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A Good Baah For Sheep Sorrel

Aug 4, 2000 - © Virginia Marin

Folklore Table of Contents

During America's colonial period, friendly Native Americans taught the early permanent settlers how to live off the land and how to watch the animals for edible food sources. These measures helped to sustain them through their early years in a new land. Watching what the birds, buffalo and other animals eat became a practice which was passed through the generations. Many of these watchings became old wives' tales which have survived time. One of the weeds which has survived time is still a part of folk ways...

    Sheep shorrel. A common weed used not only for food but medicinally, sheep sorrel, Rumex acetosella, also known as sour grass, redtop, sourweed and sour dock is an important, but unknown useful weed.

    Sheep sorrel is hailed today as a cure-all by mountain folk and other cultures for the treatment of poison oak, hives and a host of other conditions from boils to kidney stones. A common treatment for mouth ulcers, gravel, and sour stomach, a soothing tea made from sorrel hits the spot, err, cures the problem, so it is said.

    But for your cooking pleasure. Ah, sheep sorrel is something special.

    A common weed throughout the United States, sheep sorell can be found almost anywhere, but especially in meadows and along roadsides in Piedmont sections.

    The entire plant is edible and is reportedly a good source of vitamin C. Its mild, but distinctive flavor is good in soups, salad, meat and bread. Many folk recipes mix sorell leaves with greens, such as mustard and turnip.

    One does not have to live in Appalachia, the forest or a reservation to enjoy a good sorell soup:

Gather a good basket-full of young arrow-shapped sorell leaves. Avoid large mature leaves, as they tend to be tough.

1/2 stick margarine
2 large egg yolks
1 large onion, chopped
2-3 diced new potatoes, cooked
1 cup half and half cream
3 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste

Wash sorell in cold running water. Cut sorrel leaves into small pieces. Simmer sorrel and onion in the butter until sorrel is wilted. Add beaten egg yolks and cream, bringing to a quick boil. Serve hot.

    Sorrel can be added to cornbread dressing. Simply chop the sorrel into tiny pieces and mix with the crumbled cornbread before adding the other ingredients. Some fresh markets have sorrel alongside other greens. For those of us who are not born woodsmen it may be best to obtain it at a market, to be safe, for like poisonous mushrooms, the wrong greenery in a cook pot can be lethal.
    The copyright of the article A Good Baah For Sheep Sorrel in Folklore is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish A Good Baah For Sheep Sorrel in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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