Garlic mustard looks like any average weed, but because it's an exotic species in the Midwest, it doesn't have any natural predators. That means it can push out native plant species and disrupt ecosystems in Great Lakes states. (Photo by Corbin Sullivan)
Of all the non-native plants and animals that have invaded the Great Lakes region, garlic mustard is one of the most prolific. The leafy green plant is an invasive species that can be found in people’s backyards, in wetlands, even growing through cracks in concrete. Invasive species can hurt natural areas by displacing native plants. So to get rid of garlic mustard, people are dumping it in landfills or killing it with herbicide. But a nature group in Michigan has found a better way to deal with it – by eating it. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Erin Toner attended a benefit dinner where garlic mustard was featured in every single recipe. Toner produced this audio postcard:
Transcript
Of all the non-native plants and animals that have invaded the
Great Lakes region, garlic mustard is one of the most prolific. The
leafy green plant is an invasive species that can be found in people’s
backyards, in wetlands, even growing through cracks in concrete.
Invasive species can hurt natural areas by displacing native plants.
So to get rid of garlic mustard, people are dumping it in landfills or
killing it with herbicide. But a nature group in Michigan has found
a better way to deal with it – by eating it. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Erin Toner attended a benefit dinner where garlic mustard
was featured in every single recipe. Toner produced this audio postcard:
“Hi, I’m Jeremy Emmi. I’m the executive director of the Michigan Nature Association. There are a lot of invasive species out there that people don’t know about. Most people have invasive species in their backyard or their woodlot or their farm and they really don’t know they’re there. Garlic mustard is actually pretty simple to deal with, although very labor intensive.
“And the way we deal with it is pulling it, and that’s really the best way. You can use herbicide, but because it grows in such pristine habitats a lot of the time you don’t want to use herbicide because you don’t want to kill the native plants that are around it. So you’re in a catch 22. So really the best way is just to pull it.”
“Hi, I’m Natalie Kent. I’m the GIS technician and development associate for the Michigan Nature Association. I was helping out at one of MNA’s workdays and we were removing garlic mustard and I was working with my coworker Sherri. And we were coming back home and we were talking and she said she had had garlic mustard in salad the weekend before. And I said “Oh, you can eat it.” And she said “Oh yeah, it’s edible, you can have it fresh in salads, you can cook it like spinach.” And then the first thought that popped into my head was, if we can eat it, why are we throwing it away?
“…It looks different, depending on when you see it. In early spring, it’s in the form of a basil rosette and it sort of looks similar to a violet leaf, similar in the shape. But to me, I always tell people it looks like Pac Man.”
“My name is Ruth and I am eating something called Jade Soup, which I think is essentially a broth with lots of boiled garlic mustard leaves in it and actually it’s very good. It kind of tastes like a spinach soup, kind of, but it tastes good and mild and not at all overwhelming which you might think it would be. And also the garlic pesto bread is absolutely fabulous.”
“I’m Cynthia and I was born in Detroit, Michigan. Oh, I think it’s great. It has a slight zing and zip to it. It’s refreshing. It’s the kind of thing that would cleanse the palette after a heavy meal. It’s really an enjoyable plant.”
I’m Clifford Welch, and I’m a retired professor at Michigan State University and my retirement’s devoted to ecological restoration. I spend now almost 70 percent of my time on invasive species. The invasive vegetation is a huge, huge problem. What I have is a bunch of dishes that have garlic mustard in it. This is what I really need to taste, here’s the garlic mustard right here, and I’ve never eaten it before and I’m anxious to see what this tastes like.
(sound of chewing)
“It has a mustardy taste to it. It needs something on it, though, badly.”
“I’m Mary, and I was about to try – this is a cheese ball with garlic mustard. It’s actually good, it adds a, I don’t want to say peppery flavor, but I guess a garlic flavor to the cheese. It is good. So if somebody’s willing to take the time to harvest it, you can add it to things and I guess it’s supposed to be really healthy based on the literature. It has a lot of Vitamin A and Vitamin C in it. We’re all trying to eat healthier these days.”
HOST TAG: The voices of people trying foods made with mustard garlic: an invasive species that naturalists are removing from the wild and eating, rather than throwing it away. Our audio postcard was produced by the GLRC’s Erin Toner.