Burdock

January 21, 2013

 

Arctium spp.
Native range: Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
Invasive range: Throughout most of North America, Hawaii
Habitat: Roadside, fields, pastures
Description: Large arrow-shaped leaves grow close to the ground the first year. A tall stalk, six or seven feet tall, emerges, with purple flowers on second. Burrs, an inspiration for Velcro, provide seed dispersal. Large fleshy taproot.

Native to the Old World, burdock’s introduction to North America was noted in 1672 by John Josselyn, a sharp-eyed English visitor, who used Gerard’s Herbal: The Historie of Plants of 1597 as a field guide. In a pamphlet called New Englands Rarities Discovered, he listed “such Plants as have sprung up since the English Planted and kept Cattle in New-England,” including common burdock.

Burdock protects itself from predators by a layer of bitterness on the outside and by its thistles, so the early settlers introduced it for its medicinal properties, rather than as food. They went on to instruct the Indians in the making of a roasted-root tea to treat various ills. Among the Iroquois, young medicine men, after days of fasting, were known to drink the bitter infusion in hopes of retaining their spirit-quest visions.

BURDOCK.
Names. They are also called personata, bardona, appa major, great burdock, and clot-bur. It is so well known, even to the little boys who pull off the burs to throw and stick on each other, that I shall omit writing any description of it.
Place. It grows plentifully by ditches and water sides, and by highways, almost every where throughout this land.”
––Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, 1653

“Docks are very troublesome in our mowing ground; and, without care, they spread much by seed. They stifle the grass by their luxuriant broad leaves.”
––John Bartram, A Brief Account of Those Plants That Are Most Troublesome in Our Pastures and Fields, in Pennsylvania; Most of Which Were Brought from Europe, 1758

“Observation. Every body knows this coarse homely weed, wherever it has gained admittance,––but every body does not take care to keep it in due subjection. One of the earliest and surest evidences of slovenly negligence, about a farm-yard, is the prevalence of huge Bur-docks. The plant is considerably bitter; and the leaves are a favorite external application in fevers, head-ache, &c.”
––William Darlington, Agricultural Botany: An Enumeration and Description of Useful Plants and Weeds, Which Merit the Notice, or Require the Attention, of American Agriculturists, 1847


Drawings courtesy of Dina Falconi, Foraging and Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook

Preparation

Roots
While first-year roots can be eaten raw, long slow-roasting will make them sweeter. In late summer and fall, the first-year roots, beneath the basal rosettes, can be scrubbed of their outer layer and boiled like potatoes. Here in Vermont, we harvested ours in mid-September and boiled them for about an hour before slicing them. (They can take longer to soften.) We tossed the julienned burdock with soy sauce and sesame seeds. It was simple and delicious.

The larger second-year plants move their energy from the roots to the breeding stalks and flowers are woody and inedible.

Stalks
Contributor Josey Schanen writes: “The flower stalks can be eaten like artichoke hearts and the leaf stalks like a celery-textured vegetable. The stalks are in season in late spring and early summer. The leaves are way too bitter to be worthwhile.”

Eric Garza of the University of Vermont prepares burdock roots by fermenting them, without fuel-intensive cooking. He describes his energy-postive approach, complete with a pie chart, here.

Shoots
Young shoots can be boiled until tender––longer if still bitter. Stalks taste of artichoke, a relative.
Second-year stems should be peeled before flowering and boiled 20 minutes. Seed sprouts edible.

Leaves
Young leaves, boiled, are edible but bitter. Leaf stems can be peeled and boiled. The leaves are large enough to wrap wild food in for campfire cooking, something most easily done if they are wilted by heat from the fire first.

Recipes

Gobo: Japanese Burdock

A popular Japanese dish using the taproot is kinpira gobo, julienned or shredded burdock root and carrot, braised with soy sauce, sugar, sake, and sesame oil.

Sushi rolls can be filled with kinpira gobo, which is often tinted to resemble carrot.

 

Dandelion and Burdock Beer
You can buy “Dandelion & Burdock” bottled in United Kingdom, with its roots in a medieval mead gathered from hedgerow plants. But why not make it yourself, from local invaders?

We’re looking forward to trying this recipe from the Guardian:

A couple of large burdock roots (about 150g)
A handful of dandelion roots (about 50g)
500g sugar (1.1 pounds)
2 tablespoons of black treacle
Juice of one lemon
Teaspoon of carragheen to help clarify the beer (optional)
Beer yeast
4.5 liters of water

Scrub and finely slice the roots then boil them with half the water (and the carragheen if using) for half an hour. Experience the aroma of an unpromising vegetable stew.

Take off the heat, add the remaining cold water, the sugar, treacle and lemon and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Strain the liquid into a clean fermenting bucket and cover.

When your brew reaches room temperature add the yeast, keep covered for up to a week then bottle in strong swing top bottles. Another week and it will be ready to drink, though it is well worth easing the top off of a bottle every now and then to check for potentially explosive levels of fizziness. Once ready it is a good idea to keep the bottles in the fridge to prevent further fermentation.

The flavor is mildly bitter and aromatic with a now pleasant hint of that vegetable stew.

{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }

John February 16, 2022 at 4:03 pm

A trick to harvesting wild burdock root – dig a deep hole next to the root, and then gently pull the root free of the surrounding dirt into the hole. The roots are fragile, and go a very long way down into the soil, so it can be a lot of work to win them free, especially in rocky soil.

In the spring, harvest as soon as the soil defrosts and well before the 1st year plants start growing that center stalk.

Somehow the Asians grow them for market – and the roots are > 4 feet long when sold – they must be growing them in sand!

Reply

Ron June 11, 2017 at 9:20 am

Huh! So these burdock weeds are edible! Just finished pulling some out on the edge of a park asphalt path that winds through a remnant mature deciduous forest (sugar maple-american beech-ash(defoliated)-white pine-white oak) in South Common Multiuse Park, MISSISSAUGA, Ontario, Canada (Burnhamthorpe Rd. – Glen Erin Dr., SE quad.) where they, with this year’s more plentiful rains, are making territorial gains into the forest’s sun dappled areas. Next to it – also pulled – are the noxiously abundant Garlic Mustard; have eaten neither. The local conservation authority planted native trees some years back and the elephant-eared burdock leaves are spreading into those areas too intercepting water from passing showers that the tree saplings need. Articles like this should be encouraged to be reproduced by local newspapers; there’s one chap here that does damage to native Riverbank Grape vines by picking their leaves to eat…if someone could only steer him to burdocks and garlic mustard.

Reply

Food May 8, 2014 at 2:22 pm

Tasty ate some thought it was perfect

Reply

Sally September 28, 2012 at 8:12 am

Delicious! (the article and the food choice!) My Japanese cookbook spells it kimpira gobo, I think. We sauteed the julienned roots in oil and soy sauce, as yours does, but added lots and lots of freshly ground pepper. Yum!!

Reply

Leave a Comment

Land

Wild_boar

Wild Pig

Did the domestic ancestors of today’s feral pigs streak off De Soto’s ship into the Florida scrub of their own accord in 1539? Or did they have to be urged to go find something to eat? All you need to…


EAT ME!
6a00d83451b96069e2017d3d0b7851970c-400wi

Garden Snail

Deliberately or accidentally, by the movement of plants and by hobbyists who collect snails, humans have spread the garden snail to temperate and subtropical zones around the world.


EAT ME!
GarlicMustard1

Garlic Mustard

  Alliaria petiolata Native range: Europe, Asia, Northwest Africa Invasive range: Much of the Lower 48, Alaska, and Canada. (See map.) Habitat: Moist, shaded soil of floodplains, forests, roadsides, edges of woods, and forest openings. Often dominant in disturbed areas. Description: Biennial herb. First-year plant has a rosette of green leaves close to the ground. […]


EAT ME!
nopales con huevo

Prickly Pear

Fall is here, and the “cactus fig” is in season. Time to plate-up another widespread invader.


EAT ME!
Screen Shot 2012-11-18 at 8.02.21 AM

Sow Thistle

It’s spring and time to weed. Sow thistle is a delicious invader found throughout the continent.


EAT ME!

Sea

Hemigrapsus_sanguineus_big

Asian Shore Crab

The first sighting of the Asian shore crab in the United States was at Townsend Inlet, Cape May County, New Jersey, in 1988. Though the source is unknown . . .


EAT ME!
Periwinkles

Periwinkle

The common periwinkle, which first appeared in New England in the 1860s, is now found along the coast wherever there’s hard substrate–rocks, riprap, broken concrete, or docks–from Labrador to . . .


EAT ME!
Pterois volitans

Lionfish

Some say it started in 1992 in Miami when Hurricane Andrew smashed an aquarium tank. Don’t blame the weather, others say; in the mid-nineties, disappointed yet softhearted hobbyists…


EAT ME!
chuka wakame

Wakame

  Undaria pinnatifida Native range: Japan Sea Invasive range: Southern California, San Francisco Bay, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, Argentina Habitat: Opportunistic seaweed, can be found on hard substrates including rocky reefs, pylons, buoys, boat hulls, and abalone and bivalve shells. Description: Golden brown seaweed, growing up to nine feet. Forms thick canopy. Reproductive sporophyll in […]


EAT ME!
Kleiner_Taschenkrebs_(Carcinus_maenas)

Green Crab

Since the green crab was first recorded off southern Massachusetts in 1817, it has been hard to ignore. A few minutes of rock-flipping in Maine can turn up dozens of them, brandishing their claws as they retreat…


EAT ME!

Fresh

Armored Catfish Meatballs (1)

Armored Catfish

The armored catfish is abundant and destructive in Florida, Texas, and Mexico. Cast your nets for these flavorful natives of the Amazon. Scientific name: Two types have become established in North America: armadillo del rio, Hypostomus plecostomus, and sailfin catfishes in genus Pterygoplichthys Native range: Amazon River Basin Invasive range: Texas, Florida, and Hawaii; also […]


EAT ME!
Picture 1

Common Carp

For a bottom-feeder, what is the good life? The common carp isn’t very demanding: any body of water that’s sluggish and murky will do. If the water is clean, and you’ve got corn for bait, try one of these recipes.


EAT ME!
IMG_W007-2

Watercress

  Nasturtium officianale Native Range: Northern Africa, Europe, temperate Asia, and India Invasive Range: In USA: all lower 48 states, except North Dakota. Found in Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Also southern Canada, Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Australasia, and parts of tropical Asia. Habitat: Common along stream margins, ditches, and other areas with […]


EAT ME!
rusty_crayfish-large

Crayfish

  There are numerous invasive crayfish. We include details for the red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) and the rusty crayfish (Orenectes rusticus). The same recipes can be used for both species–and many other invasive crayfish. Red Swamp Crayfish Native range: Known as Louisiana crayfish, crawdad, and mudbug, Procambarus clarkii is native to the south central […]


EAT ME!
nutria-mugshot

Nutria

Nutria, also known as coypu and river rat, is native to temperate and subtropical South America. It has been introduced to Europe, Asia, and Africa, mainly for fur farming. These voracious. . .


EAT ME!

Field Notes

Screenshot-2024-07-07-at-9.41.57 AM-2

“If you can’t beat them, eat them.” Why foraging for invasive plants is good for you 

“We’re not trying to make it sustainable. The goal is eradication.” Read about eating invasives in the Boston Globe.


EAT ME!
Screenshot-2024-06-04-at-8.44.02 AM

Chef Serves Gourmet Meals with Unexpected Invasive Ingredients

“It suddenly occurred to me that we could flip the script and find a way to consume animals and plants where it is actually beneficial for the environment.” Read about it in The Cool Down


EAT ME!
Digital StillCamera

Can We Eliminate Invasive Species by Eating Them?

On restaurant menus across New England, green crabs are showing up in everything from bouillabaisse and bisques to croquettes and crudo. Read about it in Salon.


EAT ME!
151118153748-invasive-lionfish

Radio Health Journal

Can adding invasives to your diet help the environment and your health? Listen to Radio Health Journal here.


EAT ME!
Screen Shot 2022-04-08 at 7.39.53 AM

Qui veut manger des espèces invasives ?

Joe Roman chats with Camille Crosnier about eating invasives on France Inter. Listen here. In French.


EAT ME!

“There’s a world of food growing volunteer, if you just know where to look for it.”

Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain

Previous post:

Next post: