Wild and Free: Chickweed.

There are quite a few free edible goodies you can find to eat in Australia. I am not going to go into the realm of the foods the indigenous people of Australia eat from the native environment but look at another one that exists as a weed.

The majority of the weeds were  introduced with settlement in Australia by people's from over the seas. As such most of the introduced weeds are available in other parts of the world also.  Their ability to colonise and survive makes them almost universal plants, plants of the people for all the people. That is the kindest way to view them but then again I am not a farmer!

Chickweed or Stellaria media is a weed with a long culinary and medicinal history. The ancient Greeks record it usage.  It is remarkably high in the vitamins A,  B Complex, C, and D. Additionally it is high in Calcium, Zinc, Potassium, Manganese, Silica, Phosphorous, Sodium and Copper.

The medicinal qualities are numerous but as we are dealing with foods, if you are interested in what you can treat yourself with chickweed you can find this information yourself. Some people counter the medicinal claims of these free plants by saying, " Well if it is so good why can we not buy them as medicines?" Just remember medicines are about money. Weeds and the compounds within them cannot generally be patented hence the development of newer more marketable products. In fact you can access chickweed lotions balms and tonics in alternative medicine practices. I am not a naturopath so will stay away from that area.

But I do know a little about food. Chickweed is excellent as part of a salad. It  can be made into a soup or added to a soup as to be honest, I doubt you will ever be able to collect enough to make a soup of chickweed alone.. I will throw it in when making stocks. It is nice cooked with the minimum of butter and a little lemon juice. It makes a useful garnish. It is nice in a stir fry but when cooking with chickweed remember it requires a minimum of cooking so is best left to the end. It can be stringy so if in doubt, it pays to chop it prior to cooking.

Chickweed in the vegetable patch. It cuts down the growth of other weeds and acts as a natural growing mulch. Here it is among the beans. It gives you a relative size of what you are looking for.

Some notes on identification:

• In Australia I live in a cool temperate area with reasonable rainfall. I can find chickweed all year round.Other sources claim it to be a plant of winter.
• If you break the stem no milky sap spills forth.
• Leaves are opposite on the stem not alternate.
• The stem has one line of hairs running up it and these change side at each pair of leaves. However if you can readily see this feature you have very good eyes! It is clear under a magnifying glass.

As always when collecting weeds, be sure to know the area you are harvesting from has not been sprayed or is subject to some other form of contaminant.