Cressy Greens
There was still snow on the ground in Montgomery County Maryland when I spotted the sprouts of deep green breaching the soil and slush. It was a field north and west of Poolesville near a creek that fed into the Potomac. I was foraging with a friend in March, looking for poke salat, or anything that hinted of the turn of the seasons. I thought we might be out too early. The leaves spread out over the ground and looked like those of a violet. “Hey that’s Cress.”
“Watercress.”
“No-it’s got a bunch of names—ground cress, winter cress, yellow rocket, American cress. My granddad calls them creesy greens.”
I popped some in my mouth and a sharp peppery heat spread over my lips and tongue.
Its usually cooked. My Gran changes out the cook water two or three times to get the bitter out. But I don’t mind the bite.
I must have been 18 or so at this time, old enough to be carousing around the countryside north of the Potomac with my friends. Since it wasn’t one of the greens my mom prepared at home, and because I was a good 25 years away from beginning to study food seriousness, I didn’t put much mind to cressy greens. In my suburb my mom Louisa was considered quite edgy for using raw spinach in her green salads. But she refused to pick dandelion greens from the yard because “dogs might have peed on them.”
I didn’t give another thought to cressy greens until I became smitten with its cousin, watercress. Many people go through a watercress phase at one time or other. Salads become too easy and you go seeking for a spark. It starts insinuating itself into your sandwiches. Now there are many degrees of electricity, and sensation seekers begin stick the bare electric wire in their mouth, chewing on raw mustard greens. Now the cressy green, Barbarea vulgaris, is a relative of the mustard, but it tastes closer to the watercress.
The plant was an introduction to North America and much featured in early American gardens, for it was much easier to grow than watercress. Philadelphia seedsman Bernard M’Mahon at the beginning of the 19th century devoted his attention to “winter cresses” because they were an important market crop in early America. It was also known as scurvy grass in Philadelphia and many parts of the South, because it was one of the few green vegetables available during late winter as a source for vitamin C. Some have claimed that it was a plant that prevented many southerners from contracting pellagra. There were rules—pick it before it flowers—wash it thoroughly—cook both stems and leaves quickly if you are cooking it-never chop the leaves. The yellow flowers generated an abundance of small seeds which breached gardens and sprouted in fallow pastures. It quickly naturalized, and so it became a wilding. One last thing: you always call them creasy greens even when you spell them cressy.
Cressy greens have from five to ten sets of lateral leaves below a bigger leaf. The heirloom and container planter friendly vegetable is around six inches in diameter. Yellow flowers appear in dense clusters above the leaves from May to July. They require a small amount of care and are technically biennial. Although they are related to the watercress, creasy greens do not grow in standing water.
Much to my surprise I learned that they were available canned. Luck’s Brand began offering them in the Carolinas in the 1960s. Greensboro, NC, was the hottest market for the product. Now canned “Creecy Greens” by Betty Ann are sold by the small Monticello Canning Company out of Crossville, TN. If you want to grow it, our friends at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange have seed available. Their illustration of the plant heads this newsletter.