Eating Nettles

In these mountain valleys there are nettles everywhere. If I dig a little in the garden I find the web of roots that lies just below the surface. That will be exactly where last year I rooted out all I could find with backbreaking work. Some grow in low mats that rapidly cover large expanses of field. Others cheerfully pop their heads up above the tallest flowers in the garden, their hanging flowers waving cheekily in the breeze.



After the rain the nettles look fresh and vigorous. I should qualify that because the omnipresent stinger is always fresh, even when the other plants are yellowing with thirst. They look so fresh they are almost appetising...



Carmen's brother is an artist. He took us for a walk last winter with a fuggy head and streaming nose in search of bracket fungus to make an infusion he said was a sure-fire remedy for catarrh. Since he is also a devotee of other fungi of a more hallucinogenic nature I was a little sceptical and left the tea for the believers, but when Carmen called me on the Camino and said, "We're eating nettles!" I had no doubt Santiago was in town.



"You're eating nettles," I echoed. "That's great. Wait till I tell my walking group- they´ll love it!"

"Don't laugh," she replied, a little testily. "You're having some too, as soon as you get back."



Carmen's family- that is her sister, her brother and herself- are all what a Spaniard might call chiflado, which roughly translates a bonkers. They had a get-together with a friend of Santiago's who was busy prosletysing the health merits of the common stinging nettle. They all like to go out into the wild and dig their fingers about in the dirt getting authentic organic ingredients from the roadside. It's charming



We know a little about the merits of the stinging nettle for the garden because we make a purin from nettle leaves. We soak them in buckets of water until the fibre and stalks rise to the surface and the liquid forms a thick, foul-smelling soup. The theory is that anything as robust and pest-resistant as the nettle must make a healthy addition to the soil or the compost. The idea of eating purin was unappealing- but I can't say no to Carmen.



Like so many things you don't really like, I ended up saying it was 'not that bad really'. We threw some into a stir fry because I couldn't face the idea of blanching them and sticking them in a salad and nettle soup would have been much too much like purin. The taste is irony like spinach but the texture is unpleasant- the leaves have no substance and form little globs of dark green goo. If it isn't healthy at least it looks it.



Perhaps I should leave the nettles alone. At the moment I am trying to supplant them with false nettles which at least have pretty flowers and lemon mint that smells good when you touch it. But I am sure they will make a comeback on the dinner table when the nasturtiums we are currently eating are out of season!