Nettle soup

The weather to us humans doesn’t seem that summery, but despite the gale-force wind and torrential rain, here seems enough sunshine for plants to be flourishing and all looks very healthy, and very green… including these nettles!

Nettles are too often thought of as weeds, and maybe it’s because they are nasty stinging things. I have so many child hood memories of my skin and nettles,and once my poor sister fell in a bed of nettles when she was very small… I shudder at the thought of that even now! The remedy for nettle stings is to rub with dock leaves, which nearly always seem to grow nearby, which is very handy, but I actually haven’t ever found them much help – except being cool on hot hurty skin!

The word nettle might come from old English, netele which might originally come from a word which meant needle or prick, or from a word meaning knot… the Latin name is urtica dioica, and apparently they grow pretty much everywhere and can grow up to 7′ tall – how horrific!

Uses:

• nettles often grow where there has been human habitation, and can be an indicator for archaeologists that there is something of interest beneath them
• butterfly food – lots of caterpillars love nettles
• ladybirds love nettles
• medical uses including treating arthritis and rheumatism
• shampoo
• tea
• beer
• fabric
• compost activator in gardens and liquid feed for plants
• cooking!!! You can use nettles as you would spinach and they make the most fabulous soup!!
• flavouring foods such as pasta and cheese

Nettle soup is the easiest thing to make – fry a few onions in butter, wilt down the nettles leaves which have been very, very thoroughly washed and pulled from the fibrous stems, add some stock and  cooked potatoes if you want a thicker soup, but only heat through, don’t let the nettles lose their lovely colour, whiz in a blender and rub through a sieve, serve with a swirl of cream and some freshly grated nutmeg!

Dead nettles, by the way, aren’t nettles at all but a completely different plant! As children we used to love to pull off the flowers and suck their ‘honey’!

http://www.nettles.org.uk/