Raw In Scotland: Wild greens to pick for a spring tonic

I'm sitting in a warm sun room sipping green juice and feeling so appreciative of the WARM weather after such a long cold winter. Now everything is growing like crazy and there are plenty of wild leaves to eat. I pick dandelion leaves and sorrel in my own garden and nearby there are stinging nettles to juice, daisy flowers and garlicky ramsons flowers to put on salads. In fact, I might make a wild salad for the raw pot luck this week, . Some like the dandelions in salads. they are too bitter and overpowering for my taste so I eat them separately, usually straight from the plant in passing but occasionally with quite a robust dressing of their own. I feel all virtuous because they are good liver tonics.

Wild food isn't only good because it bypasses the budget, but because it is rich in nutrients, really rich. The plants grow in their ideal spots and they have never been subject to human breeding schemes. They are the most natural food in that sense, and the food of our ancestors. the American herbalist Susan Weed (yes, she did change her name...) describes wild plants as the original keys that unlock our human system perfectly, unlike the duplicate keys of domesticated plants that don't quite fit as well. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know wild foods have excellent nutritional pedigrees and are ideal food supplements and treats, and in some cases potent and effective herbal medicines - so long as you know what you are doing! Try Richard Mabey's 'Food For Free' as a reference book, and steer round the rarer plants which need our protection.

Bon appetit!