kyss-meg-over-gjerde | Edimentals !

Lunch today was inspired by the Mediterranean diet – simple with masses of greens, but with an international twist: Cherokee spinach (top shoots of sochan – Rudbeckia laciniata / kyss-meg-over-gjerde), nettles (nesle), shallots (sjalott) harvested and stored since October, greater musk mallow (rosekattost) (Malva alcea), day lilies (dagliljer) flower buds, sand leek (bendelløk) (Allium scorodoprasum) and nodding onion / prærieløk (Allium cernuum) flowers. Added wild oregano (Origanum vulgare), dried orange milkcap / Granmatrisken (Lactarius deterrimus) and home grown chili salt a la “Are Sende Osen” (a gift during his visit this week), served with Allium moly flowers (from the mountains of Spain).

Thanks to Alan Bergo (@foragerchef) for reminding me to try sochan tops. This is Rudbeckia laciniata (cut-leafed coneflower) which in the double form is one of the most popular garden ornamentals here in Norway over the last 100 years and a plant that has been commercialised as a farm vegetable over recent years in Korea. I’d previously only eaten the spring shoots, but I was equally impressed by the tops which I used simply cooked with onion, garlic and yellow zucchini from the garden, various fungi picked in the woods (saffron milkcap/matriske; hedgehog fungus / piggsopp and chantarelles / kantarell) and scrambled with eggs with a little chilim added (a classic way for preparing wild edibles in the Mediterranean countries. See the pictures below.
See other posts on this great vegetable which was introduced to me in one of Samuel Thayer’s books:
Appalachian Greens
Cherokee Pizza