“The burdocks and nettles fed my soul.” – Anna Akhmatova
In Irma Rombauer’s book, The Joy of Cooking (1931), between listings for spinach soup and green turtle soup, is a recipe for nettle soup. It is simple fare, using only young nettle leaves, stock, and a bit of rice or oatmeal. Simple, but a superfood. The nutritional value includes vitamins C, K, and B, calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, amino acids, and antioxidants. Nettles are diuretic and flush out toxins and purify the blood, a real spring tonic.
“We did eat some nettle porridge, which was very good.” – Pepys Diary 1661
Stinging nettles, Urtica dioica, are perennial plants native to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa. The leaves are ovate with serrated edges and covered with tiny hairs. Because the plants are not especially distinctive, nettles are often grabbed with bare hands while weeding or brushed against when walking and the minute hairs release fluid containing bicarbonate of ammonia, which causes a burning or stinging sensation. The juice of the dock plant, when rubbed on irritated skin, relieves the sting, as in an old saying: Nettle in, dock out. Dock rubs nettle out! The Latin name, Urtica, means to burn. Roman soldiers were reported to rub their cold arms with nettles to induce the burning feeling to counteract the cold. But the sting also makes nettles much reviled weeds.
“I love the spider and the nettle, Because they are hated.” – Victor Hugo
The usefulness of nettles is more extensive than spring greens. Allergies asthma, joint pain, and inflammation are treated by drinking nettle tea. The tea is also an effective hair tonic, making it soft and glossy. A homeopathic tincture, Urtica, is used to treat rheumatic gout, chickenpox, and bruises. Other creatures can benefit from nettles as well. Increases egg production and fattening of chickens and healthy horse digestion are results of feeding nettles.
If tea and tinctures are not to your liking, you can try urtication, the flogging with nettles, which is a remedy for chronic rheumatism or loss of muscular power.
During the world wars, when cotton was scarce, nettles were used to make cloth, similar to flax or hemp. The root of the plant produces a yellow dye and nettle leaves can be used as a rennet substitute to curdle milk for cheesemaking.
In Les Miserables, Victor Hugo wrote a long passage enumerating the many uses of nettles. “When the nettle is young, the leaves make excellent greens; when it matures, it has filaments and fibers like hemp and flax. Nettle fabric is as good as canvas. Chopped, the nettle is good for poultry, pounded it is good for horned cattle. The seed of the nettle mixed with the fodder of animals gives a luster to their skin; the root, mixed with salt produces a beautiful yellow dye. It is besides excellent hay and can be cut twice.”
There are no nettles growing in my garden and I don’t intend to introduce them. But I have gathered the leaves for spring soup and pesto. My mother-in-law has made nettle soup for us in France and nettle pesto was served in Ireland while we last visited. While speaking of nettles with a fellow gardener in France, I was told that an old source of fertilizer, especially for tomatoes, is made by soaking nettle leaves in water until rotted and using the liquid. I remember a healthy stand of nettles, cultivated by Mary Lucas in her garden on Creamery Road which she used for her spring tonic.
Stinging nettles are one of the most reviled weeds in the garden and along hiking trails. Yet the plant is useful in a wide variety of purposes.
“How much men are like the nettle! My friends, remember this, that there are no weeds, and no worthless men.” – Victor Hugo
June, 2019