The possibilities are good that you’re surrounded by Artemisia vulgaris. Native to Eurasia, mugwort is extremely invasive in North America, displacing swathes of native crops unable to compete with its perennial unfold, fueled by an intensive underground rhizome system. However mugwort can be a sage-fragrant and really palatable wormwood. It’s hardly ever utilized in American kitchens, regardless of being a culinary herb in elements of Europe, and well-known in Korea (the place it’s known as ssuk) and in Japan (yomogi), the place a closely-related species (A. princeps) is prevalent and acquainted in cooking in addition to in conventional medicines. In my forage-inspired kitchen, mugwort is a regular herb.
Be a part of the invasivores. Eat this weed.
Images by Marie Viljoen.
The very first thing I used to be instructed about mugwort by a neighborhood forager on a stroll in 2009 was that it might induce vivid desires if I put it beneath my pillow. My desires appeared unaffected. Individuals do smoke it, and dried mugwort is utilized in moxibustion. Me, I simply eat it.
Mugwort has an extended rising season, and a number of helpful elements. In very early spring it emerges with mushy, silvery leaves on the base of the earlier 12 months’s useless sticks. The brand new leaves could be picked complete and wilted or tempura’d; they’ve a light taste.
By midsummer mugwort has grown to a few ft tall—its stems sappily tender and inexperienced, and its taste and scent stronger. The stems could be added complete to braises, curries, and marinades, chopped into stuffings, or put to infuse with crimson fruits and vodka (scroll down for the recipe). Mugwort leaves are the grounding ingredient in my seasonal vermouths. European vermouth derives its identify from Wermut, German for “wormwood.” And Beifuß—the German identify for mugwort—is bought as industrial herb in that nation, each dried and recent. In Croatia it’s divlji pelin and a conventional ingredient in white-hot digestifs.
The tender early summer season leaves may also be crisply fried and used to high a number of summer season sandwiches.
By fall it’s flowering and now mugwort’s sturdy, woody stalks could be over 4 ft tall. It’s straightforward to see why native crops discover it unattainable to compete. Accumulating the flowers and tender seeds is satisfying: merely run a hand backwards down a stalk to strip them off; that is the stage of mugwort I wish to dry to be used by winter: It flavors a slow-cooked, ritual pozole that I make to hold on a freezing stroll to greet every New Yr’s Day. And mugwort salt is a staple seasoning, scrumptious with eggs and scattered throughout roast potatoes.
