My favorite (edible) weed

09/11/2008
My favorite (edible) weed

This August, you might have been surprised to observe me watering some weeds in the gravel of our driveway and in the rocky and rock-hard earth nearby at our house in Haute Provence.  Not  much, just a squirt now and then as I was passing by watering some newly planted perennials.  But nonetheless, I was clearly watering weeds.  Why on earth, you would have asked yourself, would I be doing that?

There's a very simple explanation.  When we arrived at the house for August vacation, I was delighted to find that a bunch of purslane  (Portulaca oleracea) had sprouted a few steps from the front door.  Well, I love purslane--to eat, that is.  Before I discovered how good--and how good for you--it is, I used to hate it.  I hated it because back when I lived in Indiana, it was a horrible weed in my garden.  It covered what I wanted to be naked, well-groomed earth between my vegetables with its spidery tentacles.

And the hotter the weather, the more vigorously that weedy purslane grew.  I remember one year, I weeded a huge bed of sweet pepper plants of purslane, shaking the soil off its roots and throwing it in circular heaps around the feet of the peppers.  I thought the purslane plants would just dry up in the burning sun and form a sort of mulch around the peppers.  To my horror--and just like in a horror movie--the purslane came back to life, literally seeming to squirm to get its roots back into contact with the soil, which was all it needed to take off anew.

How ignorant I was back then!  I was trying to make mulch out of purslane when I could have had the exquisite pleasure--much like Idi Amin--of eating my enemy!  (Remember Idi Amin?  I may be paraphrasing, but he was the African dictator who said, "I eat my enemies before they eat me.")  And since I've started preparing purslane for the table, I can assure you the pleasure is exquisite.  Purslane is so good that I've entirely ceased thinking of it as an enemy.

As our garden in Normandie is too cool and rainy to please purslane,  even when I plant the stuff, I was thrilled to discover my wild purslane patch in Provence.  And while the plant is incredibly drought-tolerant, it is tenderer and more succulent if it gets a bit of water from time to time.  Which brings us full circle to why I was watering the purslane.

Purslane is found throughout the world, in almost all sunny soils from the coldest to the hottest parts of the planet.  It thrives in the poorest, rockiest soils.  For that reason, no one is sure where it originated.  Its genus--Portulaca--is a group of herbaceous succulent plants whose blossoms last only for a day--and only part of the day, at that.  When I was a child, I was always fascinated by the jewel-like tones of the flowering portulaca my mother cultivated in decorative planters.  I remember a twinge of sadness as I watched the flowers collapse each afternoon, after having been so vibrant all morning long.  The purslane of my childhood was P. grandiflora, which sadly seems to have fallen out of fashion.

Purslane is one of the very most nutritious plants you can eat.  It is rich in antioxydants and the famous Omega-3 fatty acid (that many people think is ony found in oily fish).  In addition, 100 grams (a small serving) contains300 to 400 milligrams of alpha-linoleic acid, 12.2 mg of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), 26.6 mg of Vitamin C, 1.9 mg of beta-carotene, and 14.8 mg of glutathione.  All of which is to say that Popeye has been eating the wrong plant!

Purslane has been eaten and employed medicinally by people from all over the world.  Ancient Iranian medical texts refer to the broncho-dilatory effects of purslane.  Modern studies have shown that a simple purslane extract in fact has a bronchodilatory effect equal to that of theophylline, the most commonly administered asthma drug.

Now, I don't have asthma, but all that nutritional information only increases my appetite for purslane.  I'm a person who somehow can incorporate the knowledge of how good something is for me into my gustatory pleasure in eating it.  But vitamins aside, purslane just tastes good.  It is juicy and faintly sour raw, and mild and pleasant cooked.  You can enjoy it simply chopped up with some fresh onion and tomato and dressed with olive oil in a salad; as an ingredient in a salad of mixed greens; or cooked in any way you would enjoy spinach, chard, or kale.

If purslane isn't at this very moment trying to strangle your garden, you can plant the seed (available here) by simply scattering it on top of any soil in a sunny spot.  You don't even need to cultivate; all you need is some bare ground.  Now what other plant is so easy to grow?  Harvest  purslane by snipping its ground hugging branches with a pair of pruning shears or scissors.  The more you harvest it, the more purslane will reward you with rapid regrowth of tender new shoots.

When preparing in the kitchen, discard the thickest stems, which tend to be tough.  Snip the leafy branchlets into short lengths with scissors.  If you want to increase your purslane crop, shake the purslane branches over a piece of baking parchment before cutting them up.  A shower of tiny black seeds will fall out, which otherwise will add a faint but pleasant crunch to your salad.

I've grown and eaten both wild purslane, with small, oval, bright green leaves and the "cultivated" variety with larger bright yellow leaves ("Golden purslane").  I'm here to tell you that the wild stuff is far superior.  It tastes better and stays edible all summer long.  The golden stuff immediately forms big, obnoxiously hard seedpods that are not at all pleasant to eat.  Stick with the "unimproved" ordinary purslane, which I'm willing to bet is more nutritious too.

When Denis and I were in Fez this spring, we were served a lamb tagine with parsley--cooked as a green.  It was pretty good, but it got me to wondering--as I often do--about the origins of the dish.  I was sure that the parsley was an easy, modern substitute for what had once been wild edible plants...such as purslane.  So in August, when we had bought an entire lamb from our wonderful neighbor in Haute Provence, I made a lamb tagine with purslane.  It was out of this world.  Try it!

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Products of Interest:
Wild purslane