Burdock and Dandelion
second aster cousins and a brand new detective duo on ... oh no... rosemary and thyme beat me to it
from Dina Falconi and illustrated by Wendy Hollander. ‘Foraging and Feasting’
Do you remember drinking Dandelion and Burdock and not knowing that they were actual plants that were readily available to crush and maybe not carbonate by yourself. Someone moneytised that and sugared it up. And poppied in some other weeds sometimes, back in the late 1800’s anyway.. Now it would never be allowed to give people crazy drugs over the counter to crazy people. Imagine that.
I loved Dandelion and Burdock. There was a pop man who delivered. Like an ice cream van. You knew when he was getting close, maybe it was the music of expectation. Sometimes we were so involved with kicking an inflated globe of leather that we would forget about sugar and then have to chase the vehicle down an unknown street. We didn’t have to fight our way, as we hadn’t breath left, and the driver laughed all the way back to the depot, most probably.
Ben Shaws’ was the company. They didn’t manufacture Irn Bru, from girders, which I liked, that was Barr’s. I could enjoy the rust, but I preferred Dandelion and Burdock. What a way to get the kids involved. The vibrancy of it all was toxic.
Tonics, originally made from roots, for the good of your health, that eventually became artificial and turned everyone into a… what was I saying?
Idiot?
We all know dandelions, we see them this time of year. They are a successful fruiting, flowering pollenator. I did talk about the French name of them last year, dent de lion, but I was more into the clock on them when I was a kid. Here are somethings I gleaned so that you don’t have to google it. Also my wife knows plants. Both dandelions and burdock are from the same family, asteracea, You probably know asters, they look like daisies, so they are all related, or you would think. There are over 32,000 species of them, they are diverse, globally and physically. Sunflowers are in there. Only one other species of flower has more diversity. Guess what that is… spoiler
Orchids.
That’s a whole other world.