There’s a roadside plant in Britain that you may have seen. It looks like a massive dandelion seed head.
It’s known as common goat’s beard (Tragopogon pratensis). Usually the flower is small and yellow, and it’s closed by the time most people are up and about.
It’s the wild cousin of salsify, the fancy root vegetable gardeners have cultivated for centuries.
Salsify has a purple flower, but historically, people preferred goat’s beard.
Bryant, writing in England two centuries ago, said salsify might be held in the greatest esteem, but its roots are much inferior to goat’s beard.
There you go: cultivated crops losing out to the weed at the side of the road. I’ve gotta love that — and it happens more than people think.
Often the hybridised varieties we get served in the shops taste like a pale imitation of the wild relatives they’ve come from.
The traditional use was simple: dig the root before the plant flowers. Legal note: you need the landowner’s permission to do this.
Mrs Beeton says to scrape a root and cut it into finger lengths. Soak it in lemon water to prevent discolouration until you’re ready to use it. Then, boil it and serve with butter or a white sauce.
You can treat the young stems — cut before the flowers show — like asparagus: boil them and slather them with butter.
It’s the flowers I like most when they are still closed. Eaten whole, they are a unique treat, and definitely worth seeking out.
A reference from Provence, written in 1871, notes that people used the roots raw in a country salad. That’s it.
They will be appearing very soon, and unless you have a keen eye, they can be quite hard to spot even when hiding in plain sight. You might look them up in a wildflower book and go on an excursion through the hedgerow.