One of my new year’s resolutions is to eat real food. I’m not going to name a diet specifically or limit myself. I just want to eat real food – meaning nothing processed and nothing with added sugar or strange chemicals. That translates into using fresh produce, organic meats when possible, and cooking for ourselves. It also limits us as there are no shortcuts. I can’t just buy a simmer sauce off the shelf and add it to chicken and call it dinner. It’s a little more work, but when I stopped to think about all the chemicals and sugars we were consuming it made it easier to make the decision.
Growing up my parents would often pull the car over as we were driving to stop and pick wild greens by the side of the road. As long as I was still going to the Hellenic American School, it seemed perfectly normal as my classmates parents did the same thing. Once I started going to a public school it was a whole different story. I’d duck in the back of the car hoping no one saw me and hoped they wouldn’t ask why my parents were picking weeds from the side of the road. Explaining that we ate these roadside weeds was mortifying. And yet, they remain one of my favorite things. There are many varieties. Dandelion greens are common now, but my favorite ones are called vlita (βλήτα) in Greek.
Once while visiting my mother’s house, my husband watched as she filled a grocery bag of these leafy greens for me, he asked what are they? I fumbled and said “vlita” and he asked me again, adding, “in English, please.” I said I didn’t know. So I took out my iPhone and Googled it. How convenient. Wish I’d had that at my fingertips growing up.
Turns out vlita are a type of weed, called “amaranthus viridis” or “green amaranth.” It’s eaten as a vegetable in India, Africa and Greece.
They may be an acquired taste, as my husband does not like them at all and refuses to eat them. I find them delicious. Just boiled, drained, and served simply with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, pepper and a squeeze of lemon. You eat them with some hearty bread and a hunk of feta, if you want to make them more indulgent. They’re also delicious mixed with a cold, garlic & potato mash called skordalia.
Vegan, vegetarian, nothing processed – you can’t get any more healthy!
