April 5th is National Dandelion Day. A big selling point to my library is that there are so many specific topics that I have a book about, but the more wonderful part is that when you read from the library, you find many other topics and ideas inside the books. So it is with dandelions. There is no one specific book here, but when you research, there are plenty of references. Like weeds, they are all over. I have several books, and several stories about dandelions.
We will start with “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” by Euell Gibbons, 1962. This is a great reference for wild foods of all types. Gibbons talks a lot about Taraxacum offocinale the common dandelion. In fact, he has a whole chapter on dandelions, and why to eat them. He says:
“This herbal hero, one of the most healthful and genuinely useful plants in the materia medica of the past, is now a despised lawn weed. Now that supermarkets sell green vegetables throughout the winter, and druggist are vending tons of synthetic vitamins, we no longer need to depend on the roots and leaves of this humble plant to ward off sickness and death, so we have turned on the dandelion.”
He then goes on to the many ways that this plant can be used, including a recipe cleaning and drying the roots to make a form of coffee.
The next book “Best Ideas for Organic Vegetable Growing” by the staff of Organic Gardening 1977. He goes into detail on how to mulch around, and grow dandelion greens year after year, because after regretting that they last “only a couple of weeks in the wild state”, he can now have them throughout the summer.
I have an interesting small book “The Seed” published by the American Sunday-School Union, 1845. It describes seeds of the world based on the wonder of God. On the third day of creation, God separated land and sea, dried the land, and created vegetation. The book discusses why thistles and dandelions can create so many seeds-each over 15,000 per plant…to just overrun farmland? No! “God ordered those seeds to grow to also feedeth the fowls of the air.”
“Amateur Wine Making” by S.M. Tritton 1972, reprinted several times since 1956, is here with not one but two very interesting recipes for making dandelion wine. AND, one for making dandelion beer.
We go to “Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants” by Charles M. Skinner, published 1911. This magnificent book gives us an interesting Algonquin Indian tale of the love of the south wind for the dandelion which is made in likeness of the sun. Shawondasee, the south wind, gazed over the fields and noticed a slender girl with yellow hair, but was too lazy that spring to go after her. Day after day he looked at her and smiled at her beauty. One day he looked for her and she was gone. Instead of a young maiden with golden hair, there was an older faded creature with a poll of grey. He felt his brother the North Wind had breathed cold on the girl and covered her head with frost. Shawondasee sighed heavily, and when the sigh reached the old lady, her white hair fell and she disappeared. Every spring, Shawondasee sighs unceasingly for the beautiful maiden with the yellow hair.
The last book I have on Dandelions also has a story attached to it. “Planning the Home Grounds” by Cecile Hulse Matschat 1937, is a book on how to plan out and take care of one’s yard and garden. On the subject of dandelions, the author states that such plants have a deep taproot, must be cut off deep below the surface with an old knife or an asparagus knife. Most people may not know what an asparagus knife was, but Baby-boomers would remember the ‘dandelion picker”. It is basically the same tool, long like a large screwdriver with a forked point that was sharpened. You would dig next to the dandelion, and then angle the blade to cut off the plant root and all. Dandelions would be gotten rid of one at a time this way.
Wielding such tools, my brother and I were tasked with ridding the yard of dandelions. It was tedious work, leaving me plenty of time to antagonize my brother. After an hour of hot sun, bending over dandelion after dandelion, ripping them one by one from the yard, and listening to my sarcasm, my brother finally cracked. He threw his dandelion picker at me. I luckily ducked and the picker hit our mom’s car behind me. Rather, it stuck into our mother’s car, with a loud ‘thunk’, piercing the door. Brothers will be brothers, and I wasted no time tattling on mine. While lucky to have not been speared by a dandelion picker, I felt luckier to not have to finish picking weeds, while my brother was now on his own.
The Cheetah is faster Dandelion.
Thanks for reading.
Librarytomes 