Forage & Feast: Garlic Mustard and Pineapple Weed

Forgo the elderflower cordial and try these plants instead!

Elderflower season is officially here, but since a lot of you probably already know how to make elderflower cordial*, I thought I’d introduce you to a couple of lesser-known plants that tend to be thought of as weeds, but are among my favourite foraged foods…

Garlic mustard (with white flowers and seed pods) growing amongst the sticky buds

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata) 

One of the first plants I learnt about when I started foraging was garlic mustard (sometimes known as hedge garlic or Jack-by-the-hedge). On a walk one day I thought I might have found some small, young wild garlic leaves, but what I’d actually found was ground ivy, something I’d been having a conversation with Emma of

Miscellaneous Adventures

about the day before! When garlic mustard and ground ivy plants are very young, they can look quite similar, but once you put them side by side, and watch them grow through the seasons, you see how different they really are! A perfect example of how noticing one thing in nature can lead you to notice another…

Young garlic mustard (left) looks a bit like young ground ivy (right), but as the plants grow taller as the year goes on, they look very different.

Garlic mustard is one of those plants you are likely to spot everywhere once you’ve noticed it the first time. Have a look where you live and see if you can spot some - hedgerows and scrubland are good places to look, but it grows all over the place (you might even be pulling it out of your garden). The best way to ID garlic mustard confidently is to crush a leaf between your fingers - if it smells garlicky, you’ve got the right plant (I love a plant you can be sure of!).

Garlic mustard is biennial - its first year of growth (when it stays quite low to the ground) is when its heart-shaped leaves most resemble those of ground ivy’s kidney-shaped leaves (as in the photo above). Throughout the year, the appearance of garlic mustard will change a lot, as it grows tall and its bright green leaves get pointier and more distinct. Garlic mustard has white flowers and ground ivy**, which at this time of year really looks nothing like garlic mustard, has pretty purple flowers, and small, kidney-shaped dark green leaves (as you can see in the photo below), sometimes with a reddish tone at the top of the plant.

Ground ivy, which as you can see, really does not resemble garlic mustard at this time of year!

I’ve used garlic mustard as I might spinach or wild garlic (in a salad, a mixed green pesto or to bulk up dishes like green shakshuka or vegetable stew). I’m keen to try and use the larger leaves to make dolma one day, and apparently you can grind up the seeds to make mustard too!

Garlic mustard leaves I collected recently for a salad in my expensive foraging basket (aka an unused dog poo bag!)

Watch this UK Wildcrafts video to help you ID garlic mustard before you head out to find some. At this time of year you’re likely to find tall plants with a lot of seed pods at the top (which look a bit like very small, thin French/green beans). 

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Pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea)

One of the easiest recipes to master for any new forager is tea… all you have to do is collect, rinse, steep and enjoy. Pineapple weed is a great plant to look out for around this time of year, because not only does it grow in a variety of habitats, but it makes a great tea too! This plant is a member of the chamomile family (and is also known as wild chamomile). It tastes not unlike the chamomile you’re probably familiar with, but with a pineappley punch. 

Pineapple weed is easy to identify - it has distinct fluffy leaves, the flowers look almost like tiny green pineapples and if you crush them between your fingers you should be able to smell… you guessed it… pineapple!

You can eat the plant raw too, so if you find a big patch that’s unlikely to have been peed on by dogs (a foraging friend’s top tip was to look in children’s play areas, where dogs aren’t allowed!), you can enjoy nibbling on a plant as you walk home, safe in the knowledge you can make a tasty brew when you get back.

Pineapple weed tea is a good drink for bedtime, as the plant has calming properties and can help aid digestion too.

Here’s another UK Wildcrafts video to help you identify the plant (Lewis makes a tea using pineapple weed and ground ivy, which is a combo I haven’t tried but will now).

Colleen has shared some more pineapple weed information and recipes on her site Grow Forage Cook Ferment if you’d like to learn more.

This is the same patch of ground this week where I took the first photo of pineapple weed in this article (in late June last year). As you can see, the flowers are only just starting to come through here, so look out for those floofy leaves and check for pineapple weed flowers over the next few weeks!

So, if you decide to forgo the elderflower cordial (because, let’s be honest, it’s much easier to buy a lovely glass bottle of it in the shops), maybe you can look out for garlic mustard or pineapple weed over the next few weeks instead. 

* If you ARE making elderflower cordial this weekend, make sure you remove any green stems and leaves - they are toxic!

** Side note: ground ivy is a good plant to forage too, and makes a lovely soothing tea!

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Important notice: Never eat something unless you’re 100-percent sure you can identify it correctly. Do your research and make sure it’s safe to eat, and in what quantities. In the UK, we have common law to forage the four Fs (fruit, flowers, fungi and foliage) for personal consumption, but never uproot anything without permission and only take what you need if it’s growing in abundance.

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