I absolutely love wild herbs. I grow them throughout my garden. However, their taste tends to be overpowering when you make "bigger" dishes. I love to make "creamed spinach" dishes and using a bucket full of dandelions, lamb's quarters, and so on, tend to be overwhelming to especially people who are not used to wild edible plants. (This is not always the case but wild edibles are not cultivated and do not always yield so much. The flavor packs a punch with very little volume.)
What I do to compensate for this is to substitute a certain amount of spinach or chard out for the wild substitutes; by doing so I create a dish that is much more nutritious and flavorful. I know this might go a little against the grain, but I want to write a type of love letter to chard, swiss chard, silver beet, perpetual spinach, or whatever you want to call it. (Or, Beta vulgaris subsp. vulgaris, Cicla Group.) "Why", you may ask? Because I think this humble vegetable gives us a blank canvas on which we can place various other flavors. It can also help us enter our journeys into wild edibles, acting as a backbone for dishes.
In the following post, I will briefly discuss some of the interesting historical aspects, especially the name, of chard. I will also give a brief overview of the health aspects of this plant. I will then, in the form of a sort of love letter, give my journey and appreciation to this plant that helped my journey into wild edibles. Also, the seeming abundance of leaves this plant gives cannot be overlooked. I hope you enjoy this journey with me!
The Plant with Many Names: A Brief History
There are many theories why this plant is sometimes called "Swiss chard". This is further muddled by the fact that some people label chard as "Swiss chard spinach". (My local shop sells it under this name.) An interesting theory why it is called Swiss chard is that one of the botanists who wrote about it was Swiss. However, I am not sure if this is correct. Another theory about the name "chard" is that it is a misnomer, or a wrong name that since stuck, because of the Italian word for beet that was very similar. Either way, naming things get very tricky and people can easily talk past each other. That is also one of the reasons why getting accurate information on the historical usage of plants is so tricky; different people use different names to refer to the same plant, and the same name can sometimes refer to different plants! It is a mess.
According to one source, the philosopher Aristotle wrote about red-stalked chard. That makes this a very old cultivar of vegetables. Or at least in my view. I think this makes chard older than spinach! But do not quote me on that. I am a philosopher and not a historian! The believed ancestor of the common chard today is sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) The resemblances are there, or what I could make out from the images. (Interestingly, the sea beet has adapted to growing in salty soil close to the sea. I wonder if they are salty in taste? Maybe someone has tried it, please comment below!)
Chard is not Spinach: Brief Nutritional Aspects
As noted above, my country sometimes sells chard as "Swiss chard spinach". As far as I am aware, they are two different species of plants. In fact, chard is more closely related to beetroots than spinach! But people substitute them with spinach often, or again at least in my country. In any case, both are very healthy. Herewith is some nutritional information on chard.
Firstly, cooking chard will lessen the nutritional punch. However, the raw and younger leaves are very tasty in a fresh salad. But even in its cooked form, it is very healthy. Also, if you are afraid of oxalic acid, be aware that as with spinach and some other leafy greens (especially lamb's quarters) it has a high amount in them. (According to one website as high as 600mg per 100g.) It has loads of vitamin K in it, a vitamin that various people on the western diet lacks (due to the low amount of leafy greens they consume). I am not the biggest fan of breaking food into its constituent parts due to the "nutritionism" mentality it promotes. My goal rather is to grow happy plants; happy plants equate to nutritious plants (I know this is very simplistic!). For example, I grew these plants in only compost and some sand leftover from other projects. Who knows what vitamins there are in these plants! (Just kidding. This is obviously not how plants work.)
In any case, it is very high in Vitamin K and A, it has Vitamin C and E in them, Magnesium, and Manganese. According to Plants for a Future, there are some medicinal uses to Chard as well. However, this might be more related to beet and beet greens. Either way, this is a very healthy plant especially if you use it with other wild herbs.
A Sort of Loveletter to Chard: A Seeming Abundance of Produce and Mixing in other Wild Herbs
Ever since growing my own food, chard has been the metaphorical backbone, or thick white chard stem, of my journey into wild herbs. Gradually substituting chard leaves for lamb's quarter leaves, dandelion leaves, amaranth leaves, and so on, I fell in love with its taste. On its own, it is rather bland and takes on the taste of whatever it is paired with. But when wild herbs are thrown into the pot, a magical transformation takes place: a complex explosion of flavors come together.
Chopping the white stems like onions, sautéing them in olive oil, picking the leaves that never seems to stop growing. It has been a year now and they never stop growing. Harvest after harvest, the table lies fully covered with their green foliage. Awestruck at how much such a small surface can grow, my stomach says thanks to all that mother nature gives.
Long stems reach out to the sky before I harvest them. Next to them, some wild African spinach grows, amaranth, and lamb's quarters. Garlic chives and dandelions. Mother nature provides to those who know the language. I am a mere mortal who has been burdened by the western society palate. I cannot eat only wild herbs for I have been indoctrinated to seek mild sweet food. However, the humble chard has given me a gateway to enter into the world of wild herbs. My journey has started with chard, and now I am versed in many others that cannot go without. It is a complex dance between different flavors and textures, smells and appearances. A world without you would have been one without a way into this secret realm.
Mix Your Greens
I hope that you learned something from this post. If you have never tried chard before, grow some. They are really hardy and easy to grow. They are wonderful when you mix them with other greens. As mentioned above, I pick an array of different leaves that goes well with the chard. Not only are they easy to grow, I think they are always so beautiful looking. Some people actually grow them just for their ornamental beauty. In any case, mix your greens so that they pack even more of a nutritional punch. Happy growing and cooking!
(All images are my own, taken with a Nikon D300 or iPhone. The musings are also my own, unless credited to the original owner/source. Thank you for reading my musings. I really appreciate your time and eyes. Happy gardening.)