Poison or pasta sauce? A guide to New Zealand's edible weeds

As a tired working parent I am a big fan of supermarkets, especially those that deliver. Everything in one place! Things for lunchboxes! Birthday cakes! Wine! I am also an enthusiastic gardener, but never have enough time to actually tend to it. Imagine my delight when the venn diagram of “no time for foraging” and “need to do some weeding” revealed that right outside my front door are weeds I could be transferring to the kitchen instead of the compost bin. Thanks to Andrew Crowe’s Edible Weeds of Aotearoa NZ, here are five things I found in 10 minutes that I might actually do:

1. Use pickled nasturtium seeds instead of capers on pizza
2. Freeze borage flowers into ice cubes to put into G&Ts when I am feeling fancy
3. Make tea out of lemon balm (especially since they are very high in Vitamin C)
4. Use calendula petals as a saffron substitute in paella
5. Cook self-heal leaves as a green vegetable – I loved reading about how it’s been used in different cultures, from medicine in China, to greens in Europe and by the Cherokee people.

And in fact that is one of the great strengths of this book: the fascinating information about different uses of these introduced edible weeds. So even if I only get around to doing #2 above, it will continue to be an enjoyable read. And people who actively forage, and/or are fans of his other bestselling book Edible Native Plants, will definitely get a lot out of this.