Two weeks ago, when my parents and I video-chatted about my coming trip to my hometown in April, my mother asked what I wanted to eat during the visit so they could prepare in advance. Without thinking, I answered “Shepherds’ Purse”.
“That’s difficult.” My mother said, “You can have plenty if you were here now. But in April they will be in flower and too old to eat.”
“How about brine them and save them in a jar? Or dry them for storage like dried vegetables?” I suggested.
“We have never tried or heard about these ways before to store shepherds’ purse. They may not work.”
“If so, then I give up.”
Though I told my parents that I would give up, but in fact I missed shepherds’ purse very much. Since seven-and-a-half years ago when I moved to the US, I could never get a chance to eat shepherds’ purse. All the other vegetables I liked, such as basil, fava beans, even water bamboo shoots could be found in some Asian markets, but not shepherds’ purse. I guess perhaps because it grows only in zero-chemical fields like a wild herb, therefore it can’t be cultivated massively in modern farms and if let grow naturally, the yield will be too low to create any significant profit. So eating shepherds’ purse had seemed to become an unachievable dream for me.
Likely a lot of people in the US have neve heard about this plant. Even putting aside all its healthy and medicinal beneficiaries, for example it is rich in vitamin C, good for eyes, metabolism etc, to me, its wonderful delicate flavor, in particular its fragrant roots make it the most delicious among all the early spring vegetables.
Since I was a little kid, four or five years old, every early spring in late January or early February, once my mother had time on weekends, she took my siblings and me to the fields to dig out shepherds’ purse. We all loved doing it. Having been sequestered indoors for a whole winter, we were so happy to step on the soil again and smell the fragrance coming from Nature. After teaching us how to identify shepherds’ purse from other weeds, my mother handed each of us a little basket and a trowel, and we started our work. Spring’s soft breezes blew; birds were chirping; the soil was soft and warm and the freshly dug shepherds’ purse smelt so appetizing. To us kids, digging out shepherds’ purse was more like a spring outing and family gathering rather than manual labor. Besides, we knew that after this whole morning’s work, we could expect to have at least several days’ delicious meals cooked with shepherds’ purse—dumplings, egg buns, pancakes, even simple soup noodles were just gorgeous as long as there were shepherds’ purse in them.
Fed with shepherds’ purse in every early spring throughout my childhood and teenhood, its umami and fragrance have deeply imprinted in my taste and become an important part of my memory. It’s almost impossible to be taken away.
Therefore, I still sought it, longed for it. The suppressed emotion could only grow stronger somewhere deep in my soul. As soon as I got myself a small piece of property, I started to sow my own shepherds’ purse. Perhaps because the winter was too cold and the summer too dry, they scarcely came out the first year. I thought my hardiness zone or the NJ climate might not work for them. Greatly disappointed, I dumped all the rest of the tiny seeds into my vegetable bed last Autumn, then covered it with fallen leaves and burlap. I didn’t anticipate anything to happen. However, surprise always comes when we have the least expectation—one week after the video chat with my parents, I removed the burlap and my eyes were caught by a patch of fresh greens peeping out among the fallen leaves where I dumped the seeds. Overjoyed, I bent down: Yes, they were my beloved and long missed friends-- shepherds’ purse!
Carefully, I dug out the big ones; then removed the leaves from covering them so the baby ones could continue to grow and grow better. I had my first shepherds’ purse meal in nearly eight years—clay pot rice cooked with sun-cured pork belly. It’s my luxury! (I also filmed a video about this meal in Lotus&Michael YouTube channel, “Clay Pot Rice-Our Best One Pot Meal”) Then I cooked shepherds’ purse congee to console both my hungry stomach and soul.
Yesterday I sent the pictures of my harvested shepherds’ purse and clay pot rice to my mother, my mother replied “Yes, it indeed is shepherds’ purse. In fact, I am out in the fields now digging them for when you come.”
“No worries; no need to work so hard. Now I can harvest them in my place, and I will sow them every autumn for spring crops.” Finally, I could be kind enough not to push my parents hard to save shepherds’ purse for me.