So I’ve been watching a lot of Countryfile on BBC lately and watching all those cows and sheep got me thinking “cows and sheep must love grass”
This was all the inspiration I needed for my next incredible culinary adventure: lets cook something with grass!
Now, the thing is, I live in an apartment complex in Glasgow City center so I don’t have a garden which is where I ran into a slight logistical problem when I figured the sight of some dude in the middle of Glasgow Green, on hands and knees, in the middle of the day, ripping out tufts of grass and stuffing them in his pockets might, you know, look a bit strange: “what can he possibly want with that grass”.
So I had to construct a cunning ruse to make it seem like I wasn’t doing anything too suspicious. Suffice to say *I did and here’s the result of my foraging adventure:
After giving it a good rinse I have a taste. The first thing you notice about eating grass is not the flavour but how unbelievably chewy and tough and fibrous it is. Now I know why cows have 8 stomachs. Deary me. The taste on the other hand is very subtle, a little peppery, a little citrus-y and little apple-ee-ee, but very very slight.
So, any ideas what I’m going to turn this green into?
Hey Pesto! I’m sorry. I’m going to use it in a very special pesto sauce so I nip off to my local Tesco Metro to source what I need; parmesan cheese, oilve oil, and instead of pine nuts I’m going to use
WASABE PEAS YES PLEASE
So I put all the ingredients into a bowl:
And blend:
FYI the combination of open bowl, hand held blender and wasabe peas warranted safety goggles; bits of pea, grass and permesan bounce around my professional chef’s kitchen like I’m stuck in some bizarre pea war.
I then add the pesto to slightly al dente pasta and serve:
So, how’s it taste.
It. Is. HORRIBLE. The combination of wasabe peas and pasta and, well, everything else, is just bad. Really bad. The grass, because it has been blended, now tastes super grassy and adds to the overall horribleness. But the very worse comes when I realise I AM EATING GRASS! FROM GLASGOW GREEEN! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!!
So, overall a bit of a failure so I wouldn’t recommend you eat grass. But you probably knew that anyway.
If you want to talk food nonsense with around 200 other reprobates then I invite you to join my excellent facebook page. There is also a Twitter account.
*I might tell you what the ruse was, one day.
Another goddam foodblog 
Well done. If you ever attempt something like this again, may I recommend a squeeze of lemon? I find it really cuts the grassiness of the grass. Wasabi peas, though. Bold choice.
I had a lemon! but by that state all I wanted to do was throw up 😦
Ooo – doesn’t that make it lemongrass?
touché
You need to get the right kind of grass. I suggest barley, in it’s best form, as beer or whisky.
Wasabi Peas? Pretty sure that’s where you went wrong. I want to know how it would taste if you went the traditional route with pine nuts! (But I won’t be trying it…)
no, the wasabe peas were a deliberate choice. I thought pine nuts would have been too safe.
Where you went wrong is eating the exposed hard portions of the grass blades. I occasionally eat grass when on a picnic (because I am weird) but I only eat what I call the “heart” of the grass.
What you do is you find a grass blade whose base is covered with a sheath (diagram here: http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20290922,00.html) Gently pull it free from the sheath and you will notice the base of the blade is whitish in colour. This is the bit you eat. It’s soft, not fibrous, and has a nice subtle flavour. 🙂
The other bonus with eating only the white (formerly protected portion) of the blade is that it won’t have been exposed to any fertilizer or dog urine. 🙂
Speaking of grass here an idea for your next food adventure: Sourgrass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalis_pes-caprae
I personally love the stuff, picked and eaten raw, but didn’t realise until i read the wikipedia article above that south Africa uses it as a traditional ingredient in some of their dishes. 🙂
Tx Sandy!
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