Wild vegetable mixes sold in the markets of Dalmatia (southern Croatia)

Abstract

BackgroundDalmatia is an interesting place to study the use of wild greens as it lies at the intersection of influence of Slavs, who do not usually use many species of wild greens, and Mediterranean culinary culture, where the use of multiple wild greens is common. The aim of the study was to document the mixtures of wild green vegetables which are sold in all the vegetable markets of Dalmatia.MethodsAll vendors (68) in all 11 major markets of the Dalmatian coast were interviewed. The piles of wild vegetables they sold were searched and herbarium specimens taken from them.ResultsThe mean number of species in the mix was 5.7. The most commonly sold wild plants are: Sonchus oleraceus L., Allium ampeloprasum L., Foeniculum vulgare Mill., Urospermum picroides F.W.Schmidt, Papaver rhoeas L., Daucus carota L., Taraxacum sp., Picris echioides L., Silene latifolia Poir. and Crepis spp. Also the cultivated beet (Beta vulgaris L.) and a few cultivated Brassicaceae varieties are frequent components. Wild vegetables from the mix are usually boiled for 20–30 minutes and dressed with olive oil and salt. Altogether at least 37 wild taxa and 13 cultivated taxa were recorded.Apart from the mixes, Asparagus acutifolius L. and Tamus communis L. shoots are sold in separate bunches (they are usually eaten with eggs), as well as some Asteraceae species, the latter are eaten raw or briefly boiled.ConclusionsThe rich tradition of eating many wild greens may result both from strong Venetian and Greek influences and the necessity of using all food resources available in the barren, infertile land in the past. Although the number of wild-collected green vegetables is impressive we hypothesize that it may have decreased over the years, and that further in-depth local ethnobotanical studies are needed in Dalmatia to record the disappearing knowledge of edible plants.

The hidden Mediterranean diet: wild vegetables traditionally gathered and consumed in the Gargano area, Apulia, SE Italy

“…We compared the data gathered during the field study with the following sources: the entire Italian ethnobotanical database (last updated in 2004) [36], the south-Italian ethnobotanical surveys that have been published in international journals and have (also) considered wild plants traditionally used in local cuisines [21][22][23][24][25][26][37][38][39][40][41], national ethnobotanical literature sources and popular references in which sound ethnobotanical observations were reported [42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], as well as wild food plant-centered ethnobotanical studies conducted in Southern Europe and published in international journals [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][27][28][29][30].…”

“…Despite the fact that these plants have represented for centuries and millennia the folk daily foods in the Mediterranean and the Near East, particularly during the winter and spring months, in-depth ethnography-based ethnobotanical studies published in the international literature and specifically focusing on the identification of traditionally gathered wild vegetables, as well as on the detailed documentation of their folk culinary uses, are still relatively scarce for the Mediterranean Basin, if we exclude some areas of Spain, inland southern Italy and Sicily, the Western Aegean part of Turkey, and Dalmatia [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30].…”

Wild food plants used in the villages of the Lake Vrana Nature Park (northern Dalmatia, Croatia)

“…Ćurčić's report on the wild food plant use of Herzegovinian fishermen on the border of Dalmatia is a valuable and interesting source from as early as 1913 [23]. Last but not least, many interesting pieces of information were gathered in the recent study of wild vegetables sold in Dalmatian markets by the first author of this article and his colleagues [24].…”

A century of changes in wild food plant use in coastal Croatia: the example of Krk and Poljica

“…All the species of wild vegetables (and other kinds of wild foods as well) have been used in other parts of the Mediterranean (e.g., [8,10,12,14,[16][17][18][61][62][63][64][65]). Probably the most interesting is the consumption of Knautia integrifolia in the western part of the island of Krk, whose alimentary use was only reported from Lucca, in Tuscany, Italy [66].…”