Friday, August 11, 2006

Dandelion Wine

I spent the last hour looking for recipes for Dandelion wine.I found out it is a book by Ray Bradbury, one of my fav writers when i was growing up. I could not believe how many variations there were of making it...

I know it is a rustic, rural tradition here, making wine from the flowers. The french thought fairies came to the kitchen when it was being made for turning something very bitter, into something very sweet.The sweet yellow wine has been described as liquid sunshine.

The despised dandelion has survived for thousands of years. The romans loved it, the celts, the monks with their monastic gardens, the normans with their Dente de Lion. It has been used as a medicine by persians, traditional chinese medicine, and herbalists. It has even been cultivated, hence its spread through the world.

The leafs, roots, and flowers are ALL edible, but it has been hunted down, sprayed with weedkiller, dug up...

I do not drink alcohol but i felt an urge to get a recipe that was easy to understand, and make my own Dandelion wine. Does anyone have any good fruit wine recipes? Have they made them?

I saw a similar thing for strawberry wine too. I might have to get a wine making book to understand what im doing.

Its strange the mass of information about a seemingly harmless perennial weed, which has inspired people from many cultures, all drawn by the many magical properties of the plant (now backed by chemical analysis of the constituents inside the leafs, stem, and flowers), and rustic home made mead from the fields kept me busy for a few hours googling it..

Good night world, more posts tomorrow on my second day off.

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