Eight thousand years ago, someone was seasoning their stew with a weed you walk past every day.
In 2013, researchers discovered phytoliths — tiny silica bodies preserved from plants — in charred crusts on pottery from the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the western Baltic (source).
The phytoliths matched garlic mustard seeds, found alongside residues from fish, meat, and starchy plants.
Which means prehistoric cooks weren’t grabbing it out of desperation. They chose it because the food tasted better.
Take a stroll through any hedgerow in spring and you’ll find it. White flowers, heart-shaped leaves, a light garlic scent when you crush a leaf.
What you’re looking at is garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata), aka jack-by-the-hedge, not ramsons (Allium ursinum). Most people walk straight past it.
In the public mind, foraging still carries the Ray Mears survival-bootcamp association. Bad-tasting food. Emergency rations. Grunt food. Waiting for the Joint Personnel Recovery teams to extract you from behind enemy lines.
Our ancestors get cast as people living on the brink of death, eating out of desperation, not as skilled practitioners of a craft.
Show a wild edible plant to most people and you’ll get an incredulous look. But the archaeological record says otherwise; cooks who wore animal skins cared about flavour.
Garlic mustard, picked at the right moment, equals anything you’d find in the shops.
So next time you reach for mustard greens, rocket, or cultivated brassicas, consider swapping one of them out for a good handful of garlic mustard.
It’s a touch early in the season right now, but later on, try the seeds dried, ground, and mixed with apple cider vinegar. The mustard you get will take the back of your head off.
For the deeply curious.