Following Therese Coffey’s advice to eat turnips a letter writer to The Times (25th February) has noted that nettles are coming into season. Cooked they are just as good as other greens and they are free. Wild Garlic is also coming into season by the way and that can be foraged, prudently, for free too.
I’m not offering recipe tips however because there is also a history to nettles. In The Making of the English Working Class E P Thompson quotes from correspondence between the radical Francis Place and the liberal politician Hobhouse. Place is relaying the class antagonisms in Manchester and environs that led to Peterloo in August 1819.
He reported a discussion he had with one Manchester businessman who explained that he checked from time to time on weavers who worked for him (they were home based) and found that they had foraged so many nettles that they had none left for broth. This didn’t concern the businessman as he explained to Place that he could not sell good so cheaply if the weavers could afford (by dint of higher payment) to eat better.
The class struggle told via nettles..
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