Banish winter with flavors of spring soups
March has been sneaky this year, interspersed with drenching rains and sudden snowstorms. Still, as spring approaches, we are believers. Crocuses blooming purple and yellow are signs, as are the fresher, greener vegetables in the produce section. Before long we’ll be reveling in local asparagus, crisp and bursting with flavor. Hopefully soon, I’ll be able to plant onions, spinach and sweet, tender green peas in my garden.
As the season changes, many of us crave fresh greens and the first vegetables to shake the damp and cold out of our bones. Spring vegetables such as asparagus, spinach, kale or any other mild, tender greens make delicious, healthful and invigorating soups. While the heartier winter soups are often heavy with meats and/or beans, spring tonic soups are packed with freshness, vitamins and goodness that wake you up from winter’s drab.
Old-timers, mostly in the South, used to hunt poke sallet, a term that refers to a mess of cooked greens and not a tossed green salad, for a spring tonic. Poke or pokeweed, which grows wild around woods and fences, pops up early in the spring, growing to a tall bush in summer with red stems and berries. It even has a song, “Poke Sallet Annie” by Tony Joe White.
Poke has to be boiled in several changes of water because it’s poisonous. We are not recommending it, nor does “Rodale’s 21st Century Herbal” by Michael J. Balick, but it’s part of food lore and history. The Southern Foodways Alliance even made a short film about picking and cooking the wild green.
Other wild greens are foraged, too, such as dandelions, which I’ve spotted on warm days this winter on my neighbor’s lawn. You may
be able to find some wild greens at farmers markets, taking the guesswork out of gathering your own. One green that’s mentioned a lot, even in new cookbooks, are stinging nettles, called for in several spring soup recipes. Once nettles are blanched or come in contact with heat, such as thorough sauteing, they will loose their famous sting.
In her book, “Grow Cook Nourish,” Darina Allen, whose velvety Spinach and Rosemary Soup we feature here, writes about cultivated and foraged vegetables and herbs. She has a soup made with stinging nettles, which she calls “a powerhouse of nutrients,” encouraging use to relish our weeds. The soup is topped with a nettle pesto, made by pureeing nettles, wild garlic, pine nuts and olive oil.
Nettles are yet not up. If you do come across a patch of them, be sure to wear long pants and use gloves to pick them, selecting young, tender leaves. They didn’t earn the name stinging nettles for nothing.
Not in the mood for foraging? Gather your greens and spring veggies at the farmers market or grocery store. Then go forth and make some soup.