Field Mustard and Black-eyed Peas - a great wild food tradition

Wild field mustard -- Brassica rapa -- is one of my most favorite weeds to eat because it has such a long season for some part to be delicious. In this video, I focus on wild field mustard in the wintertime. Wild field mustard can handle cold temperatures, snow, and ice better than many other wild greens. That’s why one of my personal wild food traditions is to cook wild field mustard and black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. But it’s delicious enough to make whenever I can find big wild field mustard leaves, from autumn through spring. This video starts by looking at the different stages of growth and different conditions of wild field mustard that you might be able to find in the winter. If the weather has been mild since the seeds sprouted in the autumn, there can be tender wild field mustard in the winter. It can even be flowering. That wild field mustard is great for a salad. Maybe you’ve seen me use young and tender wild field mustard in winter salads. But there can be wild field mustard that look old and ragged and rough, like it’s seen a tough life. That’s because it has – it has experienced repeated cold and wet weather over a few months. But don’t be fooled into thinking that ragged-looking wild field mustard is no good for eating. It is good with the right preparation, like in soup or with black-eyed peas. In a dense patch wild field mustard plants won’t be as big as when they have more room to grow. You can see that wild field mustard leaves all come out from the root as a central group, a rosette. The leaves in winter have little bumps in every section of the leaf. The size of the leaf doesn’t matter when it comes to those little bumps. Some leaves can look worn out, or be partially eaten by slugs. Those plants can still be tasty for cooked greens. In the winter, they are not hot, not bitter, and not even tough when they are cooked well. Wild field mustard is the wild plant that people, long ago, bred into turnips, Napa cabbage, rapini, and bok choi. They are came from selective breeding from the wild field mustard. So wild field mustard roots don’t smell like mustard or radishes – they smell like store-bought turnips. You may find wild field mustard growing in a dense patch, but it can also grow all alone, out in mowed grass. The small mowed leaves will look the same as on larger leaves. Here’s a tip: look around the edges of mowed areas for larger wild field mustard plants. When I make wild field mustard with black-eyed peas, I am specifically looking for big, coarse leaves. Once you bring your wild field mustard into the kitchen, you’ll notice lots of grit and dirt on the leaves if there has been a lot of rain and the plants are growing near bare soil. So it’s important to clean the leaves well. The easiest way to do that is to let the leaves soak in a lot of water. Move the leaves around to knock the grit off and then let all that dirt settle to the bottom of your bowl. Don’t dump the whole bowl of leaves into the sink – all that grit will get right back onto the leaves. Instead, life the leaves out of the water and then rinse them off. Dump the water outside, not down your sink. While the wild field mustard leaves are soaking, it a good time to cook the onions, peppers, and black-eyed peas. Other good options are to use smoked Jalapeno peppers, home-canned tomatoes, or ham hocks or ham bones. While they are cooking is a good time to deal with the clean wild field mustard leaves. I think the easiest way to deal with big wild field mustard leaves is to stack the leaves in a pile and chop them all at once. I look the leaves over when I stack them up. If the stem is too big, I strip it out. Then I roll the stack up, cut the leaves, put all that off my cutting board, and then do another stack. It goes pretty quick. You can use a lot of wild field mustard with the black-eyed peas. If it looks like there are too many greens in the skillet, don’t worry. Just add some more water, put a lid on the skillet, and cook it on medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. The leaves will cook down a lot. I keep cooking everything until the wild field mustard leaves turn from bright green to a more muted olive green. I hope you get to try Wild Field Mustard and Black-eyed Peas yourself sometime! It really is delicious. -------------------- Wild Field Mustard - Brassica rapa -------------------- Check out these playlists for more videos about different kinds of wild mustards and other wild greens. Wild food is real food for regular people! Wild Mustard Plants: Great Wild Plants for Greens and More! -    • Wild Mustard Plants: Great Wild Edibles fo...   Foraging Wild Edibles: Real Food for Regular People -    • Foraging Wild Edibles: Real Food for Regul...   Wild Salads: Foraging Wild Edible Plants - weeds, seeds, trees and more! -    • Wild Salads: Foraging Wild Edible Plants -...