Ava Chin Garlic mustard’s tangy bitter-green leaves seem to pop up wherever there’s a few square inches of shady or partly-shady ground.I was recently nosing around a friend’s backyard in Connecticut, looking forward to introducing my 1-year-old to the newest crop of springtime edibles. I had just finished clambering down a rocky outcrop, disappointed that the season’s ramps had yet to appear, when I saw the rounded leaves of young garlic mustard growing low to the ground, waving in the breeze.
Although garlic mustard’s sharp garlic-and-onion notes sweeten and mellow in the summertime, I still enjoy eating it this time of year. After stuffing my mouth with a few spicy leaves, I had the family gather several handfuls to bring home.
Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) â€" a k a Jack-by-the-hedge, hedge garlic, poor man’s mustard, and “sauce alone†in the United Kingdom â€" is a biennial herb found this time of year in basal-rosette form with deeply veined, scalloped-shaped leaves. Around late May and early June, it transforms into a willowy stalk with pointy, triangular leaves and white cross-shaped flowers.
In New York City, Alliaria petiolata is a stealthy grower, proliferating throughout the five boroughs in abandoned lots, city parks and across college campuses. Most recently, I’ve spotted it in its transitional stalk-like form, and on the verge of flowering, on Staten Island and as far up as the Bronx River.
Native to Europe and Western and Central Asia, garlic mustard can be found in most states across the country, including the tristate area. It is widely considered a noxious weed â€" in forests, an enemy of native trees. In Connecticut, it is illegal to import, sell, buy, distribute or transplant garlic mustard.
Back in my kitchen, I cleaned the garlic mustard by soaking the leaves in a bowl of water before drying them off. I then blended them in a food processor with extra virgin olive oil, walnuts, salt and pepper, and a teaspoon of apple vinegar. That evening, we had a wild-tasting seasonal pesto pasta with shaved Parmesan that even our toddler enjoyed.
In his foraging guide “Food for Free,†the British naturalist Richard Mabey suggests that garlic mustard’s best culinary application is as a mint-like vinegary sauce for lamb (especially when the sheep itself has grazed on the plant). I look forward to trying my hand at it this summer.
