Uses of the Dandelion

From Godey’s Lady’s Book published in 1862 (found on the delightful “The Complete Victorian” website. Photos by Philly Markowitz and Jacqui Shannon

Henceforth, all Eatin’s Canada recipes will be written in such delicately correct language for the edification of all and sundry. Dandelion It’s uses are endless: the young leaves blanched make an agreeable and wholesome early salad; and they may be boiled, like cabbages, with salt meat. The French too slice the roots and eat them, as well as the leaves with bread and butter, and tradition says that the inhabitants of Minorca once subsisted for weeks on this plant, when their harvest  had been entirely destroyed by insects. The leaves are ever a favorite and useful article of food in the Vale of Kashmir, where, in spite of the preconceived prejudices we all have to the contrary, dandelions, and other humbler examples of our northern “weeds,” do venture to associate themselves with the rose or the jasmine of it’s eastern soil. On the bands of the Rhine the plant is cultivated as a substitute for coffee, and Dr. Harrison contends that it possesses the fine flavor and substance of the best Mocha coffee, without its injurious principle; and that it promotes sleep when taken at night, instead of banishing it, as coffee does. Mrs. Moodie gives us her experiences with dandelion roots, which seem of a most satisfactory nature.  She first cut the roots into small pieces, and dried them in the oven until they were brown and crisp as coffee, and in this state they appear to have been eaten.  But certain it is that she ground a portion of them, and made a most superior coffee.  In some parts of Canada they make an excellent beer of the leaves, in which the saccharine matter they afford forms a substitute for malt, and the bitter flavor serves instead of hops.  In medicine, too, it is invaluable.