BISTORT
polygonum bistorta

Root and leaves are used.

CULINARY USE

Recipe for Bistort Pudding
The Herb Pudding still eaten
in Cumberland and Westmorland, where Bistort is common
in moist meadows and is also cultivated,
is a very wholesome dish and very suitable in May,
when ordinary green vegetables used to be scarce.

The chief constituents are Bistort shoots and Nettles,
the younger and fresher these greens
are the more satisfactory is the resultant food.

Allow about 1 1/2 lb. of Bistort to 1 lb. of Nettles.
A few leaves of Black Currant and Yellow Dock
may be added and a sprig of Parsley.
Wash the vegetables thoroughly
(in salt and water in the last rinsing),
then chop them fairly fine.
Place them in a bowl and mix in about
a teacupful of barley (washed and soaked),
half a teacupful of oatmeal, salt and pepper
to flavor, and if liked, a bunch of chives mixed.
Boil the whole in a bag for about 2 1/2 hours,
to allow the barley to get thoroughly cooked.
The bag should be tied firmly,
for while the greens shrink, the barley swells.
Turn out into a very hot bowl, add a lump
of butter and a beaten egg: the heat
of the turned-out pudding is sufficient to cook the egg.

OTHER SPECIES
About forty species of Polygonum are recorded
as having been medicinally employed.
A number of species yield blue or yellow dyestuffs.


ACTIONS
HABITAT
MODERN HERBAL RECIPES