Urtica dioica L.
Bob loved stinging nettles -- eating them, wearing them, fertilising them, everything except being repeatedly stung by them.For the celebration of Bob's life at Fulford Hall on March 20, Catherine silkscreened about a hundred t-shirts with Bob's stinging nettle design. I'm wearing one of them right now as I write this.
Some of the things Bob made from nettles included:
- soup
- stew
- broth ("oyster soup")
- aspic
- pesto
- dip
- pâté
- soufflée
- spanakopita
- pasta
- Christmas bread (beet- and nettle-coloured doughs braided together)
- pizza (in two main varieties: with nettles in the flour and with nettle purée substituting for tomatoes in the topping)
- muffins
- bread
- nettle cake with salal berry icing
- rope (and he even wove a nettle hat from it).
