The sustainable camping kitchen (1)

In spring, herbs venture delicately and delicately out of the ground. Many wild herbs are suitable for simple camping cooking: Ground ivy has a distinctively spicy flavor, the first ground elder has a slightly fruity aroma. The taste of the young leaves of nettles, yarrow, and dandelions is also unique and difficult to describe. You have to try the delicate greens. Violets, horned violets, and primroses are delicious and decorative. These wild herbs enhance any salad, are great chopped and mixed with cream cheese or sour cream, or tossed into pasta.

Wild herbs have a lot to offer. They contain a variety of minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, often significantly more than our cultivated plants. So, anyone who steps out of their camper door onto the meadow in the morning is, in the best case scenario, looking at healing food.

What is very important is :

• Gourmets should know their plants or get to know them well through specialist books, apps, or field trips. For example, it often happens that uninformed wild garlic collectors poison themselves with lily of the valley or autumn crocus leaves. In the worst cases, this can be fatal; in the Middle Ages, autumn crocus was used in poisonings.
• Wash leaves very well because of the fox tapeworm.
• Collect only from meadows or fields that have not been fertilized or sprayed. This is guaranteed at campsites certified by ECOCAMPING or with the EU Ecolabel.

If you've now worked up an appetite but aren't quite ready to try the wild herbs, you can first try Hessian green sauce, a delicious classic that's perfect for camping. The sauce is a cult favorite in Hesse, where you can even buy the corresponding herb blend in the supermarket.

The herbs:

• Parsley
• chives
• sorrel
• Borage
• Burnet - botanically Sanguisorba minor, the small burnet
• Chervil and cress, in northern Hesse it can also be dill and lemon balm instead

Chop very finely and stir into the sour cream, seasoning with salt and pepper. Those who aren't strictly committed to the recipe can also season with mustard, vinegar, and oil. It's also up to the cook whether they use yogurt, crème fraîche, mayonnaise, or vegan substitutes instead of the sour cream.

The sauce is served with boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs.

Bon appetit!