Andrew and I started watching a show called The Durrells in Corfu. They have very little in terms of money and in the 3rd episode, the mom makes a soup. When the kids sit down to eat it, they blech and moan about the weeds in the soup since yes, their soup was literally made of weeds. I cracked up at this point since just that morning I had attended a foraging class and learned about doing this exact thing.

For thousands of years, humans have used weeds in their cooking. And in their first aide. It was truly fascinating to take a walk around a park and identify wild edibles, plants you walk by every day, that could be used to make tea, season marinara and infuse ice cream. And though it wasn’t a class on plants used for wellness, our instructor also pointed out plants that can be used to stop bleeding and act as an anti inflammatory. It was just an intro to a topic that has an extensive amount of information and usability but it got me excited to take more classes to learn about plants we can eat when we go camping or are out on hikes as well as plants that can be used for medicinal purposes which had previously been overwhelming to me.

My suggestion to you? If this is something that interests you, check out your local community college or botanical garden. There’s a good chance they offer classes like this and you too might soon find yourself carefully studying the plants you are stepping on.

As a side note, when I pulled into my driveway after coming home from this class, there were edible flowers I had just learned about right next to our driveway. So of course I picked a couple, took them inside and used it to decorate our meal. Talk about high class cooking! I look forward to the day when my kids blech about the weeds in their soup!