Dock and Burdock

Below is a photo of some burdock. To add to my post on Dandelions and also to that on Superb Combinations, I thought I would include the burdock because one of the things I remember about my childhood is the bottles of Dandelion and Burdock.

They were delivered every week by the Corona Man and we would have a bottle of Dandelion and Burdock as well as a bottle of Lime and Lemon and I think something called Cream of Soda. My memory here is hazy because we also used to have a weekly delivery from the grocery shop in the nearest small town to our village. The owner, Sid, was a friend of my Dad's and he used to call by and sit and have a cup of tea and chat as well as making his delivery, collecting his payment and writing the next week's order in his book. I have been searching in some of my cookery books for a recipe for Dandelion and Burdock but could find nothing. I eventually found a recipe on a super blog called The Wild Drink Blog - it was interesting to read how to make it but I think this may be a step too far for me so we have been lazy and bought a bottle from the supermarket to see if it still tastes the same as I remember.

It doesn't seem that different but I guess it probably has far more additives and preservatives than the stuff we used to drink. Still it was nice to bring back memories for a while.

Another combination of plants I remember from childhood are nettles and dock. The leaves of the dock plant were very handy if you had been stung by nettles which I seem to remember happened quite often. As children we used to play in the fields and around the woods without a care in the world and I have memories of sitting by paths rubbing my legs with a dock leaf to relieve the stinging feeling on the skin.

Those were, of course, the days of endless sunshine, of playing in each others gardens, with mother's clothes horse up-ended and covered in a blanket to make a tent; of making mud pies and baking them in the sun and 'pretending' to sell them to each other as bread and cakes. Dad would come out into the garden with the watering hose and we would don our swimming costumes and jump and play in the spray of water from the hose and scream and giggle with joy whilst Mum waited on the side lines with towels and a cooling drink. Days never to be seen again, I think.