I love winter farmers’ markets; crops heaped up on stalls often have a coating of field frost on them, and the sweetness of root vegetables and the cabbage family are really appreciated. Despite this most farmers and customers are glad to see signs of spring and a return to the abundance of spring and summer.
We’re still in the hungry gap. A period that not so long ago for most of the population would have meant a bland diet until the first green shoots could be harvested or found. Winter roots and top fruit are running out and it’s still a while until new crops come through. However it’s not all doom and gloom. Parsley is verdant, spring onions are on show, rhubarb is a welcome pink blush on stalls and sprouting broccoli & wild garlic are seasonal highlights. Last year, thanks to the cold snap, sprouting broccoli made rarer appearances, this year it’s plentiful.
At the equinox on the 20th March, it’s traditional in Wiltshire to drink dandelion and burdock. The recipe goes back to medieval times, to the cleansing herbs eaten or drunk after the bland winter diet. Apocryphal and totally unverified tales say that St Thomas Aquinas invented it, reaching for the first herbs at his feet. I’m more inclined to put the recipe down to trial and error and women herbalists who lived by their skills and knowledge.
Dandelion root helps cleanse the liver whilst the leaf helps remove toxins through the urine. Burdock is a powerful tissue cleanser.
If you can’t get hold of either, nettle leaves are known as a blood tonic with many essential minerals.
American root beer is a relation of dandelion of burdock. And one of my favourite London shops, the herbalists Baldwin’s at Elephant and castle still serves sarsaparilla from the counter.
Root beer to me was an alien brew drunk by characters in the Snoopy & Charlie Brown cartoons drank. I love the fact that it shares its history with Dandelion & Burdock, which was just as foreign to our suburban London ways. Friends at college who hailed from Northern towns bought and drank it, but I can’t remember ever tasting it until a few years ago.
Is there a north-south Dandelion & Burdock divide?
From the 1830’s onwards, temperance bars thrived in Lancashire, especially, in towns with a strong Methodist following. One still exists, Fitzpatrick’s Herbal Health where sarsaparilla has been made since 1890. Mawson’s in Oldham continues to produce soft drinks with a similar traditional character including cream soda and sarsaparilla. No-one would claim any health benefits for them, but the flavours; ginger, liquorice, and aniseed are delicious.
The dominant flavour in these drinks is usually sassafras or wintergreen, both now derived artificially rather than from the plant itself, in part because during the 1960s safrole, the major component of the volatile oil of sassafras, was found to be carcinogenic. All of these drinks, while tasting similar, do have their own distinct flavour. Dandelion and burdock is most similar in flavour to sarsaparilla. Thanks to companies such as Fentimans, the drink has had its popularity increased. I’ve found recipes using burdock root and dandelion root and spoken to foragers who have made their own soft drinks.
Try poaching pears in dandelion and burdock, adding extra elements such as five spice and vanilla, or liquorice. I went further and made a milk jelly using these flavour elements. Not for children, it had a decidedly grown up flavour, probably because I kept the sugar content down.
Last year Amazing Botanicals man Adam Elmegrab was at 69 Colebrook Row demonstrating his range of bitters, which includes a dandelion and burdock version. These were destined for cocktails at Colebrook Row and the Zetter.
The idea of a temperance bar is delightfully tempting, especially if the range of drinks is wide ranging and exotic. Many of us are guilty of drinking too much, and it gets boring to hear about yet another hangover. So why not, an alcohol free haven, without the religious fervour of the previous centuries, but all the deliciousness of the drinks.
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