Say the word “dandelion” in a crowd and you’re likely to hear a collective groan. But not at the fifth annual Dandelion Mayfest and National Dandelion Cookoff.
Here, the virtues of the dandelion were celebrated with music, lectures and food–dandelion salads, dandelion gravy over mashed potatoes, dandelion rhubarb pie, dandelion coffee ice cream–and toasted with dandelion wine, of course.
Cloudy skies and rain throughout the event May 1-2 may have caused dandelions in the area to snap their petals tightly shut to protest the lack of sunshine, but festival organizers were as persistent as the plants themselves and the celebration went on.
The motto for the festival could well have been “Come Hell or High Water,” as many motorists had to brave flooded roads to make their way to the event at Breitenbach Wine Cellars in this central Ohio Valley community. On the grounds of the winery, hundreds of visitors sloshed through mud, sometimes ankle deep, to get to vendors and demonstrations. (And a few may have had to stay a little longer than planned when their cars became mired in mud.)
“A lot of diehard people showed up in the rain,” said Frank Klapper, 57, of Frank’s Hog Roasting & Catering in Strasburg, Ohio. “I was surprised.”
Klapper, who has run a food stall at the festival each year since it began, said the weather has been poor every year.
“If we ever have nice weather, it would be a great festival,” said Klapper, who was selling dandelion sausage sandwiches, among other things. But despite bad weather, he says the festival has grown in popularity.
That may sound surprising. If you’ve ever tried to rid your lawn of dandelions, you probably can’t imagine why anyone would want to pay homage to this most wretched of weed.
The festival was started in 1994 as a way “to help people become aware of how valuable dandelions are,” said Peter A. Gail, 58, director of Goosefoot Acres Center for Resourceful Living. Gail organizes the event in cooperation with Breitenbach Winery.
“Dandelions are about the best wild vegetable resource in the world. They’re free, abundant, nutritious and very palatable when … prepared properly,” said Gail, author of “The Dandelion Celebration: A Guide to Unexpected Cuisine,” (Goosefoot Acres Press, 1994).
“I’m a promoter of change in the way we see things around us, the way we perceive weeds,” Gail said. He has written several books on using back-yard weeds as food, and he promotes the culinary and medicinal attributes of wild vegetables through his Center for Resourceful Living in Cleveland.
The truth is, the dandelion wasn’t always considered such a pesky plant, Gail said. “The older people, they all remember eating it and drinking it as wine.”
But older folks weren’t the only ones at the festival with dandelion memories. Brewster resident Patty Schumacher, 38, who grew up on a farm in Navarre, Ohio, recalled foraging for dandelions as a youngster.
“I remember it as the thing I did with my dad,” Schumacher said.
“During the Depression, dandelion was relied on and became identified as poverty food,” Gail said. “After the Depression, people wanted to put behind them the food most closely associated with it.”
The change in attitude toward the vegetable began in the late ’40s, Gail said. The current obsession with eradicating the plant is a modern development, he said.
And even though dandelions may be despised by many in this country, they’re still a popular food in countries such as Italy, France and Germany, Gail said.
Dandelions can be used for everything from snacks to dessert, and the roots can be used to make a caffeine-free coffee substitute.
Entries in the cook-off competition highlighted the versatility of the plant by using the leaves, stems and flowers. Visitors at the festival were able to sample more than a dozen dandelion dishes by finalists in the competition.
“I guess they’re food,” decided Hillary Harshbarger, 10, after sampling a few dishes. The grade-schooler’s mother, Gail Harshbarger, 39, of Akron won first prize with her original recipe for Dandelion and Tomato Appetizer. Hillary might be seeing a lot more dandelions at the table.
But the youngster says she won’t mind. She’s already thinking about entering next year’s cookoff.
For those who, like Hillary, may feel inspired, recipes from the cookoff are available by contacting Goosefoot Acres at Box 18016, Cleveland, Ohio 44118.
And just think, next time you see the landscape dotted with fuzzy dandelion blow balls, it only means more to savor next spring.
