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Dining A La King: Dandelions travel well from
yard to plate (VIDEO)
Posted: 04/14/2013 at 8:00 am
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A sign greets diners at a Goshen College dining hall for Dandelion Day on Friday, April 12, 2013.
Students and staff were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part of Dandelion Day. The
greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By Jennifer Shephard)
Marshall V. King
Dining A La King
I ate weeds for lunch on Friday.
These were dandelions, harvested from the lush native landscaped areas of Goshen
College.
Friday, April 12, was Dandelion Day at the college. A handful of students and Glenn
Gilbert, the college's sustainability coordinator, harvested about two bushels of the
greens on Thursday and turned them over to to AVI Fresh Dining Hall chef Jeremy
Corson.
He knew what to do with them. He used to pick them with his grandmother, who
would fix them with bacon, sugar and onions.
He went a different route Friday for staff and students, with dandelions served seven
ways.
Why eat dandelions in the college cafeteria? “Well, we have a lot,” Gilbert said. “It's
basically to stop and explore the way we feel, what we do about dandelions.”
He knows that people hate dandelions and spray them, dig them up and try to kill
them.
He was passing out buttons that said, “Making Peace with Dandelions,” a play on the
college's Making Peace marketing campaign.
In 2012, Goshen College started encouraging native landscaping on campus rather
than turf grass that needed to be sprayed and mowed. About 12 acres, or about 20
percent of the campus lawn, is now prairie grass, which looks different and has to be
burned once a year. And last year, there was a huge crop of dandelions.
Did neighbors complain?
“Sure,” said Gilbert. But he doesn't believe the increase in dandelions made them
worse for neighbors. The seeds are everywhere, he said.
He's become a dandelion evangelist. He wrote an eloquent essay espousing his views.
He's spoken in front of groups about it. He helped organize Friday's event in the
campus cafeteria.
I grew up eating fried dandelion blossoms. I didn't eat many of the greens, but have
had them occasionally since.
Cynthia Kauffmann, a staff member at the college, was excited by the event and the
chance to eat them again. She, too, had them as a child. “I just think it's cool,” she
said.
Corson and his staff made three baked items with dandelions:
• Oatmeal cookie. You could just taste a hint of the slightly bitter greens.
• Dandelion muffin and dandelion bread. You could barely taste the greens.
They also made a vegetarian sandwich on focaccia that had just a touch of wilted
greens with other vegetables.
The best dish was the udon noodles with some wilted greens and soy sauce. Two
noodles — classic large Asian noodles and finer but heartier whole wheat noodles —
were used. I liked the whole wheat dish best.
On the salad bar, dandelion greens were in the spring lettuce mix.
In all of the preparations, the dandelions were subtle and even muted. I wanted more
of them. But if you're introducing a green weed to college students, less is probably
more.
Like other harvests, dandelions depend on the weather. This time last year, the
dandelions were already past the yellow flower stage and going to seed, Gilbert said.
This year, the flowers haven't emerged yet, which is better if you want to eat the less
bitter greens.
They're healthy — high in vitamin A, C and K, according to those at the college. They
had a history of being a cure-all before they became the bane of those who tend
lawns.
Gilbert and Jonathan Mark, a GC senior from Bristol, are encouraging others to stop
fighting the dandelions.
Mark has been collecting data on the natural prairie at the college. “By doing this,
we're turning a waste into an asset,” he said.
And eating from the “lawn” at the college connects people to the land, he said.
Eating is an agricultural act, to quote Wendell Berry, but we're more accustomed to
eating iceberg than dandelions. I can tell you which has more flavor, though iceberg
doesn't have a bitterness range from palatable to fierce like dandelion greens.
I don't plan to spend hours on my knees harvesting dandelion greens this spring, but I
enjoyed the ones I had Friday. If you want a taste, Elkhart County Parks is having a
wild edibles program from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 28. Fried dandelions, along with
cattail muffins and stinging nettle soup, will be on the menu. The cost is $4 per person
or $10 per family. Information/registration: [email protected] or 574-5356458
I'm hungry. Let's eat.
Marshall V. King is news/multimedia editor and food columnist for The Elkhart
Truth. You can reach him at [email protected], 296-5805, on
Twitter @hungrymarshall;[/URL] or via [URL]Facebook. His blog is
at www.blogs.elkharttruth.com/diningalaking and you can subscribe so that you're
notified every time he posts.
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Amy West cuts a focaccia veggie sandwich that uses dandelion greens as an
ingredient at a Goshen College dining hall Friday, April 12, 2013. Students and staff
were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part of Dandelion Day. The
greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By Jennifer Shephard)
Sheet pans of oatmeal dandelion cookies sit on racks at a Goshen College dining hall
Friday, April 12, 2013. Students and staff were served a variety of foods using
dandelion greens as part of Dandelion Day. The greens were picked from a lawn on
campus. (Truth Photo By Jennifer Shephard)
Executive Chef Jeremy Corson dresses dandelion greens as he prepares to wilt the
greens to be used as an ingredient at a Goshen College dining hall Friday, April 12,
2013. Students and staff were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part
of Dandelion Day. The greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By
Jennifer Shephard)
Executive Chef Jeremy Corson tops a stir-fry dish that uses dandelions as an
ingredient at a Goshen College dining hall Friday, April 12, 2013. Students and staff
were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part of Dandelion Day. The
greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By Jennifer Shephard)
A pan of dandelions greens sits over ice as Executive Chef Jeremy Corson prepares a
stir-fry dish using the greens at a Goshen College dining hall Friday, April 12, 2013.
Students and staff were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part of
Dandelion Day. The greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By
Jennifer Shephard)
Executive Chef Jeremy Corson serves a stir-fry dish using dandelion greens as an
ingredient at a Goshen College dining hall Friday, April 12, 2013. Students and staff
were served a variety of foods using dandelion greens as part of Dandelion Day. The
greens were picked from a lawn on campus. (Truth Photo By Jennifer Shephard)
Dining A La King: Dandelions travel well from yard to plate (VIDEO). (4/14/2013). Marshall
King. The Elkhart Truth.
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