Eat Your Weeds – Greek Wild Greens
Mar 11th, 2008 | By Hank Shaw | Category: Foraging, Greek, The Garden | Comments | 10 Comments |
This is the time of year to eat your weeds. Anyone who is not overly tense about cultivating that perfect lawn should have a whole slew of edible wild greens growing happily in unused corners of the yard. Even if you don’t, wander to the nearest wild place and you will find greens aplenty.
The Greeks make the best use of wild greens. They call them horta, and use them in all sorts of savory pies and wilted salads and stews. Why use them? Because they are super 
nutritious, tasty, and, best of all, free. But use them now, before they go bitter with the heat. A borage or dandelion leaf that’s succulent now will get tough or bitter by May.
I grew way too many fava beans last year, so I have jars of them sitting on my pantry. Nothing says Greek like favas and wild greens, so I decided to combine them in a kind of thick stew. A traditional dish like this exists in Crete called Xera Koukia me Hortarika, or “dried favas with wild greens.”
My dish is a bit different from the one in Diane Kochilas’ Glorious Foods of Greece: I sauteed onions and the favas in a combination of fresh lard and olive oil, then stewed them in stock and a ham hock until the favas collapsed. Then I buzzed the mixture with an immersion blender to make a smooth puree.
In went the greens. First were some cabbage leaves and chard from the garden; they needed the longest cooking time. After a few minutes I tossed in some turnip greens, then a mixture of wild things: wild lettuces, wild chicories and dandelions, borage leaves, wild fennel tops and even a mess of the tender tips off a hairy vetch, which are nothing more than an ancient wild bean.
I let them all cook only until wilted, stripped the meat off the ham hock and served the stew with a squeeze of lemon and some crusty bread. Delicious.
Italians love bitter greens, especially in a bean dish. My grandma would take me picking dandelion greens. Good post and much appreciated
It’s early yet for us, but there are ramps, nettles, garlic chives, dandelions, etc. just around the corner.
I miss ramps! They don’t grow here in California. Wah.
Hank, when us Greeks refer to Horta, it’s any wild, bitter greens. The King of wild greens for us is called Vlita, known in English as Amaranth.
We simply boil/steam them and season with salt, extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice. They are great with grilled whole fish.
Amaranth, huh? Any particular kind? (There are lots.) I grill whole fish all the time and would like to find them or grow them in the future.
More than on type of amaranth is eaten in Greece and all are referred to as vlita. What’s good about it is that it’s easy to clean and commercially available. It’s flavor is fine, though definitely isn’t my favorite horta.
On the issue of species, here’s what “Wild Edible Horta of the Mountains and the Plains” (in Greek) says:
“VLITA
Amaranthus sp. – Amaranthaceae (aka Vlitro, Vlistros, Glistros, Glindros)
There are many different plants belonging to the genus Amaranthus. The species A. albus, A. lividus, A. retroflexus and A. viridis are indigenous and are found throughout Greece. The common vlita, A. blitum is cultivated on a commercial scale all over Greece, and in Crete is called glindros. The vlita was known in Ancient Greece. Varieties of vlita are found in the Phillipines, China, and other hot countries. The species A. tricolor, with variegated leaves, is eaten in the countries of the Far East and is the Chinese spinach (tampala or hinn choy). Vlita is a common vegetable in all the countries of the Mediterranean basin. … The vlita with the red leaves (A. caudatus) isn’t eaten, it’s solely an ornamental plant.”
Hope this helps.
hi hank, if you’re into wild Cretan greens, i post about them all the time. my husband maintains our garden, we have wild edible greens growing haphazardly in our irrigation canals and we also cultivate vlita (amaranth). we call all wild greens HORTA collectively
Sounds very good but a shame you sabotaged a very healthy Mediterranean diet by adding lard and ham stock. If you had at least omitted the lard and maybe the ham stock as well you would have preserved the healthy virtues of a Mediterranean diet. And no, I am not a vegetarian nor is the Mediterranean diet but it advocates meat only in very small doses.
David: I know, and I typically do that. But greens and beans love to dance with pork products, so I went there. And ham stock and a tablespoon of lard here and there definitely won’t hurt anyone — you do know lard is actually better for you than butter, right? It is lower in saturated fat…
I have a feeling pork isn’t as bad for you as we think it is, the problem is (i suspect) the way we grow pork nowdays, which isn’t anything like we used to.
Greeks used pork in many dishes and i don’t see anything wrong with eating pork, but preferably in small doses and grown as close to organicaly as possible.
My father is close to 95, never been to a doctor, always drank and smoked heavily, but other than those bad habits had a great greek diet of little meat and plenty of the beautiful vegetables available in Greece, including wild horta and “volvus” from the forest, ohh and you should see the amount of salt he has on his food, handfulls !!!!