platter to dry.
    Violet syrup: cover violet blossoms with water. Let stand two days. Strain. Cook with honey and juice of lemon. Stir well. Bring to boil. Put in jars and seal. Good for colds or coughs.
    Milkweed
(Asclepias syriaca)
(family
Asclepiadaceae
)
(silkweed, cottonweed)
    I LLUSTRATION 31 Milkweed
    Milkweed is a stout perennial, growing in colonies, to five feet tall. It has large, oval, opposite leaves, and stems and leaves exude a milky juice. It is found in dry fields and on roadsides. Rough pods contain silky-winged seeds. Young shoots are edible when very young, before leaves unfold. Young pods can be used as a substitute for okra, and flowers are cooked into sugar.
    In Tennessee and Kentucky, milkweed is considered a tonic, greens “good for what ails you.”
    Fried milkweed: cut shoots in small pieces, boil fifteen minutes in salted water. Drain. Fry in small amount of fat. Add in eggs, salt and pepper, and cheese, if desired.
    Milkweed soup: shoots—gather shoots while young and tender. Do not gather after July. Wash, cook, drain. Add more water, rice, bacon drippings, salt, pepper, or wild onions. Cook over a slow fire until done. Pods—boil a hambone, add young milkweed pods cut in small pieces, several wild onions or ramps, and a handful of rice. Cook slowly. Add salt and pepper before serving.
    Cut milkweed shoots in small pieces. Drain. Serve on toast, topped with hard-boiled egg and bread crumbs. Add onion, if desired. Or add bacon or fatback; or top with cheese sauce.
    Milkweed greens: cook one pound very young stalks in water with salt and butter, covered for ten minutes. Drain. Add more butter and chopped wild onions.
    Ground Hog Plantain
(Prunella vulgaris)
(family
Laviatae
)
(selfheal, square-weed, heal-all)
    A common, naturalized plant, found everywhere along paths and in waste places. Stems are square with green leaves, and spikes of purplish flowers. Mrs. Ethel Corn said, “It looks sort of like rabbit plantain, only the leaves