Organic, Locally Grown, and Free for the Harvesting:

Holden Arboretum scheduled me to teach a workshop in September, and have been hounding me for the description and a bio. I was in hospital this past weekend receiving a new stent so my blood will flow better, got out on Saturday afternoon, and, by God, the blood IS flowing better! When that happens, watch out. All kinds of ideas flow into my head. So from 12:30 a.m. to 2:15 a.m. , I reflected on what it is that I really stand for-- that I really feel strongly about-- and how it differs from what other edible wild plant educators do.

John Glass and I had begun this reflection as we returned from a lecture I gave for the 50th Anniversary of the Five County Home Economist Association in North Central Ohio about a month ago. John is a student of just about all of us that do this as our profession, and remarked that I am absolutely the best in the world at what I do, which is focus my instruction solely on the plants that were brought here by immigrants as food and medicine, and which we as humans can rely on being underfoot when and if our world collapses around us and we have to make do with the resources surrounding us. And, because I do that, I am providing my students with more actually useful information and skills than most of the rest of them. That is because they provide too much information about too many plants, many of which aren't those occurring abundantly and, in general, over a long useful season of availability. People come away from my classes knowing well only 8 or 10 wild edibles, but they are those that will be there for them if they are needed.

Well, this morning, with all that fresh blood flowing to my brain, I pulled it all together into what I suppose will be the first draft of my thesis statement, and present it in the form of a class description, accompanied by my biography. Here, for whatever it is worth, it is:

"Eighty percent of the “weeds” we kill each spring aren’t weeds at all– they are vegetables and medicinals immigrants brought with them to America because they didn’t want to live here without them. Most were well known until the late1940's, when the American lifestyle underwent a drastic change into a buying economy.

Today we complain about the prices of fruits and vegetables while walking over ones that are more nutrient-dense and tasty, every time we go out into the yard. Emerson said “Weeds are plants for which we have not yet discovered a use.” The truth is that “Weeds are plants for which we have forgotten their uses, and because of this, they have become invisible to us.”

Nowdays, it is only in certain places around the United States that you can find locals celebrating the coming of spring with Poke, Ramp and Dandelion Festivals, Germans cooking up Dandelion dinners for 300 people on a Saturday and German mothers serving Dandelion Gravies at their dinner table. Or Greek mothers cooking up Horta, Egyptian mothers stirring a big pot of Melokhia Mallow Soup, Mexican mothers sauteeing a pot of Verdolago con queso, or an Eastern European mixing up a pot of Sorrel Soup with Sour Cream. These are but a few of the many delicious ethnic dishes based around a common plant we have come to call a "weed" ( or, in some cases, " weeds") as the basic ingredient.

With food prices climbing sky-high, and some food becoming largely inaccessible, the time has come to re-familiarize ourselves with this organic, locally grown produce that nature provides us “free for nothin’” except the labor to harvest it.

On September 27, from 1-3 p.m. Dr. Peter Gail, USA Today’s “King of Dandelions”and Good Morning America’s ‘Wizard of Weeds,” will, through Powerpoint presentation and field experiences, reconnect you to these foods, with samples of dishes made from many of them for you to try. His books containing recipes for them all will be available for sale.

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Dr. Peter Gail is Director of Goosefoot Acres Center for Resourceful Living in Cleveland Ohio. He earned his Ph.D. in Botany from Rutgers University, and has spent the last 47 years studying how various cultures use backyard weeds as food and medicine. He is the author of numerous articles and eight books on edible wild plants, including The Goosefoot Acres Volunteer Vegetable Sampler: Recipes for Backyard Weeds, The Dandelion Celebration: A Guide to Unexpected Cuisine, The Great Dandelion Cookbook: Recipes from the National Dandelion Cookoffs and Then Some, The Delightful Delicious Daylily: Recipes and More, Violets in Your Kitchen, and Those Messy Mulberries. . He has shared his delight with wild vegetables on ABC-TV's “Good Morning America,” Lifetime TV's "The Home Show", and on the Food Television Network, as well as being Cleveland TV-5's The Morning Exchange's "Wizard of Weeds" for five years. He founded and, for 10 years, conducted, the National Dandelion Cookoff, which is held in Dover Ohio the first weekend in May each year, and draws up to 14,000 people a year to learn more about dandelions. USA Today called him the "King of Dandelions.” Good Morning America dubbed him “The Wizard of Weeds.” California State Polytechnic University’s School of Science named him its Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in 1979, and he was inducted into the National Wild Food Hall of Fame in 2000 for his work in popularizing the eating of wild plants throughout the United States.

He lives with his wife, Wilma, in Cleveland Heights, OH. They have three children and five grandchildren. "

That about sums it up. Now to get out there and harvest, process and cook up these ethnic dishes and make some converts.