A man got in touch with the American Embassy here with what to Irish people will sound the most remarkable request of the year. He wanted to know if the agricultural advisor at the Embassy could tell him where to buy nettle seed. He had had some delicious nettle soup while in this country, and wanted to plant nettles when he got home, for the United States - or a great part of them - apparently does not know the plant. Can you believe it? Well, a friend had first told of a young American girl who was enjoying a picnic on the Boyne a few years ago and stumbled into a clump of nettles. Her howls were as much shock as pain, for she said there were no such things at home.
How many of us could offer that visiting American seeds, roots and plants enough to feed his extended family. It is one of the more insidious plants. A small clump appears on hitherto virgin land, and in no time it takes over, quicker even than cleevers unless you take drastic action. And yet - in spite of ancestral memories of the Great Famine and of starving people with green around their mouths from eating nettles and other weeds, the nettle is, these days, well known in cookery, as evidenced by our American visitor's reaction.
The Romans were apparently very fond of the nettle as a vegetable, for Richard Mabey in his Flora Britannica tells us that where there are Roman remains in Britain, some are still infested with the plant. In wartime Britain, one dish recommended officially was a poached egg on a bed of dandelion or nettle puree, covered with cheese sauce. This, it was said, was an almost perfect meal containing food that was bodybuilding, protective and energising. Anton Mosimann, well known on TV, blends deep-fried nettle leaves with fromage blanc, new potatoes and nutmeg into a "nettle nouvelle". And, of course, the old herbalist Nicholas Culpeper recommends it for many remedies: for "the gravel and stone" to pains of the joints. In all cookery attempts, it must be said, the plant should be handled with gloves, and only the leaves used.
A rural accusation of laziness and general disorder in a family farm used to be "Oh, the Xs always had nettles up to the back door." Y